Meghan Markle’s First Royal Project Announced by Palace

Meghan Markle had a major royal first this morning, sharing her first solo project as a duchess since joining the family in May. The Duchess of Sussex is supporting a charity cookbook by some of the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire called Together: Our Community Cookbook. It’s fitting for a woman who used to run afood/lifestyle blog, The Tig. The book “celebrates the power of cooking to bring people together,” Kensington Palace wrote on its Instagram announcement, and “showcases over 50 recipes from women whose community was affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.” The 24-storey apartment building burnt down in June of last year, killing 72 residents; the book’s proceeds will support the Hubb Community Kitchen, a gathering place for survivors. (Hubb means love in Arabic.)

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The Palace shared an Instagram video that includes a voiceover of Meghan explaining the work of the chefs from Hubb Community Kitchen along with footage of Meghan visiting.

“I immediately felt connected to this community kitchen; it is a place for women to laugh, grieve, cry and cook together,”the Telegraph reports that Meghan wrote in the book’s forward. “Melding cultural identities under a shared roof, it creates a space to feel a sense of normalcy – in its simplest form, the universal need to connect, nurture, and commune through food, through crisis or joy – something we can all relate to.”

The news of this project comes after Meghan was previously reported to have made secret visits to the victims of the fire in February, likely to work on this very project. A royal source told The Mirror then that “Ms Markle has regularly been making private visits to organizations as she gets to know the charity sector.”