{"id":371114,"date":"2025-08-25T01:24:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T01:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/371114\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T01:24:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T01:24:18","slug":"meghans-back-and-the-knives-are-out-again-so-this-time-can-she-cut-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/371114\/","title":{"rendered":"Meghan\u2019s back \u2014 and the knives are out again. So this time, can she cut it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If God does love a trier, and provided that He\u2019s on the right streaming package, the great Lord Almighty \u2014 like every seemingly star-struck guest on With Love, Meghan<\/a> \u2014 must deeply adore the Duchess of Sussex. The 44-year-old cultural icon (that\u2019s Meghan, not God, although \u2026) is launching a new season of her noteworthy \u201clifestyle\u201d series this week and, apparently, to those in the know, she\u2019s really trying. <\/p>\n

Meghan is \u201cpretty good at filleting a fish,\u201d says Clare Smyth, the no-nonsense chef who runs the swank Michelin-starred Notting Hill eatery Core (regular guests include Ed Sheeran, Adele and the Beckhams) and who features in the upcoming series<\/a>, which airs on Tuesday. Smyth adds: \u201cMeghan is actually really good at cooking and she\u2019s creative, with a good palate.\u201d <\/p>\n

This will doubtless come as a huge relief to anyone who sat through the first season, mouth agog, as Meghan madly covered everything from cucumber sandwiches to yoghurt parfait to crudit\u00e9s with flung fistfuls of withered daisies while gurning widely to camera and purring out platitudes such as, \u201cI love feeding people, I think it\u2019s probably my love language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Honestly, and being consciously kind (because that\u2019s Meghan\u2019s, like, brand) it was a slightly strange show, somewhere between a Stepford wife\u2019s fever dream and an infernal version of celebrity Stockholm syndrome, where ostensibly trapped Z-listers bleated out badly scripted lines that included compulsory phrases such as \u201cthat\u2019s one of my favourite things about you Meghan\u201d while chowing down on sticky doughnuts that seemed to be covered in torn clumps of couch grass and Japanese knotweed. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Read restaurant reviews and recipes from our food experts<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

I loved the tip, though, about repackaging a heart attack-inducing portion of mass-produced salty, fatty, ultra-processed discount snacks in an unmarked plastic bag, and then leaving it, like a polonium-filled booby trap, on the bedside tables of unsuspecting house guests. Because, well, nothing says \u201clove language\u201d more than waking up next to an indigestible pile of UPFs in a cheap plastic bag. <\/p>\n

As for Meghan\u2019s filleting dexterity, I must admit to a certain degree of envy, as my own blade skills<\/a> are pretty pitiful. I\u2019m the one who insists on carving the turkey alone, in the kitchen, every Christmas, just because I refuse to allow anyone to witness the massacre. I remove unintentional inches while skinning fish, and I can transform a giant bag of potatoes into a handful of tiny yellow marbles when peeling for mash. I probably need to work on my love language. Or maybe there\u2019s a lifestyle show in that, too \u2014 Can\u2019t be arsed, Kevin? <\/p>\n

Meghan\u2019s knife skills, of course, give new context to the clips that she\u2019s been teasing from the upcoming season. In one, she cuts a thick wedge, with stunning precision, down through a sizeable sourdough loaf and coos, \u201cLook at that!\u201d Great blade work, Meg. You\u2019re a natural. <\/p>\n

The subject of sourdough<\/a> is vaguely contentious, as it transpires that Meghan is a huge fan of the speciality sourdough that Smyth serves in Core<\/a>. Meghan\u2019s plan, for a sequence in the new series, was to make the very same sourdough bread, hand in hand with Smyth. There was just one problem, Smyth revealed. Her speciality sourdough uses a 20-year-old starter. \u201cI told her the process would be too long for the show,\u201d said the chef. <\/p>\n

In other words, that would mean mixing flour and water in a jar, covering it, leaving it overnight at room temperature, then discarding most of the starter, adding more flour and water, stirring it, covering it again and repeating the process, on camera, for 20 years, before they could begin making the actual bread. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a joke in there, obviously, about having seen With Love, Meghan first time round and contemplating the idea of watching a TV show filled only with a fixed shot of a sourdough starter in a glass jar and knowing exactly which one I\u2019d rather see. But, well, that\u2019s just mean. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s dame against dame<\/p>\n

I see that national treasures Helen Mirren and Emma Thompson are both making waves for very different approaches to the subject of ageing. Thompson, 66, has come out guns blazing, saying that age will not wither her, and that in her latest thriller, The Dead of Winter, she has insisted upon doing her own stunts. \u201cIt\u2019s the most I\u2019ve pushed my body on set,\u201d she said, adding that she embraces her senior years with the mantra, \u201cI\u2019m so strong now because I\u2019m older.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mirren conversely, speaking to The Times<\/a>, revealed a far more philosophical approach to ageing at 80, claiming that she has internalised her mother\u2019s view that you should \u201cnever be afraid of getting old\u201d. It is, she said, \u201ca natural wave of life.\u201d She has previously revealed, however, that for the past 60 years, every day, she does a 12-minute fitness routine (including sit ups, press-ups and running-on-the-spot) invented by the Royal Canadian Air Force. <\/p>\n

This is all, of course, outrageous sexism. Why can\u2019t we just have two successful women without needlessly pitting them against each other? It\u2019s degrading. As if they\u2019re rival cage fighters and we\u2019re taking bets on who\u2019s going to win! Shocking, yes, but my money\u2019s on the one who does Air Force fitness! <\/p>\n

Only three pads, Angela?<\/b><\/p>\n

Poor Angela Rayner. She can\u2019t just buy her properties in peace! The housing secretary, in the middle of a housing crisis, has apparently added a new holiday flat in Hove to her personal housing portfolio<\/a> (she also owns a home in her constituency and has the run of a grace-and-favour flat in Admiralty House). And no, the problem is not that she seems to be acting like the Cookie Monster during a biscuit shortage. It\u2019s the neighbours. First she was spotted on Hove beach<\/a> clutching what was described as \u201ca giant glass\u201d of ros\u00e9 (surely commensurate with Johnny Depp\u2019s \u201cmega pint\u201d of red wine?). And then a local snooper told the Mail on Sunday<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019ve seen her recently and she was sipping a coffee while leaving the building.\u201d What? She wasn\u2019t mainlining heroin, she was sipping coffee! Goodness me, with neighbours like these \u2026 she should probably buy another property. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If God does love a trier, and provided that He\u2019s on the right streaming package, the great Lord…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,7721,7719,7718,7720,1281,447,7710,519,7711],"class_list":{"0":"post-371114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-duchess-of-sussex","10":"tag-duke-of-sussex","11":"tag-harry","12":"tag-meghan","13":"tag-meghan-markle","14":"tag-prince-harry","15":"tag-royal-families","16":"tag-royal-family","17":"tag-uk-royal-family"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115086797204509200","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}