The Duchess of Sussex has revealed she felt “shock and sympathy” for Grenfell residents as she launched her first solo project, a charity cookbook by the tower’s community chefs.
Meghan has written the foreword to Together, a collection of global dishes by women from the Grenfell community and others, which aims to raise funds to expand their culinary work at the Al-Manaar mosque.
The idea for the book came from the duchess in January, during the first of a number of private visits to the Hubb Community Kitchen where, in the aftermath of the devastating blaze, women came to prepare food for friends and families or socialise.
In her foreword the duchess writes: “In 2017, I had watched the Grenfell Tower tragedy unfold on the news; I was in Canada at the time, sharing the global sentiment of shock and sympathy for what this community was enduring, while also deeply wanting to help.
“Fast-forward seven months, and I was set to meet some of the women affected by the fire, at a community kitchen in Al-Manaar.”
Meghan added: “An apron was quickly wrapped around me, I pushed up my sleeves, and I found myself washing the rice for lunch.”
The duchess is pictured on the front and back covers of the book, on sale on Thursday, dishing out meals or helping to carry food at the kitchen based in North Kensington.
First opened in September last year the Hubb, which means love in Arabic, welcomes cooks on Tuesdays and Thursdays but organisers hope it will become a seven-day operation if the cookbook raises £250,000 from sales of 50,000.
Zahira Ghaswala, the kitchen’s coordinator who hosted Meghan’s first visit to the centre, said about that trip: “She just got stuck in straight away, next minute I realised there was an apron put on her and she was washing rice.
She added: “During the duchess’ first visit she questioned me and said ‘how many days do you offer this service?’ and I said ‘two days a week, due to funding’.
The Duchess of Sussex is supporting a new charity cookbook, ‘Together: Our Community Cookbook’, which celebrates the power of cooking to bring communities together. #CookTogether pic.twitter.com/XEclxgQjR4
— Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) September 17, 2018
“Then it led to her trying some food, we had a meal together and after she was very fascinated with all the flavours and cultures and the dishes, and she said ‘we can do a cookbook’.
“We didn’t think it would move this fast, next minute we were swapping, sharing, tasting recipes.”
Meghan helped put the community cooks in touch with a publisher and her Royal Foundation provided assistance with legal and administrative issues.
On Thursday when the book goes on sale in shops Meghan will stage a launch event at the palace, attended by husband Harry and some of the all-women cooks who provided family recipes for the project.
Together: Our Community Cookbook is published by Ebury Press, priced £9.99.
