I AM writing to you this week from the depths of darkest New Jersey, which is the last place in the world that I ever expected to find myself. I was meant to be sunning myself in Sea Island Georgia but due to matters beyond my control this did not materialise. Cindy and I were meant to be meeting up in Boston and then flying on to Savannah, and then driving to Sea Island for some quality R & R for a week.

The idea for this trip came about because Cindy (who lives in London) has been quite sick for several months and has been undergoing some very nasty, radical treatments. As her brother had recently bought a house in Sea Island she thought it would be a fabulous idea if the two of us just went and hung out for a while and she could try and regain some of her strength.

The powers that be had other thoughts. She hadn't been in Boston for more than a few hours when she got the phone call that all mothers fear the most. Her son had been in a horrific accident and the emergency room doctors discovered he had a clot in his brain. Of course she was on the next plane back to London.

Poor, poor Cindy. How can all these terrible thing happen to one person? It is just so inconceivable and so very unfair to have to endure all these back-to-back personal tragedies. She is a brick and I know that she will come through all of this in the end and that her sweet son Ben will be fine. At the moment though it is a very testing time.

Still feeling a little shell-shocked after dropping Cindy off at the airport, I found myself in limbo and ? in a manner of speaking ? all dressed up with nowhere to go and a suitcase full of beachwear. I had no success whatsoever in making contact with any of my American friends no matter where they lived. It seemed that the entire lot were away or maybe they had caller ID and could see me coming!

I knew that my great friend Nancy was up here from Bermuda seeing her daughter and, luckily, only the day before I had taken down her cell phone number. Eureka! I managed to get in touch with her and she told me not to worry, everything would be OK and she would rescue me from this horrible dilemma that I was currently experiencing. I should take a bus to Springfield where she would meet me and, most exciting of all, she was driving to her sister's house in New Jersey where Amy, my childhood friend from boarding school, just happened to be spending the weekend. Nancy has been trying to get Amy and me together for probably the last 25 years but for one reason or another, usually due to bad timing, this has never happened and I haven't set eyes on the dear girl since my wedding in 1979.

It's remarkable how sometimes something good comes out of something bad. This was definitely very, very good and the best thing that has happened to me in a long while. It's amazing, isn't it, that when you have a great friend that you haven't seen in a long while that the years just seem to melt away and it's as if it were yesterday. On our second night in New Jersey and without having drawn breath (apart from sleeping) for 48 hours we decided to go and try out a new Italian restaurant. And this is when the real fun began. The girls were all chattering away and I decided to go up to the bar and have a quick puff of a dreaded ciggie. Since arriving in the States I had been most abstemious on this front due to some of the tougher anti-smoking laws of the land. However New Jersey allows you to pollute the atmosphere in the bar area, so off I went to do just that. I was just in mid-deep inhalation when a man who had his back to me decided to move his bar stool and in so doing put the stool leg on my foot and then proceeded to sit down. This guy was no lightweight and the leg of the stool was like a javelin being thrust into my foot. I let out one almighty yell, which brought the entire restaurant to a standstill and made this unfortunate man leap out of his seat as if he had just sat on a hornet's nest.

He couldn't have been more apologetic if he'd tried. Could he buy me a drink? Could he do anything in fact to make up for virtually crippling me for life? I assured him that I'd be fine although I would no doubt have a rather large bar stool bruise on my foot the next day, which even for me would be a first. I rushed back to the table to recount my story to the girls.

One of them recognized him as a friend of a friend and of course it wasn't long before he joined our table and only another 12 hours before we joined him on his absolutely gorgeous 52-foot Hinckley yawl yacht! This was definitely one for the books and I would have gladly had my other foot annihilated just for the privilege of spending some time on what must be one of the finest pieces of racing machinery made, the Rolls Royce of the yachting world. It just goes to show that although cigarette smoking can be hazardous to your health you just never know whom you'll meet in a vaporous cloud of carbon monoxide! We had such a fabulous time and ended up spending the night on the boat, which was almost like a night at the Ritz. And so the fun continues. Jersey isn't Sea Island, Georgia, not what I had been anticipating at all. But it's certainly been an adventure to be reckoned with.

