Meghan Markle has unveiled her first major solo charity venture since joining the royal family and becoming Duchess of Sussex: a cookbook helping the families affected by last year’s Grenfell Tower fire.
The Duchess first made a private visit to the kitchen at the Al Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, now known as the Hubb Community Kitchen, back in January, and has made a number of trips since. Now, she has written a three page forward to Together: Our Community Cookbook, which features more than 50 recipes from women in the Grenfell community.
Recalling her first visit to the kitchen, Meghan writes: ‘An apron was quickly wrapped around me, I pushed up my sleeves and I found myself washing the rice for lunch […] All the aromas percolating in a kitchen filled with countless languages aflutter remains one of my most treasured memories from my first visit to the kitchen.’ She goes on to discuss how she was inspired by how the women she met used cooking to bring their communities together, describing the kitchen as ‘a place for women to laugh, grieve, cry and cook together […] space to feel a sense of normalcy’ after such a devastating event.
NOW READ: Five Books That Inspire The Duchess Of Sussex
MM favourite books slider Grazia
1 of 5The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
Based on ancient Toltec wisdom and promising to contain a code of conduct that should theoretically lead to freedom, happiness and love, Meghan was given a copy of The Four Agreements by her mother Doria when she was 13 years old. Per her Tig piece, she 'constantly circle[s] back to the Don Miguel Ruiz classic for the simplest ways to simplify your life,' and from her clever use of repetition, we can glean that Meghan loves simplicity; she was probably into Marie Kondo before it was a thing, you guys! The Agreements themselves actually sound like they have the potential to be pretty useful in Meghan's future life. First, there's 'be impeccable with your word,' fair advice given that everything the new royal says on the record has the power to generate its own news story. Then there's 'don't take anything personally' and 'don't make assumptions' – don't take Prince George's side-eye personally, and don't assume you have to dress in homage to Princess Diana – and 'always do your best.'
2 of 5Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson M.D
Meghan's third and final self-help tome purports to contain the World's Most Popular Management Method; according to her lost Tig feature, she first picked the book up as part of the required reading for an Industrial Engineering class at Northwestern University. Who Moved My Cheese is a parable in which – spoiler alert – the cheese represents everything you want to have in life. Has Meghan found the cheese? Yes – someone gave her a wedding cake sculpted from cheese back in January!
3 of 5The Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard
'Annoyed by your self-doubt and distractions? The noise that keeps you from reaching your potential? Okay, so yeah. Me too,' Meghan writes of the Motivation Manifesto, the second self-help book on her list and one which boasts the #content-worthy subtitle 9 Declarations to Claim Your Personal Power. Author Burchard is a motivational speaker whose tag line is Live, Love, Matter, which we can imagine written in cursive on a Tig-friendly scatter cushion, and has a profile on Success.com, so we can only infer that he's a Very Successful Guy. What else can we learn from this choice, other than the fact that our Meghan is a goal-oriented individual? Perhaps that she would probably get on well with fictional character Alan Johnson from Peep Show.
4 of 5The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
'Aspects of Taoism told through the characters of Winnie the Pooh – I mean, does it get better?' Meghan gets to the crux of The Tao of Pooh – an introduction to Taoist beliefs featuring the inhabitants of the 100 Acre Wood – far quicker and more succinctly than we ever could. Assumption made: Meghan is totally the friend who brings you a fridge magnet bearing (no pun intended) a deep slogan under a picture of Pooh walking into the distance, telling you 'I just thought of you when I saw it!'
5 of 5The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
'I have long been obsessed with this book, and specifically with The Little Fox,' Meghan told her Tig readers. 'Even if I don't revisit the entire existential text (masked as a children's book), the chapter of The Little Fox unearths a truth in me that is always worth the check-in.' Having never read The Little Prince (more of a The Little Princess kind of person, really) I've resorted to a time-honoured means of literary analysis, Spark Notes, and still can't quite unpick what the Fox is all about. He does, however, tell the Prince that you can only truly see with your heart, not your eyes, which is a rather lovely sentiment. Let's just assume that her choice of a book about a Prince foreshadowed the fact that she'd one day… marry a Prince? Wait, come back…
The Duchess, who has long held an interest in food and would often spotlight recipes and chefs on her old lifestyle blog The Tig, also shared memories of ‘one of [her] own favourite meals’: ‘collard greens, black-eyed peas and cornbread – a meal I would look forward to throughout my childhood: the smell of yellow onions simmering amongst a slow-cooked pot of greens from my grandma’s back garden; the earthy textures of peas; and a golden loaf of cornbread puff-puffing away to a browned peak in the warmth of the oven.’
One recipe in particular that has received the Meghan Markle seal of approval is the Green Chile & Avocado dip created by Grenfell survivor Munira Mahmud, who helped start up the kitchen project. Made with just a few ingredients – green chillis, cilantro leaves, plain yoghurt, lemons, garlic and an avocado – it has become Meghan’s ‘very favourite avocado dip that I now make at home.’ So, in case you were wondering about the Sussexes' preferred accompanied for Kettle Chips, or whichever brand of upscale crisps is their favourite, you finally have an answer.
Together: Our Community Cookbook will be available to buy from 25th September.__