As I said in an earlier post, I started my morning by watching the Mindy Kaling episode of With Love, Meghan. I will try to finish WLM later today, and if I don’t finish it tonight, I will definitely get through it tomorrow. This is the kind of programming I love, but it’s been a busy few days because of the Oscars. Plus, WLM isn’t like the H&M Netflix series, which contained new information and some controversies – WLM is supposed to be a chill, relaxing show. Stop treating it like a sprint to the finish! Anyway, People Magazine did a comprehensive breakdown of some “news/gossip” we’re getting in the series, and some of this is cool. Some highlights:
The Sussex surname: In the second episode, Meghan welcomes Mindy Kaling as they talk about kids’ parties, but the talk turns to their own childhoods. “People wouldn’t believe that Meghan Markle ate at Jack in the Box,” Kaling says at one point, prompting Meghan to point out: “It’s so funny, too, that you keep saying Meghan Markle. You know I’m Sussex now. You have kids and you go, ‘No, I share my name with my children. I didn’t know how meaningful that would be to me, but it just means so much to go, this is our family name, our little family name.”
Meghan explained her fashion philosophy to Mindy Kaling: Meghan explains that she likes “high-low,” revealing she was wearing pants from Zara, a shirt by Italian luxury brand Loro Piana and a sweater from California designer Jenni Kayne. “Really cute,” Kaling praises.
Bonding with Mindy over starring in a long-running series: “One thing that you and I have in common is we were both on TV shows for a long time,” Mindy says. Meghan confirms Suits ran for seven years, just shy of The Office’s eight. “I’m on a series! This is all I want,” Meghan recalls. Mindy adds, “Health insurance, steady paycheck.” “Yes, consistency,” Meghan agrees.
Moving to Toronto for Suits: Meghan admits, “Okay, one season in Toronto — amazing. Two seasons — okay, is my life gonna be in this other place now?” But she embraced it: “Thankfully, I love Canada. And I always tried to invite the cast over or people I’d meet at the dog park — neighbors. I love making friends.”
Meghan wasn’t surprised by the resurgence in love for Suits: “I’m not surprised that people are rediscovering Suits because it was so well written and so well produced,” she says. “It’s a time capsule for me — I still have the pencil skirt from the first episode! That’s the one thing I kept.”
Making breakfast for her fam: “I wake up every morning and take a lot of pride in making breakfast for my family,” Meghan says. “Mornings are fast. Gotta get the kids to school. I find when I’m cooking bacon, my kitchen very immediately becomes full of husband and three dogs. It’s not my perfume that’s bringing them all in it,” she adds before singing, “My bacon brings all the boys to the yard,” to the tune of Kelis’ hit song “Milkshake.”
She once worked the coat check of a Chicago bar before they encouraged her to try waitressing. “The guy, it was really loud and he’s like, ‘Hey, can I get a [indistinct] martini?’ and I was like, ‘I don’t know what he’s saying.’ I was like, ‘I think he’s from Texas, and he asked me for a Cowboy Run martini,’ and they were like, ‘We don’t have that.’ So I went back and I was like, ‘We don’t have that.’ And he’s like,’ What? you don’t have a Ketel One martini?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know.’ And they’re like, ‘Let’s have you go back to being a coat check girl.’”
Who got the #1 jar of ARO jam: On social media, many wondered who received the coveted No. 1 — and on With Love, Meghan, the answer was unveiled to be her mother, Doria Ragland. “People took it very personally, the hierarchy,” Meghan says on the series, adding, “Anyone who got them, I hope they felt like I wanted to share this with you.”
She relaxes by arranging flowers: “I learned a lot of this when I was pregnant with my son, Archie. My girlfriends threw a baby shower for me, and one of the things we did was learn flower arranging. I started to find this really calming and meditative, so when I have a little bit of time at the end of the day, I do this. I have a glass of wine and just enjoy it,” she says, adding that music is always part of the experience. “I listen to a lot of ‘70s soft rock and a lot of yacht rock and a lot of soul. and then also French dinner party music.”
Learning mahjong with Tracy Robbins, Victoria Jackson & Jennifer Rudolph Walsh: “My girlfriends are coming over, we have all started to learn mahjong together in the past few months…We play a version called American mahjong. What I’ve come to really love about mahjong is that the game itself is really fun, but what was so great was the idea of learning something new with your friends, together. And then recognizing that mahjong becomes the background of the expansion of friendship. It’s the feeling of community. It’s become special for all of us. We’re all at such different chapters in our lives. It’s amazing that it’s just as meaningful for me as it is for Victoria or Tracy or Jennifer. We all really like it.”
Food & motherhood: “Even before I was a mom, I loved being able to nurture in that way. Some of my favorite childhood moments are the meals that my mom would make. She’d make a lot of soul food. I remember she’d taken a Thai cooking class, so every week we had Thai BBQ chicken and spring rolls. I remember those flavors so well, and I want my kids to have those same formative memories of things that I cook. We call them Mama Meals, and those are the ones that I hope they come back to when they’re older, when they’re married, and they have their own kids, and they go, ‘Oh, let’s have a Mama Meal.’ And it’s the same roast chicken I’ve been making since they were little.”
I can’t believe she was talking about listening to “yacht rock” while arranging flowers! What a life. Anyway, Meghan is a nurturer and she has a lot of patience to really entertain, hostess and make things pretty. I don’t have that same patience, but I’ve always loved watching someone with a pleasant voice just cook and entertain this way. Oh, and of course Doria got the #1 ARO jam! People were really creating too many conspiracies about the jam.
Photos courtesy of Netflix.
