Sophie Morris tests recipes from the glitzy new show - but draws the line at dried flowers on children’s sandwiches
Things I have learnt from watching the new Netflix show With Love, Meghan, which dropped yesterday after a lot of hype and a lengthy delay, include that her name is no longer Meghan Markle but Meghan Sussex - something she pulls up show guest Mindy Kaling on in the second episode, while the pair prepare food for a children’s party together.
They make cream cheese and cucumber and peanut butter sandwiches, which they cut into heart and star shapes and sprinkle with flowers, along with caprese crostini using mozzarella and basil and styling half a cherry tomato to look like a ladybird, decorated with spots of balsamic glaze.
Oh, to prepare for a children’s party with a friend and a glass of champagne in a sun-drenched California mansion, instead of a cold British kitchen late at night after work and bedtime.
I try out Meghan’s party sandwiches. They’re fun and predictably easy to make - though I doubt many people risk peanut butter at a kids’ party because of allergies. Nor do I recommend sprinkling children’s food in dried flowers. If children spot a speck of something unrecognisable on an otherwise lovely heart-shaped sandwich, you might have a toddler tantrum on your hands.
The cooking part of this lifestyle show is pure California, an alluring dose of garden bounty, sourced from the house rented for the shoot as well as her own huge garden, freshly-laid eggs, a glut of citrus and harvest gift baskets.
There is a fair amount of LA chat, from being “present” to “elevating the ordinary” if not making the ordinary, extraordinary. There are chefs, but no cheffy techniques. There are glorious ingredients, but no showy excess. This is quiet luxury, broadcast at a deafening pitch. Still, there’s nothing I wouldn’t want to make or eat myself. I kick off with her “single skillet spaghetti”, a dish of tomatoes, garlic, spaghetti and chard. It’s undeniably welcoming to basic cooks, even her friend and former make-up artist, Daniel, who cuts himself slicing a tomato.
Before Mindy’s arrival in episode two, Meghan fills gift bags for the imaginary children with miniature garden tools, seeds and hand-painted decorative bees. She makes a balloon arch. She admits that she used to have a job teaching other people how to wrap gifts. And, as the pair sit back in the summer house to enjoy the fruit of their labours over a cup of fresh mint tea served in floral china, Mindy gestures to the king’s ransom of fresh flowers surrounding them and comments that it could all be done on a budget.
Meghan likes to take risks, she tells us. She makes bread because it scares her. She used to be very scared of roasting chicken. She remains scared of the bees she keeps on her property. She lives on the edge by occasionally carrying chopped veg by hand to add it to a pan, rather than taking the chopping board over to the hob.
I don’t wish to join the army of Meg-bashers and it’s too easy to poke fun at her. But it’s illuminating what kind of things present as risky for those living such a charmed life. Making bread and roasting chickens and arranging veg and fruit into rainbows across serving platters feels the opposite of risky for a cook. They are homely, cutesy and fail-safe, as well as a luxury for those who make time for it. Wise cooks know that it’s not relaxing to follow a recipe if you’re terrified it won’t work, and viewers won’t come back if you serve up kitchen stress and dinner party disasters.
Meghan isn’t daft enough to make any claims to developing new recipes or even her own style of cooking. Her approach is led by slicing fresh pea pods on the vertical and decorating everything in edible flowers, from salads and ceviches to biscuits, sandwiches and dishes of hummus.
“I love having platters with peas, it really elevates how a platter looks,” Meghan says. I try my best to elevate my veg platter with pea pods, but the out-of-season sugar snaps I find don’t do Meghan’s intention justice. What’s more, I question whether I am slicing these peas “intentionally”, or if I’m just doing it in a hurry because Meghan reiterates the importance of sliced peas.
Meghan brings food credibility to the show in her choice of chef guests, who are well known in the food world but less so outside of it.
She makes pickles, kimchi and fried chicken with Roy Choi, the Korean- American chef who spread food truck culture around the globe.
Mexican chef Ramon Velazquez shows her how to make chicken tinga, shredded chicken in a tomato and chilli sauce, and ceviche, raw fish cured in a citrus marinade, to feed the friends coming over for a game of mahjong. All of these dishes are easy if not speedy, and explore the rich diversity of California’s food heritage.
Lest we forget, Meghan is setting up a new business to sell products, and the lifestyle that she shares in public is in service to that. She recently changed her business name from American Riviera Orchard to As Ever, and makes several iterations of her preserves layered with yoghurt, fruit and pretty garnishes, and discusses jam-making.
One of the few times you see her actually cooking, rather than chopping or styling, is when she makes crêpes for the friends and family brunch in the final episode, a recipe most Brits can get on board with and probably made yesterday.
She doesn’t do any pancake flipping, instead going for a fold with a spatula. “We’re not in the pursuit of perfection, we’re in pursuit of joy,” Meghan says as she styles her crepes into wedges and arranges them on a stand with dollops of her raspberry jam.
How much money can be made from jam? Here’s hoping the Sussexes have done their sums. If anything, they should be getting a payout from the California tourist board for selling the region so well.
She is giving simplicity without speed, slowish food that requires very basic cooking skills, a kind of dreamy existence where time means nothing and one can always spend the day making food with friends. But where Meghan really stiffs us is on the lack of a family meal. No one was expecting her to parade her children in front of the cameras, yet I do want proof they eat all the veg she claims they do. She is selling a lifestyle, her lifestyle, and while she gives us famous guests and old friends, there’s no real home to the heart of the show.