With Love, Meghan Episode Six: The Juice is Worth the Squeeze

 

WITH LOVE, MEGHAN: THE JUICE IS WORTH THE SQUEEZE

Original Airdate: March 4, 2025

Special Guests: Ramon Velazquez, Tracy Robbins, Victoria Jackson and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh

Mentions of Joy: 0

Passive-Aggressive Moments: 2

Gushing Praise for Markle: "It could be the busiest day of the year, and Meg's like worried about every single person's preferences, their dietary needs".

For the second time on With Love, Meghan, there was no mention of joy to be heard. Curiously, both times there has been no "joy" is when her gal pals have come over. The Juice is Worth the Squeeze, our sixth With Love, Meghan episode makes up for this lack of joy and edible flower sprinkles with a lot of elevation and seeing the Duchess of Sussex getting her hands basically slapped down.

It's Taco Tuesday and American mahjongg over at Meghan Sussex's rented home/studio. The Duchess has invited her regular group of mahjongg players/friends to come over and have some chat, some laughs and a nice taco bar. She is also having Chef Ramon come over to help her prepare all the delicious, delightful food.

We learn How to Dehydrate Citrus, as we may not want to use all the citrus right away.

Chef and restauranteur Ramon Velazquez dominates the Duchess when it comes to preparing meals. He is pleasant but has zero patience with any silliness or errors in preparation. As Meghan Markle starts tearing apart a chicken breast with her hands, Chef Ramon quickly but politely corrects her. "I usually grab two forks, so one fork holds it and the other fork kinda pulls it," he tells her as he gives her another one to use in place of her hand. All Meghan can say is "Oh, great", slightly startled at Chef Ramon's actions.

Wrong Victoria Jackson!

Once this Mexican shows the Duchess up in her kitchen and demonstrates that he knows what he is doing, we get our trio of mahjongg players. We first have "founder and friend" Tracy Robbins. Shortly after, we see "businesswoman, philanthropist and friend" Victoria Jackson and "entrepreneur and friend" Jennifer Rudolph Walsh. They were different than when other friends dropped by. I do not remember them having to actually make any of the food. I think that they also kept their shoes on. Now, it's on to the backyard, where the New Joy Luck Club can talk about how much fun they have had and how close they are to each other. 

"That sense of community, that's what I love about cooking", the Duchess tells Chef Ramon. She may love that sense of community, but she was clearly not loving Chef Ramon. My impression of Chef Ramon Velazquez is that he was there to cook, not chat. He also was not about to have amateurs, no matter who they were, do things incorrectly. When he, again politely but firmly, corrected Meghan and gave her a second fork to pull the chicken breast apart right, Markle looked almost stunned. My sense is that after hearing nothing but praise for her culinary acumen, she was taken aback and off-guard at someone else so much as suggesting to her that she was wrong. 

Whatever Markle's intentions, her interaction with Velazquez comes across as rather cross to hostile. Perhaps other interactions between herself and With Love, Meghan guests have been misinterpreted. In The Juice is Worth the Squeeze though, her actions, behavior and words towards Velazquez are pretty obvious. She is all but seething with rage at someone showing her up.

Chef Ramon is a thorough professional. He is putting in his effort to make the food correctly. As such, he is not having cheerful conversations as she did with Roy Choi. He clearly loves cooking and takes it seriously. He is by no means unpleasant or condescending towards Markle. He just knows he is a skilled chef and she is not. Velazquez treats Markle as his student and an assistant. He does not treat her as his equal, let alone his superior.

After he stops her from using her bejeweled hand to pull the meat off the chicken breast, we have a couple of very curious exchanges between them. "So, while you're doing that (pulling the aforementioned chicken breasts apart), I'm gonna chop couple of chipotles". After hearing that, Markle replies, "This is how I know you're a seasoned chef: because you're like 'While you do that, I'm just gonna chop a chili'".

I literally, and I do mean literally, cringed at that moment. She attempted to make it a humorous quip. Her body language and vocal tone, however, told me that she was livid but could not openly demonstrate it. That, to my mind, was totally unprofessional on her part. Chef Ramon Velazquez was there to work. He is a professional chef with I presume years of experience. He should not be there as Markle's assistant, let alone lackey. There was something dismissive in her quip. Dismissive, with a tinge of hostility, even anger.

She was doing something wrong. As a professional who was there, in part, to instruct, Chef Ramon did what to Markle seems to be an unspeakable act: treat her as a person, not an exalted figure. I for the life of me do not understand why Markle opted to essentially talk back to Velazquez. Her "I'm just gonna chop a chili" quip was not funny. It seemed very dismissive, very hostile. It came across almost as a way to put him down, diminish him. 

Fortunately for Velazquez, he seemed not to take note of her questionably humorous comment. Later during the cooking segment, he places items into a blender. He then puts the lid on the blender firmly but not aggressively, using his fists to top it off twice. "What did that blender ever do to you?", Markle quips in another apparently jokey manner. Velazquez replies nonchalantly, somewhat dismissively, "I don't know". 

The thing that makes this segment in The Juice is Worth the Squeeze fascinating to watch is in seeing how Velazquez refuses to play along with her efforts at being charming. He is pleasant and professional with Meghan Sussex. What he is not is jokey, chatty or awestruck by her. Velazquez is not mean or condescending towards her in any way. He is friendly, but he also does not praise her. He is not there to talk about his past or fantasize about opening up food trucks with her. He is there to demonstrate his skills and prepare food. He is also there to instruct Meghan Markle, not take instruction from her. Roy Choi, the only other professional chef so far on With Love, Meghan, complemented her. Ramon Velazques, on the other hand, did not complement her once, at least in my memory of it. 

As a side note, my notetaking was so fast that they read, "that's what I love about cocking" rather than "cooking". Make of that what you will.

I think Meghan Markle embarrassed herself in front of Ramon Velazquez. She could have said, "Oh, I'm sorry" or "Thank you" for him showing her how to do something right. Instead, she opted to make comments about how he essentially was giving himself easy things to do while she had to do all the hard work. That comment about "this is how I know you're a seasoned chef" came across as very arrogant and petty. That might not have been the intended aim. That was just the end result.

Surprisingly, it took almost twenty minutes for her three girlfriends to show up. Perhaps that is why Meghan did not put them to work: it would have required more time and each With Love, Meghan episode is only about 30 minutes give or take. I think we do get a bit of a quick information dump about what mahjongg is and we do see them play some. However, they do look like four random strangers gathered together. Far be it for Meghan Markle to tell us what Tracy Robbins is a founder of. Far be it for Meghan Markle to tells us how Victoria Jackson is a philanthropist. Far be it for Meghan Markle to tells us how Jennifer Rudolph Walsh is an entrepreneur. 

This is a common thread on With Love, Meghan. She gives us the titles that her guests have. She never asks or invites them to talk about exactly what they do. 

The Juice is Worth the Squeeze is boring when we finally have our gal pals break out the mahjongg. It is worth watching only for Ramon Velazquez: the man who dared tell Meghan Markle that she was doing something wrong. And lived to tell the tale.

4/10