The day I made lunch for Prince William

I had a phone call out of the blue from the Poundbury office of the Duchy of Cornwall asking if I might be able to do a sandwich lunch for a meeting 2 days later.  It was a REALLY busy week so I said I wasn’t sure, but I was then told it was for 12 people and was a very high profile meeting.  When I said I could probably just about shoehorn it into my schedule they were grateful and then reiterated that it was very high profile and that if I was familiar with the Duchy of Cornwall then I might have an idea of who would be attending.  Although I thought it probably wouldn’t be actual Prince William I decided to cater as if it was, so I tried to find out about his favourite foods.  I discovered he likes roast chicken, sausage rolls, bananas and chocolate brownies so I tried to incorporate those things into the menu.  I sent them a menu and they chose most of it but left out a few of the sandwich flavours.  I sourced some lovely bloomer loaves from Gilda Bakery in Bishopsbourne, one granary, one white and sliced them not too thickly.  I got some Mr Peppers sausage meat from Macknades in Faversham, roasted a corn-fed chicken with a little sausagemeat stuffing inside and with the rest of the sausage meat I made some sausage rolls.  (As time was very much of the essence with the other events I had throughout the week and at the weekend, I sourced the other ingredients from the supermarket, but went for high quality versions!)  The bread was delicious though not perhaps the easiest to display and the effect was quite rustic, but then that’s my normal style so I didn’t mind too much.  I made 2 of every flavour except the cheddar and chutney and the dill-pickled cucumber which I made 3 each of, so they ended up with 16 sandwiches or 32 halves.  I made 24 sausage rolls and they also had 8 of my curried sweet potato rolls which I just happened to have spare from another of the week’s events.  My son wanted a piece of the action (for potential bragging rights and a small amount of wages) so he made the brownies and then I made the banana cake, which would normally have a demerara sugar crust, but as I had some spare toffee sauce (from another event that week) I drizzled that over the top instead for a bit of extra pzazz  🙂 My daughter wrote out the menu for them which I displayed alongside the food, so it was a real family affair.  I delivered the lunch to Faversham Town FC (I was asked to go early, at least an hour before they ate) and no one there was able to tell me anything, so I left to get on with my other work.  I was in email contact afterwards with a couple of people from the Duchy of Cornwall and they were unable to confirm or deny anything, but they did say how much the lunch was enjoyed and told me they’d used the boxes I brought with me for doggy bags to take the leftovers away with them.  They also said that they would certainly use me again for subsequent meetings, which was nice (I hope they do).  Then finally over a week later when I was back at the club doing lunch for the sponsors, I had it confirmed that Prince William had indeed been there for the meeting and lunch, which I hadn’t quite believed until that point.  So that was a bit of a life moment.

I am now offering this exact menu as one of my finger buffets so that anyone can experience it and say that they’ve eaten like a (future) king!  It’s £16 per person, minimum of 10 people.

PS – Photos courtesy of the D of C.

PPS – I will never shut up about this.