I had been wondering what to do after returning from my latest job, cooking for horseback trekkers in Outer Mongolia.

Cooking is a great way of seeing remote parts of the world. I told my agent I wanted to see South America. And she found me a job in the Falkland Islands, a bunch of barren rocks of which the only thing I knew was the 1982 conflict.

A friend, who had recently visited, changed my outlook. The beauty she portrayed was the absolute opposite to my war-driven perceptions. Suddenly I wanted to go very badly.

I worked in Port Howard on West Falkland. Robin Lee and his brother, Rodney, owned a farm and Robin had converted the manager’s house into a fishing and wildlife lodge. The farm is 210,000 acres and shears 45,000 sheep and the lodge is the heart of the farm settlement - so farm activities, particularly shearing, always drew guests.

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Watching a gather of 12,000 sheep approaching the settlement with dogs and shepherds at the rear is up there with the best the American West can offer.

The farm also had fabulous sea-trout fishing, with regular catches of 6 to 10 pounders. We spent magical days driving fishermen to the river over the “camp” (countryside, derived from the Gaucho “el campo”). As they cast their Orange Dog Nobblers, Green Woolly Buggers and Willie Gunn floats over the peaty ripples, we prepared lunch.

First you make a small fire with twigs of the native Diddle Dee shrub, then wrap a fresh silver sea-trout, lightly salted, in wet newspaper (brought by our guests, as the weekly paper the Penguin News is only A4) and leave it in the embers until the paper had dried out and the fish was perfectly cooked, with a lovely smoky note.

Sometimes we would mince some meat cut from the mutton hanging in our meat safe (we were given a whole mutton once a week from the farm, and a quarter of beef in the winter) and make patties seasoned with onions and herbs from our garden.

We put them together with a picnic, and would head off into camp. One of the places we would head to was the Gentoo and Rockhopper penguin rookeries that littered the North end of the farm. Watching these enchanting creatures either up to their comical antics in their rookeries, or darting ashore is spellbounding.

The Rockies determinedly hop up the relentless sheer cliffs, yet have such a humour about them. The Gentoos dash ashore on the tide and waddle like playful children across the pristine white beaches heading back to their colonies. Jackass (Magellanic) penguins would appear from their burrows shaking their heads.

Lackadaisical sealions basked in the warmth of the sun in the sand dunes. For lunch, Robin balanced his polished peat spade over the fire embers to cook the burgers, sandwiched in homemade baps and accompanied by slugs of hot shepherd’s rum or cool lager, depending on the weather.

In the evenings, guests gathered together for dinner, which included Loligo squid risotto stained with squid ink, smoked Upland goose breast thinly sliced, butterfly leg of mutton or fish, followed by puddings including home-made teaberry ice-cream.

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