Look, I really didn’t want to mention the M word. It’s taken me a while to recover from a Montecito mini-movie called “seasonal sips” in which Meghan gamed ideas for a “cosy warm beverage that everyone can enjoy” and came up with “tea”. We learnt that making a whole pot is a good idea and that boiling water is easy, and at that point I had to have a little lie-down.
Imagine my delight, then, when a friend who clearly hates me sent over a link yesterday to the Duchess of Sussex’s latest attempt at world domination. “Early morning hosting with As Ever,” the Instagram video begins. What follows is one minute and 21 seconds of total barking madness, so we might as well start with the “stations” as anywhere else. Our heroine is shown in someone else’s house, hosting hypothetical friends, assembling a “yoghurt parfait station”, three words that in most countries would get you sectioned.
“You could do a yoghurt parfait in a normal bowl,” she informs us, decanting jam into a hideous glass cruet thing that she found, inevitably, in a vintage shop, “or you can make it a little more special” — and here the camera closes in on a champagne coupe filled with yoghurt and nuts, over which she drizzles honey. There’s a breakfast “station” for waffles and another “station” for pancakes, and an array of artisan bowls filled with everything from cream and jam to bacon, cheese and soft fruit. The whole exquisite, bonkers tableau of “easy holiday hosting — because you don’t need to stress to impress!’’ — must have cost thousands and taken a team of people days to set up, and that’s before we get to the script.
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“I like leaving some of the fruits whole,” she says, picking up a raspberry, “and the rest sliced in half.” This is, we learn, about presenting things in a way that feels “a little more enticing”. We learn that if we don’t want to make pancakes, we can buy them. She tells us that kids love breakfast “stations” and also that said stations solve the problem of all your guests having different breakfast “preferences”: they can choose one that speaks to them and help themselves.
Then again, what do I know about being the hostess with the mostest? I neglected to marry a prince and have only just moved into a house big enough to have people over. Maybe my friends are, even now, wondering how many stations I’ll be providing at breakfast.
All of Meghan’s stations, though, and maybe even the halved raspberries too, are but a prelude to the main event. Wearing a cream knitted outfit, our heroine picks up a cream knitted oven mitt, opens someone else’s oven and says the following: “My favourite thing for breakfast for a large group is quiche.” Apparently, and I swear I’m not making this up, nothing makes people feel warm and cared for like early morning quiche. In keeping with the theme of “easy holiday hosting” the idea seems to be that you get up at dawn to make a quiche, then go back to bed while you wait for everyone else to wake up. “You can leave it out if you know people are going to wake up,” Meghan says, “otherwise just write a little note reading ‘Morning! Help yourself! Quiche is in the oven!’”
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What on earth is the endgame here? To be an Airbnb superhost? She gave an interview to American Harper’s Bazaar last week that began, for reasons that never became clear, on an archaeological dig. Maybe she’s hoping for a slot on Time Team if the yoghurt stations don’t work out. According to the article, the woman who doesn’t care about titles, as she once told Oprah Winfrey, had staff announce her arrival, in an empty house, to an audience of one, with “Meghan, Duchess of Sussex!” What a pity the state trumpeters couldn’t make it. I could have wept at the bit where Meghan agreed that women in the public eye get a lot of flak if they’re multidimensional. Then again, maybe it’s only if one of those dimensions has a yoghurt station.
Now we need an appealing ceiling
The celebrated British interior designer Nina Campbell has given an interview in which she talks about the importance of “upgrading your ceiling”. As someone who didn’t have a ceiling at all for quite some time while the builders were in, I was thrilled just to finally get one. Now I need to upgrade it? Really? I read on.
According to Campbell, “a stark white ceiling draws unwanted attention and makes a room feel small and unfinished”. I looked around my sitting room, which does indeed look small and unfinished, but I never thought to blame the ceiling. I blamed the fact that it’s small and unfinished. Undeterred, I read on. “A lacquered finish turns the ceiling into a focal point.” Good grief. Who wants a shiny ceiling? Why would you want your ceiling to be a focal point? How much time on your hands do you need, even if you’re an interior designer, before your thoughts turn to lacquering ceilings?
Campbell also recommended putting a drinks trolley in the hall but my hallway barely fits me, let alone a bar. I can at least console myself that my friends can usually wait till they get to the kitchen before needing a drink.
Dining and Cooking