DOUBLE DUCHESS
Kate and Meghan’s copycat fashions
THE Duchess of Sussex shared hugs, kisses and her joy at impending motherhood yesterday with women who have collaborated with her on a Grenfell Tower community cookbook.
Meghan returned to the Hubb Community Kitchen in North Kensington, in the shadow of the west London tower block where 72 died in an inferno in June 2017, for an emotional reunion with the volunteers she first met a week after her marriage in May.
It was her first chance to discuss her pregnancy with the women and the Duchess, due to give birth in the spring, told them: “I’m so happy.”
She was shown around the new kitchen in the centre, now open seven days a week thanks in part to sales of the recipe tome, “Together: Our Community Cookbook”, which Meghan co-authored.
It has already sold more than 40,000 copies in Britain alone, raising £210,000.
Meghan, who suggested the cookbook, told the women at the centre: “It starts from one idea and from this one idea starts so much.”
Arriving in a Canadian designed burgundy coat and dress by Club Monaco, the 37-year-old Duchess, was greeted by kitchen co-ordinator Zaheera Sufyaan.
She quickly abandoned any pretence at formality, throwing her arms around each of the women and kissing them, chatting excitedly about what they had been up to.
“Hi, how are you? Wow, it’s so quiet in here,” she said.
And she soon put on an apron, rolled up her sleeves and got stuck into helping prepare food to be sent out to 200 people in the local community.
The meals included rainbow roasted vegetables, a recipe in the book from Ahlam Saeid, 61, an Iraqi chemist, who stood chatting to the Duchess as she mixed the ingredients.
He said he told her about her impending baby: “This is our grandchild, we are so happy. The whole community.”
Meghan, who spent about 45 minutes at the kitchen, was also given a traditional Ugandan cloth to wrap around her stomach in the months after she gives birth.
Munira Mahmud, 34, who explained to Meghan what the navy blue fabric was, said: “She was over the moon, she was really happy.”