The Royal Chef At Home: Easy Seasonal Entertaining

SPOTLIGHT Superfoods & Healthy Cooking

E very year it seems there is a new ingredient to try or an old one reinterpreted in a new way. That makes my work interesting though I tend to both embrace and be occasionally skeptical of hot new food “trends.” My training taught me to believe that good food is good food always, no matter the era. I do remain strongly in favor of sane eating—bacon just doesn’t belong in everything. I was at the store just yesterday and they were sampling ice cream with bacon bits. Yikes!

When people find out that I worked in the Royal kitchens for Queen Elizabeth and then for Princess Diana they think I cooked rich, indulgent food all the time. Quite the opposite. The royal family’s good health comes from meals that are largely organic, amazingly local and prepared very simply. Of course, the Royal family still occasionally dined on traditional French recipes, many laden with heavy cream and lots of butter. But they were disciplined and only ate small portions. When I started cooking for Princess Diana I almost had to throw my recipe book out of the palace gates. She had confronted and conquered bulimia (which she had long struggled with) and had her life back on track. She said, “Darren, I want you to take care of the fats and I will burn

off the carbs at the gym.” I started looking at replacements for cream and butter and with her interest in healthy eating, I was always on the look out for healthy ingredients. While I am not a slave to nutritional advice, I am interested in food that is both good and good for you. There has been a lot of focus of late on so-called “superfoods” i.e. foods that are nutritionally dense, delivering lots of vitamins and minerals. The Princess would have loved them. Looking through the list each year I’m reminded that we usually already know what good food is. Color is a clue—deep reds in wild salmon and apples, pomegranate seeds and chiles, greens in all leafy vegetables like collard, kale and spinach, and blues in blackberries and blueberries. Even orange and yellow including

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