KEY POINTS:
Despite several sad and desperate pleas, Tom Parker Bowles, son of Camilla Duchess of Cornwall and stepbrother to Prince William, insists he has no gossip for the women's magazines.
Parker Bowles, 32, arrived in New Zealand this week on board an Air New Zealand flight, which he proclaims
to be the best airline in the world due to the service in business class.
"The service is so good because you get Kiwi service," he said.
However, he says the food, like all airlines, was not the best. "I wish airlines would stop being clever and stop trying to do grand dining and fine dining and just do things you want to eat."
Parker Bowles tip: tabasco sauce, applied liberally to whatever is served - a great antidote to the tastebuds, which are shot at that altitude.
His arrival, his second visit to New Zealand, is to promote his second book, The Year of Eating Dangerously, and to take part in Christchurch's annual Savour New Zealand, this weekend.
Leaving the toff label well behind him, Parker Bowles is an open, warm and genuinely charming person, albeit a bit ruffled after his long flight.
Willing to talk at length about organic and regional produce, Parker Bowles is a man passionate about food and serious about carving out a career based on ability and not nepotism.
He is genuinely tickled by his own achievements and takes delight in describing how he saw his book in a store on Queen St that afternoon.
Parker Bowles says in Britain he will switch his book, if he finds it at the back of a store, to a more prominent place at the front - a trick other food writers have told him about.
"I've always been greedy and to put that into some sort of living is absolutely brilliant." His name has opened doors but Parker Bowles is wary of the fame and celebrity his position brings.
"I've seen it with my mum, so the last thing I want to do is be recognised, you just want to plug what you're doing."
Parker Bowles says if he could not deliver the goods he would have been shown the door a long time ago by Conde Naste, the publisher of Tatler magazine, in which he has written a monthly food column for six years, and the Mail on Sunday, where he has written a weekly column for the past four years.
Parker Bowles' passion for food extends to cookbooks and he can be found scouring secondhand book stores for old recipe books.
"I'm a total freak about them, I spend my whole time in secondhand book stores looking for obscure 1920s books on English food."
He is often sent books - "there is a hell of a lot of crap that comes out" - and kitchen gadgets. "I tend to get tons of crap. If I get one more pineapple peeler, I'll go mad. They all go to charity shops."
His passion for good food is seeing him make a well-earned name for himself in his own right, not that he pretends to have all the answers.
"Organic isn't the answer to everything by any stretch of the imagination. But the key to organic is an inherently sustainable system of agriculture."
His stepfather, Prince Charles, is "scarily clued up" on sustainable farming, he says.
"I'm a bit more tainted, but he really knows his stuff."
He is at pains to stress he is not trying to be bossy, he just wants to spread the message that organic and seasonal food give more bang for their buck.
Parker Bowles says in France and Italy everyone eats well because people know how to make the most of food.
Parker Bowles plans to keep writing, with a book on chillies the next one planned.
Impending fatherhood will provide new inspiration for writing, he says.
"Baby food" will be the genesis of many food column ideas, he says.
He has been careful about offering advice about the dietary requirements of his wife, Sara Buys, a fashion editor.
"Whenever I start offering advice I'm told where to go."
Despite his easy manner Parker Bowles is pragmatic about the interest in him. "A lot of the interest and stuff, if you didn't have the name ... you have to realise why people want to talk to you and having your foot in the door you have to make the most of having the door open." There is no point in saying "how unfair", he says.
If people only see him for who he is related to then "big deal", he says.
"You have a platform to speak your mind and you just hope you come across well and not entirely half-baked."
He is conscious of it though and has learnt to become more "savvy over the years. You know exactly if you say certain things they would be picked up, so you try not to start giving the whole story of anything because if my mother hasn't done it, it's not for me to start telling her views."
Parker Bowles says there is a thin line and he does not want to totally exploit it, but he has a book to sell.
It's in that delicate balance that he then speaks of a "mad keen gardener" for a father and a mother "always very good at roasting".
He admits to liking "crap food" as well but tries to limit his intake of McDonald's.
Putting his own culinary skills on display for New Zealand's gliteratti is making him worried but also the calibre of guest at Savour New Zealand.
"You're talking to people who know more than you do about food."
* The Year of Eating Dangerously, by Tom Parker Bowles. Published by Ebury Press, distributed in NZ by Random Books, $27.99.
- NZPA
