What Are Flower Sprinkles, Meghan?

And other questions you might need answered before and after watching Meghan Sussex’s new Netflix show. Photo: Jake Rosenberg/Netflix

With Love, Meghan is part Martha Stewart, part Ina Garten, part Molly Yeh, part Alison Roman, and 100 percent deranged programming new to Netflix this week. In the eight-episode lifestyle show, Meghan Sussex, née Markle, walks us through recipes and crafts and homey gestures through which she’s come to define her own taste and kindness. This line of work isn’t exactly new to Meghan: She once ran a very successful lifestyle blog called the Tig. In the intervening years, however, she’s struck out on various business endeavors — a podcast that went nowhere, a docuseries that came and went. Now, after a few wildfires and a quick copyright oops, Meghan is back in With Love, Meghan, a show that asks more questions than it’s capable of answering. Namely, what is this show really about, where does it take place, and on what temporal plane specifically?

Where exactly does this show take place?

With Love, Meghan is set in the Sussex’s family’s base of Montecito, California, but not on their actual coastal estate. Meghan explained to People that she wanted to protect the sanctity of her home and children’s lives from “a crew of 80-plus people.” (To say nothing of the security issue having that many people in her own kitchen might cause.) In turn, most of With Love, Meghan takes place at a “nearby rental,” stocked with mason jars full of dried flowers and fruit, every spice imaginable, and spotless white Le Creusets. Few lifestyle- or cooking-show hosts are working out of their actual residential homes, but there is a unique level of unreality to the moments when Meghan opens up a rented fridge to reveal an array of perfectly arranged ceramic bowls full of produce.

Is that Meghan’s actual garden?

Hard to say. A few episodes take us outside into a garden where she picks peppers and berries, a large wicker basket in hand. Are these Meghan’s banana peppers? Her berries? Whose garden is this? The People article reports that “while she may not have filmed inside their home, she found ways to incorporate home life into the show, filming in their chicken coop, garden, and orchard,” which would suggest that at least some of these garden scenes are taking place on her personal property.

So we know where the show takes place. But when exactly does With Love, Meghan take place?

One of the most disorientating aspects of With Love, Meghan is its Christopher Nolan–esque approach to chronology. Each episode revolves around a guest coming to visit Meghan’s rental and do some crafts or cook or simply day-drink and observe. But Meghan often does some degree of prep work before her guests’ arrivals, with the series cutting back in time (as signified by changes in Meghan’s hair, outfits, and the weather outside) so Meghan can demonstrate the intensive processes of brining chicken, arranging a bouquet of flowers, or making a balloon arch.

Throughout the course of the show, Meghan insists that all of these crafts and recipes can be prepared somewhere between half an hour or an hour before a guest’s arrival. Yet each episode she must travel back in time via sharp editing and montage to accomplish the tasks. The disruptions in flow call to mind the format of Be My Guest With Ina Garten, in which Ina both preps for a guest as well as cooks with them, but Meghan’s uncanny flashbacks somehow further untether the show from the reality of her not-kitchen.

And what is Meghan doing on camera?

It’s a mix of arts and crafts and recipes, most of which she promises are easy to accomplish but prove more complicated in practice. “I can’t guarantee it’ll be perfect, but it will be joyful,” Meghan says about the architectural rainbow balloon arch that features in one episode. The balloon arch, which consists of over 30 balloons, a plastic arch, and a balloon pump, comes to represent the effort behind most of the crafts featured on the show: A lot of moving parts are required to assemble a lot expensive props. Goody bags for kids are stuffed with child-size gardening tools and seeds — accessories that have to be purchased and arranged. For a show that’s ostensibly about joy and imperfection and gardens, there’s quite a bit of waste. But in terms of skills required, most of her crafts aren’t so hard so long as you’re willing to buy stuff from Amazon, wait for it to arrive, and then beautifully re-organize it in a way that disguises how inorganic the materials and process actually are.

