In today’s LA Weekly, I revisit an earlier interview with Darren McGrady, former private chef for Princess Diana and a swell guy who donates 100% of the proceeds from his cookbook to charity. This week he shares his recipe for chocolate biscuit cake, a classic British concoction of crushed wafer cookies suspended in a chocolate-butter mousse, then chilled and covered with more chocolate [SCRATCH THAT, turns out his publisher has suddenly recalled the recipe, even from McGrady's own blog -- ah, another bloody $$-driven American company]. Turn the page for the original story.
Continue Reading...
When I talked with Darren McGrady, the Royal Family’s former private chef (and later Princess Diana’s chef — yes, he considers those two very different titles), he told me about cooking for the Queen of the kitchen, as well as his thoughts on the upcoming William and Kate nuptials. And that chocolate cake recipe passed down from Victorian era Royal Family chefs that’s used for birthdays (make the following recipes as a straight layer cake) and special occasions (shape it into a Yule Log). Sure makes that recipe box from grandma lose a bit of its campy charm. Could this be the groom’s cake for William and Kate’s wedding?
Continue Reading...
16 Dec 2010, Posted by admin in MEET, 0 Comments
Darren McGrady’s résumé reads pretty much like your average private chef’s story. He earned a culinary arts degree and trained in a top restaurant kitchen (Savoy Hotel, London) before hitting the private sector — and then you get to that Buckingham Palace line. The Nottinghamshire native worked as a private chef for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh and their guests from 1982 until 1993, when he became Princess Diana’s private chef (until her death in 1997). It was, of course, the sort of job that involved giving everyone the royal treatment, regardless of whether that pheasant with pearl barley risotto was destined for President Clinton’s plate or the Queen’s twelve Welsh corgis.
Continue Reading...
