Question Time: Tom Parker Bowles

Work: Food writer for the
Mail on Sunday,
Tatler and now
GQ.

Presents Market Kitchen on UKTV Food.

Life: 34, married with one daughter. Lives in west London.

Balance:Wandering around London and the occasional very gentle jog

Tell us about your new role

I've just joined GQ as a contributing editor and will be writing regular features for them on food, drink, eating out and travel, starting in their September issue.

What fascinates you most about the world of food?

I like cooks who connect with the area they work or live in. People who champion the best of local produce without wagging their finger. Good food cooked by people who are passionate about what they do. So whether it's Mark Hix using local Dorset fish, Stephen Harris in Seasalter, Kent, making his own salt and curing his own ham or Richard Corrigan's beautiful, ballsy Irish influenced food, they all fascinate me.

Has growing up in the media eye affected your personal life?

I have a very lucky life and any trouble I've got into was always entirely my own fault. There's no point moaning or blaming the newspapers. You have to be responsible for your own actions. And if you're doing something that you shouldn't be, and you're caught, then you have to be prepared to take the flack. A famous name opens doors, but slams them shut too. You just have to do everything to the best of your abilities.

Any culinary guilty pleasure?

I don't really have any secrets. I like the occasional McDonald's cheeseburger and all sorts of junk. But I do, on the whole, try to buy food from small producers, in season where possible. One has to be pragmatic. I love lemons, pepper and olive oil, amongst other imported things, and am not going to stop eating them just because they're imported.

What's best about your job?

Eating and drinking for a living. And chefs, on the whole, are a fine bunch of people.

And what's worst?

My ever-expanding gut.

What are your desert island media?

The New Yorker, Empire and Private Eye.