She’s worked closely with charities and worthy causes throughout her career – even before meeting husband Prince Harry – but Meghan has chosen something especially close to her heart for her first solo royal project.
The Duchess of Sussex, 37, has been making secret trips since January to help a group of women whose community was affected by the horrific Grenfell Tower fire tragedy launch a new cookbook.
Now, Kensington Palace has finally revealed an inside glimpse at one of her recent trips, with Prince Harry’s wife appearing completely at home as she helped the women stir up meals together, not afraid to get her own hands dirty.
Donning a striped apron with a simple white shirt, Meghan toned down her usual glamour and looked effortlessly elegant as she wore her hair back inside the kitchen in the community mosque.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn0kvKOHMEq/?hl=en&taken-by=kensingtonroyal
The project is to help the victims and families in the community who were affected by the Grenfell Tower inferno in June 2017 that left 72 dead. Over 70 others were injured and 223 people escaped.
Meghan has written the foreword to the new book ‘Together: Our Community Cookbook’, produced by cooks from the Hubb Community Kitchen who clubbed together to cook fresh meals for community members who have been struggling following the fire.
“I immediately felt connected to this community kitchen; it is a place for women to laugh, grieve, cry and cook together,” she said in a statement in the book.
“Melding cultural identities under a shared roof, it creates space to feel a sense of normalcy – in its simplest form, [it’s about] the universal need to connect, nurture, and commune through food, through crisis or joy – something we can all relate to”.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn0k191HAQR/?hl=en&taken-by=kensingtonroyal
She added: “Through this charitable endeavor, the proceeds will allow the kitchen to thrive and keep the global spirit of community alive.”
Video footage, taken inside the kitchen, shows Meghan laughing with the women as she helps to stir rice and vegetables, before spooning some out of a huge pan. She gets completely involved with the members as another clip later shows her playing with one of the children inside.
The cookbook will showcase over 50 recipes from the women of the Hubb Community Kitchen, and according to The Guardian, it was Meghan’s idea after she discovered women could only cook hot food for their families there twice a week due to financial constraints.
Inspired to raise money for the group, she reportedly suggested the book.
“She saw the lovely food cooked by these women. So she goes: ‘Why not do a cookbook’?” Zahira Ghaswala told the news outlet. “At that time I thought it was a flying comment, and that was it, really. But now here we are.”
Describing her first visit, she is said to have written: “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.”