Meghan Markle mocked by Netflix viewers for her ‘basic’ one-pan pasta dish: ‘That’s not food â that’s punishment’
She’s stirring up controversy with this pasta dish.
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With Love, Meghan review: will this series fly? For laughs perhaps
It’s ridiculous of course, but the Duchess of Sussex’s latest Netflix show is a hoot to watch
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Review at a glance
The great thing about With Love, Meghan – the Duchess of Sussex’s latest Netflix show - is that it’s all so simple!
What you really need are lots of rustic brown labels so you can make your special guests feel special by personalising their very own bath salts or pot of raspberry and peach preserve (her latest!), any amount of rustic ribbon and glass teapots so you can see your very own freshly snipped mint or ginger with cayenne brewing prettily, and large flat bottomed fruit baskets for gathering your own blackberries from thornless bushes.
Oh and a lovely bunch of cornflowers so you can sprinkle everything from your bruschetta to your home-baked doughnuts and your thrown-together yoghurt assembly, with the petals from a jar.
Then you need lots and lots of little glass bowls so that all the ingredients for whatever you happen to be throwing together – a honey and lemon cake with raspberries perhaps – can be conveniently to hand. Bingo! So easy! Just a little extra thought and care, as our Duchess observes. It’s all terrifically rustic, and so quick to do! And the upshot is that the viewer is transported to a cross between A Year in Provence and Country Living magazine, except with a Montecito backdrop, American diction and immaculate cream separates.
With Love, Meghan: Mindy Kaling with the Duchess of Sussex
Netflix
You want to know, like her friend Mindy, about Meghan’s look? (Or, as she says, ‘luke’, which Meghan finds funny.) You do? Well, it’s high-low. Or as she says, Zara (yes, really!) plus Loro Piana. I wonder, whether those mentions were just, you know, off the cuff?
And yes, you cynic, there are the other components of the magic offstage: the cast of dozens who have been putting together every single ingredient in the lemon and honey cake for Meghan to throw together, and drilling holes in lollypop sticks so she and her gay friend Daniel, who did her makeup on Suits, can keep the wicks in the adorable glasses steady while they pour in the melted wax for their home-made candles. Wait, you didn’t know about making beeswax candles with your friend as a complete bonding exercise? It makes a stay so much more fun! Hostessing is, for Meghan, a shared thing.
And for wax, obviously, you need bees and lo and behold, Meghan has her very own hives, plus a nice friendly beekeeper to do the actual minding. She says that she hasn’t been to see the bees for a couple of months but she is so appreciative of them: “they’re busy…busy bees!” And so Meghan gets to scrape some of the wax and honey off the frames once the bees have been seen off so the honey can drop sensually into a basin for her very own honey cake and candles. “It’s beautiful to be connected”, she breathes.
With Love, Meghan: Beekeeper Branden Aroyan with the Duchess of Sussex
COURTESY OF NETFLIX
And Daniel is so appreciative. His allergies are at him something rotten, so Meghan throws some cayenne pepper into his ginger and honey tea for him, and puts mint and eucalyptus oil into his very own wax candle, plus one for his partner Corey.
But the secret of hostessing is to make your guests feel special. So, lucky Daniel gets a special bath salts – Epsom layered with Pink Himalayan rock salt (“why not?”) with essential oils (she finds lavender very relaxing) and a label and a ribbon. Everything comes with a ribbon, unless it’s the party bags she’s throwing together for her children’s party, which come with a little bee on each.
Then there are the lucky guests, who tell her that they feel so privileged to be included. They’re diverse – Chinese, Indian and Korean backgrounds – and so grounded. We get a little glimpse of the former Meghan. What was her diet growing up? “Fast food and TV dinners”, she says surprisingly. “Who’d have thought of Meghan Markle eating from Jack in the Box (a fast food combo)?” asks Mindy. Meghan puts her right. Her name is now Sussex and it’s so important that she has this name that she shares with her family. I’ll say.
With Love, Meghan. (L to R) Matt Cohen, Brian Kocinski, Heather Dorak, Doria Ragland, Prince Harry, Genevieve Hillis, Julian Zafjen, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in episode 108 of With Love, Meghan. Cr. Courtesy of Netfli
JAKE ROSENBERG/NETFLIX
So, we get the picture. Meghan is very ordinary. In a later episode with her Korean friend, we learn she loves living in LA, the donut capital of the world. There used to be a branch of Yum Yums on her way to school. “I should go back!”, she cries. Except she won’t. If she’s eaten a Yum Yum for a couple of decades it doesn’t show…her legs are quite scarily thin.
Harry isn’t in evidence for the first couple of sessions except for an offstage voice that tells her that her balloon arch isn’t much of an arch, and we learn he gravitates to the kitchen at the smell of rashers. Oh and he calls ladybugs lady birds which the Americans think adorable.
What about ladybirds? Well, Meghan’s fabulous idea for the grown ups at the children’s party is to make the bruschetta look like ladybirds, so she puts little dots of olive reduction on the backs of her freshly harvested little tomatoes to make them look so cute. Ditto the chevre bruschetta, which she decorates with nasturtium leaves – Mindy goes one better and makes hers look like butterflies. Do make it at home!
As Meghan observes, it’s all about pimping up the little things – except she says it’s about putting that extra little bit of thought into it. A few finds on Etsy, a little careful purchase in the supermarket, and bingo, you too can do floral sprinkles and bug bread.
With Love, Meghan.
Netflix
At what point did I rebel against the notion that our duchess was actually invested in every stage of the process. From the first minute with the beekeeper, obviously, but the bit that grated was when she declares of her Korean friend Roy (Choi, the chef) that “I need to impress him, not just with my donuts, with my tidiness, with my kitchen savvy, my cleanliness.”
Look, Duchess; we don’t need to see the help actually doing the work, but let’s not pretend that it’s you, shall we?
So, will this series fly? For laughs perhaps. But if you’re the kind of person who wants to be shown how to make a daisy chain or who gets a thrill from seeing the home life of our Duchess as she wants us to see it, or who wants tips on making pasta the way no Italian ever did (sitting on veg, in a frying pan cooked with water from a kettle), why it’ll be just your cup of tea. In a glass pot, natch.
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