Culture

Meghan Markle's New Favorite Avocado Dip Is In This Charity Cookbook

Meghan Markle cookbook Left: Samit Hussein/WireImage/Getty Images; Right: istockphoto.com
Gael Fashingbauer Cooper|

New duchess Meghan Markle is no newcomer to a kitchen. And even now that she's married to Prince Harry, the American-born royal wants to keep stirring the pot by helping others. On Monday, Kensington Palace announced that she is supporting a new charity cookbook, "Together: Our Community Cookbook," which benefits those affected by Britain's Grenfell Tower fire.

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The June 2017 fire at London's residential Grenfell Tower, which police and fire services believe was caused by a malfunctioning refrigerator-freezer, killed 72 people. In the aftermath of the fire, the book's site notes, a group of local women gathered together at the Al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre to cook for their families and neighbors. The community became known as the Hubb Community Kitchen – "Hubb" means "love" in Arabic.

"Over the chatter and aromas of the kitchen," the book's site goes on to say, "they found that cooking and eating together can create connections, restore hope and normality, and provide a sense of home."

Markle, now the Duchess of Sussex, has been paying regular private visits to the kitchen since January.

"I immediately felt connected to this community kitchen," she writes. "It is a place for women to laugh, grieve, cry and cook together."

The book features over 50 recipes from the diverse women of the Hubb Community Kitchen, from dips to desserts. The duchess wrote the book's three-page forward.

"Melding cultural identities under a shared roof, it creates a space to feel a sense of normalcy in its simplest form," she writes. "The universal need to connect, nurture, and commune through food, through crisis or joy – something we can all relate to."

The book will be released on Sept. 25 and will sell for $16.99. Profits from the sale of Together will go to benefit the Hubb Community Kitchen, aimed at helping it reach out to others and enable similar transformative cooking projects.

The duchess singles out one recipe, for green chile and avocado dip. It's the creation of fire survivor Munira Mahmud, who helped start the kitchen. The duchess calls it, "my very favorite avocado dip that I now make at home."

Whether or not you pick up the new cookbook, you may want to look into more menus from Meghan's famous family. Check out what the royal family really eats.

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