In 2018, the Duchess of Sussex organized Together: Our Community Cookbook. Meghan began putting the project together before she even married Prince Harry, because Meghan made many private visits to the Grenfell families, the survivors of the 2017 Grenfell Fire. The Grenfell survivors lost their homes, and they were already using a mosque-adjacent kitchen as some kind of makeshift community kitchen. The proceeds of the Together cookbook ensured that the Hubb Community Kitchen would be fully funded for several years, and the Grenfell community would always be able to come together and have a good meal. The cookbook was a huge success, and the other royal women HATED that. To this day, the Princess of Wales calls her annual piano recitals “TOGETHER at Christmas.” Because Kate has never had an original idea. Anyway, long story short, the Hubb Community Kitchen has apparently shut down. After eight years.
It was the charitable cause that defined Meghan Markle’s entry into life as a working royal. But now the Hubb Community Kitchen – a volunteer group created after the Grenfell disaster and backed by the duchess – has quietly closed its doors. The community space was established by survivors at Al Manaar mosque in the aftermath of the fire on June 14, 2017, to provide refuge and home-cooked food to bereaved families in west London.
Meghan, 44, in her first solo project as a working royal, championed the charity in a blaze of publicity, where she helped them to publish their own book: Together Our Community Cookbook, with a foreword from the duchess inside. Supported by The Royal Foundation and published by Penguin Random House, it soared to number one on Amazon within hours of its release, selling 39,000 copies in the UK.
The cookbook, which featured photos of Meghan cooking and embracing women volunteers, was hailed as evidence of a hands-on monarchy and the £210,000 raised enabled a redesign of the group’s kitchen. Indeed, the duchess hosted a special lunch for the book’s launch at Kensington Palace, for which her mother, Doria Ragland, flew over from the US for the occasion. Meghan said at the time: ‘I immediately felt connected to this community kitchen; it is a place for women to laugh, grieve, cry and cook together.’
But after Meghan and Harry stepped back from royal duties in 2020 and relocated to the US, it seems that her involvement with the charity has waned. On the third anniversary of the fire which left 72 dead, the duchess made headlines when she honoured the women of the community kitchen via video call from Los Angeles, describing their work as ‘love in action’.
The last time the duchess reached out to Hubb Kitchen was in June 2022, to mark the fifth anniversary of the fire. Since then, it seems the stoves have gone cold on the initiative that symbolised Meghan’s grassroots approach to royal duties. A spokesman for the Hubb Kitchen told the Daily Mail: ‘I can’t talk about the Duchess of Sussex, but the Hubb community kitchen has stopped.’
Am I mistaken or was Hubb always supposed to be a temporary solution to an immediate problem for Grenfell families? They had an immediate need for a community kitchen, and Meghan’s cookbook ensured the full funding of that community kitchen for probably five or six years, if not more. This June will be the ninth anniversary of the Grenfell Fire – is there still a need for a community kitchen, or have the Grenfell families moved to different communities and they’ve already begun the process of rebuilding their lives? This story comes via Richard Eden at the Mail, which is why it’s being framed as “Meghan should have done more to support the kitchen, but she moved away!” Asinine. I also remember that there was some drama with Derangers harassing Hubb’s volunteers on social media too, to the point where Hubb had to shut down some of their social media presence. These people are ghastly.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
