King Charles‘ goddaughter India Hicks, who was a bridesmaid at his wedding to Princess Diana, has shared her own domestic tips – drawing parallels to Meghan Markle‘s Netflix cooking show.
The glamorous British businesswoman shared a post on social media this week in which she advises how to host at home – declaring even ‘an unskilled culinary idiot’ can do the job.
An expert at blending old-world pedigree with a bohemian flair, India, 57, is the daughter of interior designer David Hicks and Lady Pamela Mountbatten – a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II and cousin to Prince Philip.
She posted a video online showing how she recently prepared to host guests, supermodels Jerry Hall and Helen Christensen, at her gorgeous home in the Bahamas.
It draws striking parallels with Meghan’s performance in the much-derided Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, in which the former actress shares her own vision of domestic bliss, including how to arrange aesthetically pleasing fruit boards.
‘It seems that trays and platters laden with edible displays are on-trend for a reason,’ India says. ‘First, even an unskilled culinary idiot like me can gather together some inventive ingredients and lay them out temptingly.’
While Meghan, 43, has been widely panned for her polished-but-bland show, India’s account of hosting drinks at her Bahamian island home is refreshingly ‘unpolished’, self-deprecating and chaotic.
‘It’s hard to say what creates the perfect drinks hour,’ India says. ‘In reality, who has the time to make it perfect, especially since most of us haven’t slept since 1997.’
King Charles ‘ goddaughter India Hicks , who was a bridesmaid at his wedding to Princess Diana , has shared her own domestic tips
She posted a video online showing how she recently prepared to host guests, supermodels Jerry Hall and Helen Christensen (pictured together), at her gorgeous home in the Bahamas
The mother of five, who is married to David Flint Wood, explains: ‘Jerry Hall and Helena Christensen came over for last minute drinks.
‘I ran around like a headless chicken lighting candles, putting on music and setting up our plastic folding table, and spreading out my newest Pomegranate tablecloth, which didn’t quite fit.
‘I worried, only briefly, about them seeing our dining table also laid up for a family supper in our courtyard, would they think they have been included for dinner as well as drinks?
‘Unbreakable plastic plates (also from Pomegranate) and good fake palm leaves were rushed out onto the drinks table and lots of stinky cheese, which David says, doesn’t go off, it just changes it’s name. Intimate, unpolished, and slightly haphazard, this is how I entertain.’
India attended Harry and Meghan’s wedding in 2018 at Windsor Castle but she has never commented publicly on their subsequent royal exit or media ventures.
With Meghan positioning herself as the new Martha Stewart of Montecito, India’s timing – and tone – is certainly intriguing.
Meghan’s Netflix cookery show, With Love, Meghan, launched on Netflix last month after being postponed from January due to the LA wildfires.
Despite facing harsh criticisms, it has since been renewed for a second season.
It draws striking parallels with Meghan’s performance in the much-derided Netflix series, With Love, Meghan
India said she ‘ran around like a headless chicken’ in order to create the spread
India is the goddaughter of King Charles (pictured together on her Instagram account, when India was a child)
Guardian TV writer Stuart Heritage said the series was ‘so pointless it might be the Sussexes’ last TV show’ and ‘might also be the final thing she makes for Netflix’.
The Telegraph gave the show just two stars. In a review, they said the series was an ‘exercise in narcissism, filled with extravagant brunches, celebrity pals and business plugs’.
During the eight-part series, which dropped on March 4, Meghan was joined by guests as she offered lifestyle tips from inside a rented $8million (£5million) mansion near the Sussexes’ Montecito home.
She shared tips and recipes for ‘elevating the ordinary’, such as sprinkling flower petals on several dishes.
In a video, posted to her Instagram account, India showed off her elegant charcuterie display with cheeses, making a for delicious display.
She said: ‘What I would like to say is how quick and easy it is to set something up like this, because I think this looks pretty f***ing good!’
India explained she’d bought a folding table from Amazon and added a new tablecloth from Pomegranate designed by her son – and plates, also from Pomegranate.
‘We ran out and grabbed all of this and piled it up, couple of candles, couple of nuts. Some dates, and I think it looks like a f***ing caterer came in!’
India’s account of hosting drinks at her Bahamian island home is refreshingly ‘unpolished’, self-deprecating and chaotic
India is pictured with her children on a post to Instagram at Christmas time
‘Ok, maybe not a caterer,’ she joked.
India and her husband David finally tied the knot in a very conventional ceremony on September 10, 2021.
India wore a turtle neck Emilia Wickstead wedding dress in ivory tulle with an A-line skirt, which had taken 17 months to design and make.
According to the bride, it was ‘a dress that felt perfectly at home in a church deep in the English countryside.
She completed her look with shoes from Christian Louboutin.
India Hicks is a member of the sprawling Mountbatten clan which, descended from Louis Mountbatten, last Viceroy of India and uncle to Prince Philip, has strong royal connections.
India is a grandchild through her mother, Lady Pamela Mountbatten.
She had long insisted there were no plans to marry the former advertising executive, even after five children together.
Viewers poked fun at Meghan Markle’s Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, by ‘elevating’ ordinary food flowers in a social media post.
But eventually there was a change of heart.
‘Having lived a fairly unconventional life together on a small island in the Bahamas for more than two decades, we decided that our wedding should, in contrast, be very conventional,’ India wrote in an article for Vogue.
Speaking to the Daily Mail before the big day, she said: ‘He very much asked me to marry him. I said: “I love you dearly, but no. I don’t want to be a wife.” I didn’t.
‘I wanted to be this fiercely independent woman. I wanted children, and I wanted them to have his name, but I didn’t want to be married.’
She later admitted: ‘I didn’t really expect being married to feel any different than not being married. We had been locked in a loving relationship for 26 years already.
‘But it took my breath away to find how spiritual it felt to walk into the church on the arm of my eldest son and to say those vows to David in front of all our friends and family, in the church where I had been christened and where my father lay buried just outside. It felt intensely intimate.’
They moved to the Bahamas in 1996 and have built and restored four houses and a hotel there.
