"Why would anyone in years to come want to know what I ate?" Princess Diana once asked her chef, Darren McGrady.
Newly separated from Prince Charles, she told McGrady he could drop the royal family's tradition of recording all her meals in a leather-bound "Menu Royal" book, deeming it a waste of money.
But almost 10 years since Diana's death in a car accident in Paris, McGrady finds people are still fascinated by what she did, what she wore, and yes — what she ate. Hence, his book, "Eating Royally" (Nelson, $24.99), which offers a peek into the palaces where McGrady spent 11 years cooking for Queen Elizabeth II and four years as Diana's personal chef.
"People are still fascinated with anything they can find on the princess," McGrady said in a telephone interview from his home in Dallas. "It's amazing the draw she had, and the inspiration she gave people. I don't think the princess really understood all that."
Lately we've seen a revival of Diana nostalgia. Her sons, princes William and Harry, were on "Dateline NBC" and hosted a concert in her honor. And last year's movie, "The Queen," based on the royal Family's reaction to Diana's death, netted a best-actress Oscar for Helen Mirren.
McGrady said he found Mirren's portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II so realistic that "when she looked down into the audience, I snapped to attention."
But it's Diana to whom he refers as "The Boss." After she died, McGrady turned down a job offer from Prince Charles and Camilla, because "I think I would have forever felt Princess Diana looking down on me saying,'You are not going to cook for that woman, are you?"'
He said he walked away from an earlier book deal because he wouldn't divulge "juicy gossip" of Diana's love life. "I didn't want to go that route — never have, never will."
The cookbook dishes up recipes, not dirt. There are cakes from garden tea parties, souffles from state dinners and wild game from royal hunting parties. Any "juicy" references are saved for Windsor Castle's hothouse peaches or Balmoral's raspberries.
It's sprinkled with lots of personal tidbits — helping princes Harry and William make their "Mummy's" favorite stuffed eggplant, dancing with Diana at royal balls, and helping the queen rescue her belongings while Windsor Castle was on fire.
McGrady said profits from his book will go to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. "I wanted it to be something that would make money for the causes she cared about. It was never about cashing in."
McGrady was hired as a junior cook at Buckingham Palace shortly after Prince Charles and Diana married. By the time they separated, he had worked his way up to senior pastry chef and was ready for a change. He found Diana's kitchen at Kensington Palace more relaxed, where William and Harry could wander in for ice cream and eat it out of the container while sitting in the windowsill.
"You didn't get that at Buckingham Palace. If the boys wanted ice cream, the Queen would call her page, who in turn would call the head chef. The head chef would call the pastry kitchen and the pastry chef would in turn call the silver pantry for some silver dishes to present it on. The ice cream would be formed into decorated quenelle shapes and placed in the silver dessert dish. Then it was off to the linen room to get the proper napkin."
He is circumspect when asked about the princess' bulimia battle. "By the time I was cooking for her, she had her life on track, she was eating healthy and working out," he said. "Before, when she would stay at Buckingham Palace, she would request dishes and foods that weren't quite right, you knew she shouldn't be eating this type of food. Later, she gave a speech about it, and we realized what had been going on."
Some tidbits from the book:
Buckingham Palace's kitchen is located more than a mile away from the queen's dining rooms, and the covered silver dishes of food are transported in heated trolleys. Delicate souffles are usually reserved for Sandringham, "where it was almost like a real house, you could walk from the kitchen into the dining room."
Diana's favorite dessert was Bread and Butter Pudding. "It's a cross between a pudding and creme brulee, a real nursery comfort food," McGrady said. "She couldn't resist going for seconds." A favorite savory dish was eggplant stuffed with zucchini, bell pepper, celery, onion, mushrooms, bacon and mozzarella.
Diana had McGrady develop low-fat versions of some dishes, such as the Chilled Tomato Dill Mousse with Lobster. "Her guests would receive the full-fat version, and everyone was happy."
One weekend the princess tried to cook a pasta dish on her own. "She must have let the pasta water boil over. The gas pilot light blew out, and by Sunday morning the princess could smell gas," McGrady wrote. "She called security and they immediately sent out a call to the local firehouse. When I came back on Monday, the princess gleefully informed me that she had 12 hunky men in her house while I was gone."
When Diana hosted a lunch for Clint Eastwood, it was the only time that McGrady was called to the dining room. Eastwood wanted to thank him directly.