As for the recipes, there’s a 50/50 split. A handful of the foods and drinks — preserves, mimosas, little parfaits, chili oil — are all pretty doable, even for amateurs (except, maybe, for Meghan’s longtime friend and makeup artist, Daniel Martin, who cuts his finger open on the show’s first episode). So much of the series is about taking food out of one container (expensive-looking giant jar, a big plastic pretzel tub) and putting it into a different container (expensive-looking tiny bowl or cup, individual plastic bags for pretzels). We rarely, if ever, see her reuse or repurpose anything. Then there’s the tougher recipes: focaccia, salt-baked fish, Korean-inspired chicken wings, and fried dumplings. These endeavors seem both not easy and not joyful, despite the immaculate state of the rental kitchen, endless supply of jars, and perpetually white aprons. (Really, this constantly appears like the most expensive lifestyle production of all time.) As Mindy points out in their episode together, most of what Meghan takes joy in is something Mindy pays someone else to do.

Does Meghan ever mess up?

For sure. When Meghan entertains friend and Tatchi founder Vicky Tsai, she lets cream boil over and the two nearly drop a whole panful of dumplings. With Love, Meghan is actually at its most enjoyable when showing us that Meghan — like all of us! — fucks up in the kitchen from time to time (though she is of course doing so with a phalanx of producers and crew members).

Is this show going to make me feel ashamed of normal crudité platters?

Meghan and friends are always “elevating” crudité platters with specific color schemes and edible flowers. Because so much of the show is about elevating normal things to be “more special” in ways that feel inconvenient to everyone except those with endless time and a whole separate kitchen in which they can cook. Part of what feels so exhausting about With Love, Meghan is that for all of her insistence on stuff being easy to do, that’s because it’s easy … for Meghan.

What’s the deal with the flower sprinkles?

Meghan’s science teacher Mr. Ben — who, she explains, passed away somewhat recently — taught her that some flowers make colorful, festive adornments on food. So Meghan now puts flowers on everything: cake, donuts, crudité platters, rainbow fruit salad, frittata, and so on. These are known as “flower sprinkles.”

Flower sprinkles?

Look, I didn’t come up with it! Soon you can buy Meghan’s flower sprinkles for yourself, if As Ever ever, um, lets you buy anything.

Can I get the preserves?

No, nothing is for sale yet. Only Mindy Kaling, Meghan’s mom, and 48 other people can say they’ve had Meghan’s preserves.

So is this all a big advertisement for As Ever?

It’s a big advertisement for how good Meghan is at hosting, as articulated by every guest and crew person, but on top of that, yes, it’s a commercial for a platform that literally no one can buy from yet.

Is it true that Meghan and Mindy Kaling plan and prepare a kids’ party for no children?

The series’ weirdest episode is when “email pen pal” Mindy Kaling joins Meghan to plan a tea party for children, but since neither of them are inclined to show their children on camera, they just have a children’s party for themselves. This is where the unreality of With Love, Meghan starts to really set in: because of the (necessary!) boundaries Meghan has set around her life, there’s only so much she can show us. That quirk of the show — paired with Mindy’s broad unwillingness to do any unnecessary labor — makes for uneasy viewing. Meghan recommends a task; Mindy says she can’t do that. Rinse, repeat. Maybe it’s just that their email friendship doesn’t translate well to IRL, like when Mindy tries to describe Meghan’s “lewk” and Meghan looks at her like she’s a space alien.

Wait, Meghan doesn’t know “lewk”?

When Mindy compliments Meghan’s “lewk” — Zara pants with a Loro Piana sweater, pure “high-low” taste — Meghan looks like she’s having an aneurysm, unaware that “lewk” is just a fun way of saying “look” or “outfit.” Listen, per her own admission, the last time she used Instagram people were still doing Boomerangs.

Okay, but how cute is Meghan’s dog, Guy?

Love him!!!! RIP!!!