![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/d1f08c888f82e1e7f242b08b0324621c52-withlovemeghan-danielmartin.rhorizontal.w700.jpg\")
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\n Makeup artist Daniel Martin is both the least experienced homemaker of all of Meghan\u2019s friends and the person who best reflects the show\u2019s premise.
\n Photo: Netflix\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thinking an easy caramelized onion tart,\u201d Meghan Sussex, n\u00e9e Markle, muses in the opening episode of the second season of Netflix\u2019s With Love, Meghan<\/a>. Why the pastry? \u201cBecause it actually ticks the box for both sweet and savory people. It\u2019s so easy if you have puff pastry in your freezer, which you should always have.\u201d She\u2019s not explaining this to the audience, but to her longtime friend and makeup artist, Daniel Martin. Whereas most guests on With Love, Meghan would respond to a prompt like this with doe-eyed enthusiasm, Daniel simply smirks and shakes his head. He doesn\u2019t have puff pastry in his freezer. He\u2019s never had puff pastry in his freezer. \u201cAin\u2019t gonna,\u201d he warns.<\/p>\n Meghan is back for another season<\/a> of With Love, Meghan, though what is immediately clear from the footage of her then-living sweet old dog, Guy, who died prior to the first season\u2019s release, is that Meghan didn\u2019t really go anywhere in the first place. The Netflix show\u2019s second season is really just its first season<\/a> continued \u2014 the same fake house, the same cooking-and-crafting format, the same flower sprinkles<\/a>, the same foodie guests. Not unlike Ina Garten, Meghan is often joined by food-world experts who walk her through a somewhat complicated kitchen technique that she already seems to know: Season one boasted guests like Roy Choi and Alice Waters, while season two welcomes Samin Nosrat and Jos\u00e9 Andres. There are also a handful of returning faces in this new set of episodes, chief among them the aforementioned Martin, who is both the least experienced homemaker of all of Meghan\u2019s friends and the person who best reflects the show\u2019s premise.<\/p>\n Martin was Meghan\u2019s guest in the series premiere earlier this year, in which he slices his hand open the second he\u2019s put to work chopping tomatoes. \u201cI literally just cut myself,\u201d he says with a sheepish laugh, adding, \u201cYour only ratchet friend\u201d as Meghan presses a paper towel into his hand. \u201cI can beat your face, but I can\u2019t cut a tomato.\u201d He mercifully makes it through the season-two premiere without injuring himself (\u201cIt was the knife\u2019s fault,\u201d he clarifies), but he maintains the same amateur spirit he brought to his first appearance. In a show where experts show up to a manicured fake kitchen to do forced banter with one another, Daniel remains With Love, Meghan\u2019s secret ingredient: Next to all these pros, he is literally just a guy, one whose presence transforms the show from high-effort tablescaping to a laid-back dinner party with pals. Meghan is keen to overcomplicate just about every dish and craft in the name of \u201cextra love\u201d or \u201ccare,\u201d but Martin\u2019s limited skill forces their time together to indulge actual simplicity. When past guest David Chang and new guest Christina Tosi go head-to-head designing high-concept flower bouquets, Martin makes himself a teeny-tiny display unlike anyone else\u2019s work. \u201cA different vision,\u201d Meghan charitably concedes, but Martin is proud of himself nonetheless, doing a little dance with his creation when it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n So much of With Love, Meghan is ostensibly about finding the joy in imperfections: Every slipup is a learning opportunity; every awkward laugh is a moment for closeness. It\u2019s a nice idea, but in a show so immaculate and curated, that rarely comes through. Only Martin actually embodies Meghan\u2019s stated enthusiasm for life\u2019s happy accidents as he hangs on for dear life when asked to join Chang in putting steak on a grill. Martin is clearly happy to be there, but that doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s not nervous in the kitchen. That lack of confidence is charming and funny; when the experts on With Love, Meghan mess up, their humility feels feigned and unnatural, but Martin\u2019s embarrassment only motivates everyone to help him out. He approaches browning butter like it\u2019s a phobia: \u201cSomething\u2019s boiling?!\u201d he yelps with alarm. He compares a vibrant purple napa cabbage to a lipstick. He is authentically himself, for better and worse, and With Love, Meghan lets him get away with both. \u201cYour enthusiasm is infectious,\u201d Chang tells him as they all stand eating dinner together, and he really seems to mean it.<\/p>\n In the season-two premiere\u2019s final moments, the group\u2019s s\u2019mores-making endeavor descends into gooey chaos, with everyone burning and slopping and dripping marshmallow, chocolate, and peanut butter everywhere. It\u2019s as though With Love, Meghan has for once descended to Martin\u2019s level of skill. No one is striving for perfection, only to enjoy the moment as best as anyone who loves food can. It\u2019s a rare moment of genuine ease, proving that experts and amateurs alike can appreciate having an extra set of hands in the kitchen, regardless of whether they keep puff pastry in their freezer.<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Makeup artist Daniel Martin is both the least experienced homemaker of all of Meghan\u2019s friends and the person…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,133121,7721,7719,7718,7720,1281,451,447,2650,133122,7710,519,382,7711,10356,5669],"class_list":{"0":"post-383554","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-close-read","10":"tag-duchess-of-sussex","11":"tag-duke-of-sussex","12":"tag-harry","13":"tag-meghan","14":"tag-meghan-markle","15":"tag-netflix","16":"tag-prince-harry","17":"tag-reality-tv","18":"tag-returning-champ","19":"tag-royal-families","20":"tag-royal-family","21":"tag-tv","22":"tag-uk-royal-family","23":"tag-vulture-section-lede","24":"tag-with-love-meghan"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115114405139821166","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383554","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=383554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}