Prince Harry tried to forge a note requesting pizza for dinner, but the 8-year-old's handwriting gave him away.
After being the target of William and Harry's sneaky water-gun attacks, McGrady and another chef tried to retaliate. As they came across the palace grounds, they were stopped by police, who thought their water guns (plastic replicas of Israeli Uzis) were real.
McGrady caused Diana to break out in red splotches when he made her a glass of beet juice. He didn't know it should be diluted with carrot or apple juice. "Aargh, Darren!" she cried. "I think you've poisoned me!"
"After a quick stint on a tanning bed, the princess's blotches began to fade and she was able to make her afternoon appointments," McGrady wrote.
Prince Charles, a health-conscious eater, brought an Italian chef to Balmoral to search for wild mushrooms. To keep Charles's entourage from taking them, the queen's head chef organized his own mushroom "raids" across the estate beforehand.
The queen had carrots peeled, trimmed and sliced lengthwise in quarters to feed to her horses.
The queen was particular about eating fruit in season. "We could serve strawberries almost every day during the summer — but woe betide any chef who put them on the menu in January."
McGrady spent four years on the book, cooking the food for the photos and converting British measurements, such as grams, kilos and milliliters, to the traditional American cups. "Halfway through, I called the publisher and said, 'How about I buy everyone that buys the book a set of scales?"'
Many of the desserts call for vanilla paste. McGrady said it's equivalent to vanilla extract. "The vanilla bean is scraped and immersed into a sugar solution. It's the next best thing to vanilla pods. We don't use vanilla extract except for stripping wallpaper off walls."
Although royal menus include such traditional British fare as puddings and partridge, they borrow heavily from classical French cuisine. "That dates back to the French Revolution," McGrady said. "The chefs moved over to the U.K. because there were no families left in the aristocracy to work for."
McGrady said he hopes his book gives readers an appreciation for Diana's "wicked sense of humor, her generosity and her impulsiveness. A lot of people misunderstood her actions, because she reacted from her heart and didn't have a team of spin doctors advising her about the political repercussions."
Although he noticed some inaccuracies, he thought the movie "The Queen" captured the royal family's bewilderment over Diana's death.
"They wondered, 'Why everyone was making such a fuss?' They come from Victorian times. They were brought up with the stiff British upper lip," he said. "And to see the princess crying in public or getting on her knees and hugging children or taking off her gloves and touching AIDS patients — it was like two different eras meeting each other and not knowing what to do."
After Diana's death, he decided to move "across the Pond," where he became a chef for a Dallas family. "They entertain and do a lot of charity work and balls, so it's a lot like my last job. But we don't have 20 cameramen waiting outside the gates." He also teaches cooking classes and maintains a Web site, www.theroyalchef.com.
He said he is now "fluent in Texan," but there was a culinary learning curve — "I was now faced with cooking things like collard greens and grits that I'd never seen before, " he said. "Prince Phillip did a lot of barbecuing at Balmoral Castle, but it was marinated tenderloin — nothing like putting a whole side of beef on the grill and smoking it all day."
He said he has no plans to go back to palace cooking — "Cooking for the Princess was like going out at the top."
FRAMBOISES ST. GEORGE
Members of the Order of the Garter (the highest honor bestowed on a British citizen) gather at Windsor Castle every June. The dessert is often Framboises St. George, after the patron saint of England, and the dessert mimics the flag of St. George, a red cross on a white field.
1 quart (4 cups) fresh raspberries, divided
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
Whipped cream
Puree half the fresh raspberries. Strain through a fine sieve to remove seeds. In a large bowl, whip the heavy cream with the sugar and vanilla until stiff. Without overbeating, carefully fold the raspberry puree into the whipped cream mix.
In a rectangular serving dish, arrange remaining fresh raspberries side by side to make a large red cross in the dish. Lay another layer of raspberries on top. Divide the raspberry-cream mixture into the four corners of the dish, taking care not to disturb the raspberry cross in the center. Using a spatula, smooth the mixture until each of the four quarters is flat.
Place additional whipped cream in a piping bag with a star tube. Highlight the whole raspberry cross by piping small rosettes of cream along each side of the cross. — "Eating Royally," by Darren McGrady
CHILLED TOMATO AND DILL MOUSSE WITH LOBSTER
Diana served this recipe to her guests while she ate a fat-free version.
