Russ
Hudson entered the air force on a dare. It led him to a military career
that included in-flight cookery for the Royal Family and former Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau. He has autographed menus from the Queen Mum and
Trudeau.
“I
don’t have a picture with the royal family, protocol wouldn’t allow
that,” he said. Hudson does have a couple of himself with Trudeau on
board his aircraft, one where the former PM is in his sweats.
Hudson
was in junior high he said, enjoying an outdoor picnic lunch with his
girlfriend in a park near their Winnipeg school. “We’d just finished
lunch and this military aircraft flew over, it said RCAF under the
wings,” he recalled, telling her perhaps that’s the career path he
would take. She responded with a “you wouldn’t dare.” The next day,
two weeks before his 17th birthday, he signed on. “So I did it on a
dare,” he said with a laugh. “I put the uniform on and never took it
off for 29 years.”
Hudson’s
biological father was a Spitfire pilot, lost over the English Channel just
after the war. So perhaps the love of aircraft was in his blood.
“I’ve
been around airplanes all my career,” Hudson said, sipping tea in the
lounge at the Shoal Centre.
In
the fall of 1978 he was offered, and accepted, the job as attendant on
military passenger jets.
“I
flew the line for years,” he said, referring to the long regular flights
that criss-crossed Canada and overseas to Germany. Then he got a call from
the CO of the squadron. The flight attendant assigned to the Royal Family
had been in a serious accident.
“He
called me into his office and said ‘you’re going on the royal
tour,’” Hudson recalled.
“The
reason I was selected was because I was a chef,” he added. “It has
served me well in getting premier jobs in the aviation world.”
Hudson
worked more than three years with the Royal Family, including the Queen of
England and her mother. Because of protocol surrounding the Queen, Hudson
didn’t get to know her well, but enjoyed time spent with the Queen Mum.
“We
hit it off really really good,” he said, remembering conversations about
growing up on the farm, and her favourite Corgi dogs. “We travelled all
over the world, all the Commonwealth countries of course.”
The
reason Hudson was chosen for the assignment was because he was a chef.
Around that time he also became personal chef for then Prime Minister
Trudeau.
“It
was almost three years with him,” Hudson recalled. “I didn’t do a
lot of line flying [after that]. I was dedicated to VIP flying.”
Those
flights took significant preparation
“I
had to design the menus here in Canada then fly them over to her chef,”
he said. Then two weeks before a slated flight, Hudson would travel to
Buckingham Palace himself, to prepare.
With
the Royal Family he would head to Hyde Market with undercover Bobbies in
tow and then the food would then be scrutinized by security.
“From
raw food at the grocery store to the plate, there were a lot of steps,”
he said.
Cooking
in-flight didn’t entail precooking portions and packaging it up for
reheating on the plane, “everything was cooked fresh on the airplane,”
Hudson explained.
Around
that time was also when he flew with the prime minister, and recalls
Trudeau as “a workaholic on the plane.”
“A
brilliant man, loved his country with a passion. We spent lots of hours
talking in the plane state room,” Hudson said. “He was the kind of guy
who respected people around him.”
As
the chef, Hudson was responsible at times to select a handful of fresh
roses for Trudeau’s boutonniere.
“That
was his signature item. Anytime he was in public he’d wear a rose in his
lapel,” Hudson said. Though the chef would bring a selection of about
five roses, only one could be worn, the rest went to the female flight
attendants, Hudson recalls.
“Mr.
Trudeau was a cedar plank salmon guy,” Hudson said without hesitation.
“I used to do it with a maple balsamic glaze. It’s my own creation.”
The
PM was surrounded by fancy buffets and dinners worldwide so “sometimes
it was keep it simple on the plane,” Hudson said. Once he made a caribou
ragu, simply because Trudeau wanted to try the meat as it was a mainstay
of the Inuit people he spent time with.
Hudson
remembers the former prime minister’s sons Michel and Sacha Trudeau as
babies. “I was sitting holding these kids when they were babies,” he
said. “He loved his boys with a passion … the best was when he’d
throw the press off the plane and enjoy family time.”
“I’m
anxiously following Justin [Trudeau’s] career,” he added. “It’s my
personal opinion he would make a good prime minister, because he already
has the intellect of his father.” Justin Trudeau was elected a Member of
Parlaiment for the riding of Papineau, Quebec during the recent federal
election.
Another
high point in his career came when Hudson was chosen for the honour of
preparing and leading culinary teams to the Culinary Olympics in Germany.
“I
was really determined to get the military involved in it,” he said. They
spent a year planning and training in Lahr, Germany. In the end the teams
took two medals. The A-team got gold and the B-team silver, Hudson said.
“Now all those kids are career cooks in the military across the
nation.”
Later,
Hudson spent time teaching the culinary arts at Okanagan Valley College in
Kelowna, Northern Lights in Dawson Creek and Selkirk College in Nelson.
He
wound up back in Calgary working as a chef at a couple of care homes and
with commercial airlines then one day cohort Ray Martin drew him a picture
of the plane he’d flown in BC. “I thought I’d died and gone to
heaven. It was a beautiful airplane,” Hudson said.
The
job was so plush, he’s got to stay hush. Hudson can’t talk much about
the job that brought him to the Peninsula five years ago. He was a chef on
a corporate jet — the kind that attracts the ‘jet set’.
Mise
en place is never so critical as when you’re cooking in a galley
thousands of miles off the ground.
“You’re
the cook, you’re the server, you’re the dishwasher, you’re basically
by yourself,” he said. “When you leave the ground, if you forget
something you can’t go back. I lived by checklists.”
That’s
part of the reason that menus and shopping lists were worked up well in
advance. “It was so critical to the success of our flights,” he said.
“You can’t go to the corner grocery store because you forgot the
milk.”
“If
you forgot a small item you can’t run to the grocer to pick it up,
it’s happened to me,” he said.
With
the last company he worked for, Hudson recalls a flight of movie stars
where he couldn’t fulfill all the requests of the VIPs. “It was
demanding for me and for my employer,” he said.
Hudson
retired for the third time about two years ago.
At
the time he had a scroll saw sitting in storage and discovered a wood
working shop at the Shoal Centre. It was there that he met manager Judy
Wiggins who was looking to fill the head role in the kitchen.
Hudson
began working part time about 15 months ago at the Shoal Centre, and took
over as food service manager and executive chef late last year. Now he’s
responsible for the dining at the centre as well as the new Tuck Shop with
famous ginger scones and the fabulous food at the monthly dining and
entertainment event, An Evening at the Shoal.
“An
Evening at the Shoal is a constant sellout,” he said, attributing the
culinary success to teamwork.
“I
have a great team in the kitchen,” he said. “What happens around here
they make happen.” That would include sous chef Paul Marshall, and
George Coathups as well as servers Marge Clancy, Deborah McCarroll and
Gurdeep Bharaj. “You’re only as good as the team around you,” he
added. “I’m the kind of chef who, if I won’t do it myself I don’t
expect anyone else to.”
Though
he originally came out of retirement — again — for the position,
Hudson says he’s loving every minute of it. Plus he’s become attached
to the area.
“I
love Sidney with a passion, nothing will get me to leave,” he said,
noting there have been some job offers. “We’ve become a real family
here … It’s not just the cooking, it’s the interacting with the
residents that I love.”
reporter@peninsulanewsreview.com
