The latest to join the world of fabulous domestic diva-dom has also showed her legions of adorers the most exciting wardrobe in the world

Looking marvelously washed out in the second episode of With Love, Meghan

In episode two of the much maligned With Love, Meghan, the world’s most famous jam maker reveals what a fabulous wardrobe she has picked from while, cooking in a kitchen that is not hers. When Meghan Markle’s guest of the episode, multi-hyphenate TV personality, Mindy Kaling (born Vera Mindy Chokalingam) says to her, “Meghan, I want to ask about your lewk”, the former actress puts out her best on-screen performance yet. She rejoins: “My who?” Ms Kaling, earlier introduced as an “email friend”, then re-pronounces: “Your look, Meghan.” And the admired hostess replies, “Oh, my look!” Embarrassed, the Indian actress asks, “did I not say it right?” No apologies for mishearing comes next: “I don’t know… You’re way cooler than I am… I don’t know what you’re talking… My look. My look? She likes my lewk.” You can’t mistake the enjoyed mockery and that she does not give a damn about who she invites to her make-belief house for 12-egg frittata lunch.

Undaunted and in perfect guest mode, Ms Kaling soldiers on: “Your fashion is one of my favourite things.” Unbelievable, but that is what she says. And what fashion is that? We love that Ms Markel’s fashion is so loved. We love that she cooks (with sweater over her shoulders!) in a lovable American old money lewk, one that could be seen at a parent-teacher meeting of an expensive private school. She wears a patterned, knit, crew-neck Loro Piana top, over which is draped a striped Jenni Kayne (LA’s major proponent of neutrals) sweater, all teamed with a pair of almost-white Zara slacks (which, curiously, does not sit neatly at the closure of the waistband). We love that the ensemble blends beautifully with the stunning kitchen so that the colourful food that she makes and the dried “flower sprinkles” she uses so passionately stand out. We love how she is able to make bland appreciable, just like—in episode one—the pretzel re-packaged in a plain plastic bag, and then tagged.

Ms Markle chooses an off-white Zimmermann shirt and identically hued shorts to welcome her guest in the first episode. Even her kettle matches

From the first episode, Meghan Markle shows us how she has come of beige. In fact, she already set the tone for the chromatic choices she’ll make for the series, which we love for its ambiguity: Is it a cooking show or a ‘lifestyle’ show? Entertainment or infotainment? Or a personal rebranding exercise? From the moment she steps out to tend to her bees (and is scared by them) in the first segment of that opening telecast to the time she received her first guest, Daniel Martin, Ms Markle aims at an immaculate turn-out. Pale and placid is the way to go for her. It is the stunning hues of unbaked dough all the way. But unlike the ‘honey lemon layer cake’ she adorns with Mr Martin (it is not clear if she really bakes since she declares she does not like that form of cooking), there is no pops of colour on her very self. Ms Markle wears a trio of assorted gold bangles on her left wrist and we love that they do not get in the way of her laborious and mess-free cooking and charm-saturated hostessing.

Mr Martin, a New York-based, half-Vietnamese make-up artist who has painted her face since her Suits days (and likely continues to do, even for With Love, Meghan), as well as Balenciaga darling Michelle Yeoh, is an odd choice of a first guest. His blandness and eagerness to please and praise is as contrasting as his black polo shirt is to his hostess’s clearly more sparkling ivory hues and just as delightfully bleached performance. We love that even the apron that she makes him wear (was he frying up anything?) is picked for its suitably natural shade. Mr Martin may be good with make-up brushes, but he demonstrates a striking difference to Ms Markle’s dexterity with a small knife (she cuts/chops everything with that short blade) when he cuts his hands while helping her to half (stemmed) cherry tomatoes! He is such a great yin to Ms Markel’s yang that Netflix should consider a spin-off, Markle and Martin, should this show fail, as it is expected to.

Colour coordination is crucial on With Love, Meghan

That title could, however, be a problem. When Mindy Kaling visits that pristine kitchen, she is told a stunning piece of news. The actress says to the former: “I don’t think anyone in the world knows Meghan Markle has eaten Jack in the Box (American fast food chain)”. Before she could complete her sentence, the subject of her fascination quickly interjects a clarification: “It’s so funny, too, that you keep saying Meghan Markle. You know I’m Sussex now.” We could almost hear her fuming, “stop calling me that.” So forgive the rest of us; we have been living under a stone. Ms Kaling clearly looks surprised (perhaps even dismayed that she was not aware of the facts before the filming). “I didn’t know how meaningful it would be to me,” Ms Markle continues, oblivious to her guest’s reaction, “but it just means so much to go, ‘This is our family name, our little family name’.” We love that she considers the world’s most famous unofficial surname “little”. A perfect host needs a perfect guest. Ms Kaling agrees feebly, “Well, now I know and I love it.” All for a slice of frittata?

Or whatever else she makes for her guests to let them know that she is “thinking” of them on the day of their arrival. We love that an invitation to spend time with her isn’t enough to show that she has the invitees in her mind. For Daniel Martin, she makes that re-bagged pretzels, popcorn flavoured with truffle oil and truffle salt (forgive us again: we did not know truffle anything is still trending), and a massive jar (too big, in fact) of bath salts, scented with arnica and lavender oils. Is she running an urban resort? And that jar, sitting pretty in a wooden tray with those snacks she has prepared, is tied with a ribbon at the top. The colour of the ribbon is pale—as light as sand. We love that nothing is allowed to stick out. They must blend, as she does, with her single-hue surroundings, just as the refrigerator doors match those of the kitchen cabinets. Only the food can be colourful, such as the “one-skillet” pasta with Mr Martin—we love that she calls them “noodles”—that Lidia Bastianich will no doubt adore, dearly.

A clip-dot shirt from Sezane to re-bag pretzel

The salt of the earth, nonpareil of neutral, eminence of ecru (sorry, indulge us), continues to stay in the path of light colours throughout the series (although we stopped at episode two of the eight, we saw enough clips to know). Her avoidance of brights—except that blue shirt and that burnt sienna dress (in a latter episode)—might have been an obsession brought over from her sojourn with the British monarchy. Back when she was a “senior working royal”, as she is now a senior working Meghan Sussex, she had avoided colour. As she said in the series Harry and Meghan: “Most of the time that I was in the UK, I rarely wore colour. There was thought in that. To my understanding, you can’t ever wear the same colour as Her Majesty if there’s a group event, but then you also shouldn’t be wearing the same colour as one of the other, more senior members of the family. So I was like, well what’s a colour that they’ll probably never wear? Camel? Beige? White? So, I wore a lot of muted tones, but it also was so I could just blend in…” We love that she still can.

By now, you would have read all the scathing reviews of the show. As you could have guessed, we watched it with an open mind. We love With Love, Meghan; we love how unedifying it is. We love how unentertaining it is, too. And how wholeheartedly she embraces banality. We love how she could make trite remarks the dish of the day. Or cut vegetables for platters of crudité without a proper knife. We admire that Meghan Markle seeks credit when so few, if any, has so far been willingly given. We regret that an edited television production can’t make her look—and sound—better. And anguish that so much of the crafts she offers give no clue that she once, by her own past revelation, “taught gift-wrapping”. But we love that her famous friends are able to show us the Montecito matron that she so desperately desired to be. In the wake of the White House treating their guests questionably for the world to see, Meghan Markle exporting her marvelous American hostessing skills is brilliant. And we love that.

Screen shots: With Love, Meghan/Netflix