1/2 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 pound ripe tomatoes, chopped
3 tablespoons finely minced onion
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 small bunch fresh dill, finely chopped
1 1/2 packets unflavored gelatin
1 lemon, halved
6 seven-ounce lobster tails, steamed and split down the center
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 bunch fresh chives, chopped
3 bunches watercress, washed and stems removed
Lightly brush six small ramekins with the vegetable oil. Set aside. In a food processor, puree tomatoes with chopped onion. Strain the pulp into a bowl, pressing on the tomatoes to push as much as possible through the sieve into the bowl. In a separate bowl, combine mayonnaise, sour cream, heavy cream and tomato paste. Fold into the tomato/onion puree. Stir in a pinch of salt and pepper and the dill.
Place the gelatin into a small saucepan, and moisten it with the juice of 1/2 of the lemon. If the lemon doesn't have a lot of juice, you may need to add up to a tablespoon of water. Reserve remaining 1/2 lemon for the lobster vinaigrette. Melt the gelatin over very low heat until it dissolves. Let it cool a moment, and then pour the gelatin into the tomato mousse, mixing as you pour. Taste for salt and pepper.
Pour the finished mixture into the ramekins and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Just before serving, run a small knife around the edge of the mold, dip the ramekin into a bowl of hot water to soften the gelatin and turn out the mousse onto a plate.
Toss the split lobster tails with the olive oil, remaining lemon juice, salt, pepper and chopped chives. Nestle the lobster on a bed of watercress next to the tomato mousse. — "Eating Royally," by Darren McGrady
FAT-FREE CHILLED TOMATO AND DILL MOUSSE
1 pound vine-ripe tomatoes, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped onion
8 ounces fat-free cream cheese
2 tablespoons fat-free sour cream
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 packet unflavored gelatin
1/3 cup fat-free chicken broth
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
Put the tomatoes and onions in a food processor and blend until they become somewhat soupy. Strain through a sieve into a large bowl. Discard the remaining seeds and skins. Whisk in the cream cheese, sour cream and tomato paste until there are no lumps. In a small saucepan, add gelatin, chicken broth and lemon juice. Stir until softened, and then warm the saucepan over low heat until the gelatin has dissolved. Whisk gelatin mixture into the tomato mixture, and season with the salt and pepper to taste.
Fold in the dill, and pour the tomato mousse into six ramekins. Refrigerate until uncovered for at least 2 hours. Serve in the ramekins, or dip the ramekins in hot water, run a knife around the edge of the molds, and invert onto plates. — "Eating Royally," by Darren McGrady
BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING
This was Diana's all-time favorite, so much so that she once had a royal reporter write that "Darren makes the best bread and butter pudding in the world."
3 ounces raisins
1/4 cup Amaretto liqueur (or 1 teaspoon almond extract plus enough water to equal 1/4 cup)
12 slices white bread, crusts removed
1 1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
9 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla paste
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons granulated sugar to dust top of pudding
3 ounces sliced almonds, lightly toasted
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
Soak raisins in Amaretto, leave covered with plastic wrap at room temperature 6-8 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut four slices of the bread into 1/2-inch dice, and spread diced bread on the bottom of a casserole dish. Sprinkle the raisins on top of the bread cubes and pour any remaining liquid over the bread.
Cut the remaining eight slices of bread in half diagonally, and then cut each half slice in half diagonally to create 4 even triangles per slice. Dip triangles into the butter and arrange on top of the raisins, overlapping triangles slightly. Pour any remaining butter over the top of the bread.
Whisk yolks, vanilla paste and sugar in a large bowl until combined. Bring the milk and cream to a boil in a heavy saucepan over high heat, and pour the hot mix onto the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Pour the warm egg mixture over the bread, making sure all of the bread is coated, and set aside for 20 minutes to allow the egg mixture to soak into the bread.
Place the casserole dish in a roasting tray filled with hot water halfway up the sides of the casserole dish, and bake on the middle rack in the oven for 30-45 minutes, or until golden brown on top with the filling just set.
Remove the dish from the oven and roasting tray, and sprinkle with the extra sugar. Broil or use a creme brulee torch to caramelize the sugar. Sprinkle with the toasted sliced almonds, and dust with powdered sugar. Cool slightly and serve warm with a jug of cream and some fresh berries. — "Eating Royally," by Darren McGrady
E-mail: vphillips@desnews.com