King Charles III will usher in a "completely different era" than the one during the reign of his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, her former personal chef Darren McGrady told Newsmax.
"We all know that he loves his political views and jumping on, and that's something the queen never did," McGrady, who spent "11 years with the queen, rattling the pans," said on Newsmax's "National Report."
He also said he doesn't think the newly crowned king and his wife, the new queen consort, will move into Buckingham Palace, but he'll remain at Clarence House.
"I think Buckingham Palace will open to the public and will just be used for things like state banquets, so it's a new era," said McGrady.
Meanwhile, the loss of the queen, who died Thursday at the age of 96, is also a loss to the world, said McGrady, recalling spending years in the royal kitchens cooking meals and afternoon tea for the queen and her family.
"Over those years, I got to see the pomp and pageantry that we all saw. But behind those palace gates I got to see the queen, you know, close and personal," he said. "When she came into the kitchen and said thank you for a lovely meal, you know that just made you feel so special. She was an incredible lady."
He also recalled the first time he met with Queen Elizabeth was at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, the same place where she died.
"We had just done lunch. I was walking along the path alongside the River Dee and coming in the other direction was a lady with a headscarf and Wellingtons and as she got closer, I thought, "That's the queen,'" said McGrady. "She had 12 corgis with her at the time, and I thought, 'I'm finally going to meet the queen.' As we got closer, the dogs saw me and started barking and all just started running towards me; all I could hear but the barking was the queen laughing at me running away."
The queen was always happy at her home in the Scottish Highlands, said McGrady, who said he even got to dance with her "many times" while he was there.
"[She was with] Prince Phillip, Prince Charles; and the big beaming smile on her face showed how happy she was up there," he said.
Many people want to hear what the queen liked to eat, he added, but it wasn't always champagne and caviar, as people would think.
"That's what I thought when I started working there, 'It's going to be champagne, caviar and foie gras every day.' But it's not," said McGrady. "The queen was very frugal. She grew up in the war years. I know one chef that sent up some smoked salmon and scrambled eggs with a whole lemon garnish. It looked beautiful. Today it would have been Instagrammed, but the queen sent the lemon back to the kitchen; took a little squeeze, sent it back to the kitchen and said, 'I'm sure you can use this for something else. This is a waste, that's not frugal.'"
The queen also loved dark chocolate; and every year, for 70 years, she had the same chocolate birthday cake "every year not once, but twice a year. The queen was a lucky queen. She had two birthdays, and every year was the same chocolate cake that dated back to Queen Victoria."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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