Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Sussex, served as guest editor of the September issue of British Vogue, blessing all of those who miss her blog The Tig with a tiny reminder of what Meghan the Media Personality was like. I know there's a lot of rules about what royals can and can't do, but I would strongly recommend to the British people that they rethink their stance against duchesses blogging. You're telling me you don't want Kate Middleton's thoughts on a recent vacation or the pressures of fame or the most recent episode of Love Island? False. Release the Duchess Blogs!
Until Boris Johnson responds to my demands, we'll have to make do with Meghan's carefully curated contributions to British Vogue, and, in particular, her back page Q&A with Her Royal Highness, Michelle Obama. The former first lady and current queen of America answered some emailed questions from Meghan Markle about motherhood, her non-profit Girls Opportunity Alliance, and conversations with her younger self. As with anything Michelle Obama says, it's chock full of wit and wisdom that makes you spontaneously call out "Alexa, play 'Didn't We Almost Have It All?' On repeat!" However, the reason I've called you all here today is that buried in Her Royal Highness' intro is a little tidbit of information on which I will be chewing for the rest of the week.
The Duchess of Sussex introduces the Q&A with an extended simile about creating a magazine being like crafting a great meal. As someone who 1) works at a magazine and 2) spends a lot of time deliberating about my Chipotle order, I can confirm this is accurate. But, this is not just a dietary detour, nay, HRH's preamble is an amuse bouche, preparing the palate for her secret ingredient! (Am I doing any of this right? Who knows. I subsist on a diet of the good bread from Cheesecake Factory and La Croix, so I'm not exactly running Delish over here.) Three paragraphs in, Meghan drops this scrumptious tidbit, "So, over a casual lunch of chicken tacos and my ever-burgeoning bump, I asked Michelle if she would help me with this secret project."
Okay, let me pull out my conspiracy board for this one. Here are the facts at present:
- Meghan Markle and Michelle Obama had lunch.
- This lunch occurred while Meghan was pregnant.
- The location of the lunch? Presently unknown, but it is an establishment that serves tacos. My guess? Cheesecake Factory.
- The tacos in question were chicken tacos. Chicken tinga? Possibly. VERY POSSIBLE.
That is all that the circumspect Duchess has given us, but it is buffet of potential information to which I will return for seconds for the rest of my life.
Let's start with location. As I said, this was probably at a Cheesecake Factory. Why do I think this? One word: casual. Cheesecake Factory may be decorated to look like the set of a problematic big budget movie retelling of the story of Cleopatra but you are allowed to wear short pants (also known as shorts). What is that? Casual. Additionally, Cheesecake Factory does not accept reservations, even if you are coming to a Mother's Day brunch with 12 of your relatives, which, as a former host for said establishment, I can exclusively confirm is a very common occurrence. What is that? Casual. My theory, Meghan Markle and Michelle Obama went to Ye Olde Cheesecake Factory at the Windsor Mall and waited for a table for two to open up. Did they have Mai Tais at the bar while they waited at the suggestion of the host stand? No! Because of bullet point number two: pregnancy! We have a timeline.
Meghan says that they met over a lunch of "chicken tacos." Did they both have chicken tacos? Did only the Duchess enjoy the tacos whilst the Queen of the United States enjoyed another entree? Our scientists are still researching this. But let us assume that they both perused the 400-page Cheesecake Factory menu and, after an hour of concentrated reading, they simultaneously opted for the tacos.
The menu has six options in the area of "tacos," however they are under different sections. (Please see Appendix A for a further breakdown of Cheesecake Factory menu categorization.) The options are:
- Chicken Lettuce Wrap Tacos
- Fish Tacos
- Baja Chicken Tacos
- Grilled Steak Tacos
- Skinnylicious Soft Tacos
- Breakfast Tacos
We can immediately eliminate the fish and the steak tacos because they are, objectively, not chicken.
I am also going to be so bold as to eliminate the Chicken Lettuce Wrap Tacos because there are too many words in that phrase. It is a wrap and also a taco? Not on my watch. No indeed. This is what we in the industry call category fraud.
The Skinnylicious Soft Tacos can be served with chicken but I believe since Skinnylicious is a registered trademark term and soft tacos are a defined subcategory of taco, HRH would have made sure to use the appropriate nomenclature.
The Breakfast Tacos have chicken in them however, twist, this was a lunch, so you tell me what the truth is here. Would Michelle Obama have breakfast for lunch? That's a whole other inquiry and I just don't think we have the resources to adequately deal with it.
This means, of course, that Michelle Obama and Meghan Markle had a casual lunch of Cheesecake Factory Baja Chicken Tacos sometime between September 2018 and May 6, 2019. It may be tempting to rest easy knowing the truth, but the fact remains we do not yet know one crucial bit of information about this event: did they stay for dessert?
