DANVILLE -- Darren McGrady's 15 years as chef to England's royal family are filled with a wealth of stories and memories.

Among the more noteworthy is the time he danced with the late Princess Diana at a royal function, while his father stood on the sidelines, holding the Princess of Wales' purse.

Or the time he and a colleague planned to ambush Diana's sons, Princes William and Harry, with water guns after the boys soaked the royal kitchen.

McGrady regaled an audience of about 250 people at the Henry Hood Center for Health Research at Geisinger Medical Center Sunday with these and other tales of his time at Buckingham and Kensington palaces.

He was there as part of a program Geisinger put on to promote healthy eating for the holidays, as well as to promote a book he released last year, "Eating Royally," that contains recipes of the nobles' favorite meals.

After serving as chef to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh for 11 years, McGrady moved to Kensington Palace -- Diana's home -- in 1993 and became personal chef to the princess and her sons.

In one of his first encounters with Princess Diana, McGrady said he lost his cool when she came into the kitchen asked for a dessert he didn't have prepared.

"I thought, Me, and Princess Diana. Just me and her. She called me Darren,'" he told the chuckling audience Sunday. "She soon realized that I was this buffoon she could just come into the kitchen and laugh at."

McGrady's humorous stories about his interactions with the princess painted a picture of a charming, exceptionally caring person.

After Diana was killed in a car crash in 1997, McGrady was offered the chance to be personal chef to Prince Charles, but he turned it down.

"I felt I was going out on top, that I was the princess's chef," he said. "(Her death) was an incredible shock. You're cooking for a woman who's 36 years old, you feel like you're going to work there forever."

Diana's legacy of supporting various charities inspired McGrady to donate all the profits he made from his book to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, a tribute to two of the princess's favorite causes: AIDS and children.

Shortly before her death, Diana auctioned off 75 of her old dresses, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity, a fact she marveled at with McGrady.

"I thought, How cool would it be to put down the royal family's favorite recipes?'" he said. "And then I could tell the princess, Look how much money I raised just by selling a book of recipes' ... I never did anything for charity till I met the princess."