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Princess Di exhibit in Naples to close with bang
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 She liked coffee, bread pudding and tomato mousse filled with mayonnaise and heavy cream.
The late Diana, Princess of Wales, didn't start out eating healthy, and her bout with bulimia was splashed across tabloids worldwide.
But she learned to exercise regularly and eat healthy, finding a fondness for pureed veggie drinks and stuffed eggplant and bell peppers later with the help of chef Darren McGrady.
"For the first five or six years, she was eating all the wrong foods," he says of his 15 years cooking for the most photographed woman of the world. "Then she confronted the bulimia she was suffering in the hopes others would be helped. Then I took over, got her life back on track and eating healthy."
McGrady, 48, was a senior chef at Buckingham Palace and Princess Diana's personal chef until her death in 1997.
Like a surprise dessert at the end of a long meal, McGrady will be featured in a special "Dine Like Royalty" event at the Hilton Naples on June 27.
The shindig sweetens the closing of The von Liebig Art Center's three-month "Princess Diana: Dresses of Inspiration" exhibition.
People have been savoring the art center's exhibition, featuring dresses and memorabilia from Princess Diana and other British royals never before shown in the United States.
With one month before closing, more than 20,000 people had visited the exhibit since March 13, says Joel Kessler, art center executive director.
"It's incredible," Kessler says. "They just keep coming. Every day I look out the window and there's a group waiting on the deck. This time of year, it's terrific."
The chef, along with the Hilton Naples and Shula's Steakhouse culinary team, will prepare and serve an elegant six-course wine and dining experience featuring recipes from McGrady's cookbook "Eating Royally: Recipes and Remembrances from a Palace Kitchen."
It will start with a champagne toast. A sommelier will present wine with each course.
"Any excuse for a party, right?" says event organizer Marianna Foggin. "No, it raises money for three very good causes."
Local breast cancer patients through Bosom Buddies and the NCH Hospital Foundation as well as The von Liebig will benefit from proceeds.
McGrady will prepare two of the courses and be shown through live video feed from a prep area displayed on large screens, so all guests may see and hear him.
While cooking, he will share his amusing insights as a royal chef.
When he cooked for Queen Elizabeth and family at Buckingham Palace, he and the other chefs would write menu suggestions for three meals a day - including tea, of course - three days in advance. The queen would cross a line through anything she didn't like.
Sometimes Diana would scribble in something she wanted, like that bread pudding.
McGrady cooked for Diana while she and her family lived in Kensington Palace, before and after she and Charles separated.
He remembers how Diana would pop in the kitchen and eat lunch there.
"One day, she popped her head in and said, 'No lunch today, Darren. I'm going to see a little boy with AIDS.' That sort of stopped me in my tracks," McGrady says.
When Diana realized how much she could help by simply spending a few minutes with those less fortunate, she started doing it all the time.
It inspired McGrady, who hadn't done any charity work growing up or while working at Buckingham Palace, to follow in her footsteps.
Similarly, he takes the high road when it comes to sharing Diana stories.
McGrady won't answer questions about Diana's last meal; if she was pregnant when she died or if he ever cooked for Dodi Al Fayed, Diana's paramour who died in the car crash along with her; or for Camilla, the "other woman" Charles saw while married to Diana.
"I've been doing this long enough where I know how to field those questions," he says.
Instead, McGrady wants to use his talents and royal connections to help others in the same way Diana did.
He's not getting paid for his visit to Naples, and his advance for his "Eating Royally" cookbook as well as royalties go to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
"Two of her main causes were children and AIDS, so I put the two together," he says.
After Diana died, McGrady respectfully declined Charles' offer to work for him and decided to move his family to the United States, becoming a private chef in Dallas, home when he's not attending special events.
Besides cooking for well-to-do families and their large-scale philanthropic events, he's an author, culinary consultant, event planner and public speaker.
McGrady has broadened his culinary roots from his classic French training and traditional British fare to add Cajun, Creole and barbecue touches, plus whatever he picks up through travel.
"Obviously since moving to Texas I found the barbecue. Grilling became a hobby of mine. I love slow cooking brisket for 10 to 12 hours with wood and coals," he says.
Southern food?
"Collard greens and grits - I'd never heard of or seen them before, so that was an experience," McGrady says, laughing. "Whenever I travel, I'm always on the lookout for new recipes."
There's more than one version of dishing to be had at the Hilton Naples event.
Richard Dalton, Diana's exclusive hairdresser for 10 years, will share his insights about the princess, too.
Dalton met a 17-year-old Lady Diana while he was the hairdresser for her sisters, Lady Jane and Lady Sarah.
He cut and styled her hair almost daily for nearly 12 years after Diana married.
Dalton also gave Prince William and Prince Harry their first haircuts and continued to cut their hair for many years.
"I was so lucky to have seen how the princess changed people's lives, just with little things," McGrady says. "She's inspired me to go out there. I want to do that."
Soure: news-press |
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