Meghan a real cook in her own kitchen

The Duchess of Sussex and Netflix lifestyle maven navigates her rebrand from recovering royal to domestic goddess

- Julia Moskin

MONTECITO, California Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, is already anticipating pushback on her banana pudding.

"I know some people will be upset that I took out the wafers," she said, crushing Nilla wafers with a rolling pin rather than layering them in with vanilla pudding and sliced bananas. "But I like them crumbled on top."

On a bright morning at her home in Montecito, California, Meghan roved between the garden, where her husband Prince Harry stopped by the strawberry patch in Birkenstocks to say he was getting on a work call, and the vast, well-worn kitchen where her mother Doria Ragland—graceful in jeans, white T-shirt and silver nose ring—rummaged for breakfast in the double-wide refrigerator.

In the Netflix lifestyle series With Love, Meghan, the American former actress gave the world its first look at the remake of her life from broken royal bride to triumphant domestic goddess.

She and Harry fled Britain and its relentless criticism in 2020 to settle as a family in this safe, sunny, affluent enclave. But the show has brought some of that darkness back to her door.

Like American actress Gwyneth Paltrow, American model Chrissy Teigen and other celebrities who have cooking and lifestyle brands, Meghan does not have professional culinary training.

This visit—the first time a reporter was invited into her kitchen—showed that she is a passionate home cook who knows her way around a vinaigrette, is quick with a lemon zester and deft with a knife. (I was allowed in on the condition that no photographs were taken in, or of, the house, for reasons of privacy and security.) At 43 and with boundless enthusiasm, she is still figuring out her public identity, while pitching it to a global audience. Her decision to do so may read to some as entrepreneurial, endearing or narcissistic, but you cannot say it is not a big swing.

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