The recipes that I have found for this weeks column are so easy, wonderfully colourful and extremely flavoursome with a big hint of springtime in all of them. They would be perfect for lunch or a light supper.

Prawns with Cannellini Beans, Mint Oil and Pine Nuts

Serves 4

? cup mint leaves, ? cup toasted pine nuts, ? cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 pound medium, raw shrimp, peeled, de-veined, tails intact, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, ? pound mixed salad leaves (arugula, baby spinach etc.) 425g can cannelloni beans Place the mint and 2 tablespoons of the pine nuts in a food processor with 2 tablespoons warm water and 1/3 cup olive oil.

Process until smooth and season with salt and pepper. Toss prawns with 1-tablespoon olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Heat a frying pan over high heat and add the prawns, frying for 1 minute on each side or until just cooked through. Mix the remaining oil and lemon juice seasoning with salt and pepper. Toss the dressing through the leaves, the pile onto plates. Toss together prawns, beans and the mint oil and serve on top of the leaves scattering with the remaining pine nuts.

6 skinless chicken breast fillets, 3 cloves garlic, crushed, 4 tablespoons orange marmalade, zest and juice of 1 orange, 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, 1 ? cups chicken stock, watercress, orange slices, olives, thinly sliced red onion and low fat feta to serve Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Season chicken with salt and pepper.

Place garlic, marmalade, orange zest and butter in a bowl and beat with a fork to combine. Place chicken in a roasting tin, spread orange mixture over the chicken and cover pan with foil. Place in oven and cook for 10 minutes, then remove foil and cook for a further 10-15 minutes or until cooked through.

Remove from the oven and set aside. Add juice and stock to the roasting pan and stir over low heat until reduced and sticky, then pour over the chicken. Serve alongside a salad of watercress, orange slices, olives, red onions and crumbled feta. Coriander and Corn Omelette Rolls Serves 2 4 eggs, 4-ounce can corn kernels, rinsed and drained, 1 tablespoon light soy sauce, 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon Thai green curry paste, 1 red chilli, seeds removed and finely sliced, 6 scallions, finely sliced, 1 cup coriander leaves plus extra for garnish, sweet chilli sauce (from a bottle) to serve Place the eggs, corn and soy sauce in a bowl with 2 tablespoons water and mix to combine. Heat ? tablespoon of the oil in a small non-stick frying pan over a medium heat.

Add half the egg mixture to cover the base of the pan, cooking until set. Carefully remove from the pan and keep warm. Repeat with the remaining mixture. Place the omelettes on a chopping board and spread the green curry paste over each, sprinkling the scallion and chilli over the top, reserving a little of each for garnish, followed by the coriander.

Roll each omelette up tightly, then cut in half on the diagonal. Place each omelette on a serving plate, garnish with remaining scallion, coriander and chilli and serve with a little bowl of the sweet chilli sauce.

4 fish fillets weighing about 6-ounces each, 1 small onion chopped, 3 garlic cloves, crushed, 2 long green chillies, seeds removed, chopped, 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger, juice of 2 limes, ? cup coconut milk, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1 teaspoon sugar, coriander leaves to garnish Avocado Salad ? 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1/3 cup olive oil, inner leaves of a Romaine lettuce, 2 ripe avocados cut into large dice, 1 punnet sprouting mung beans For the salad, place lemon juice and olive oil in a small bowl, season to taste and whisk to combine.

Toss avocado and lettuce with dressing, divide between serving bowls and garnish with sprouting beans. To cook the fish, cut 3 deep slashes in the flesh of the fish on both sides. Place all remaining ingredients apart from the coriander garnish in a food processor and process until smooth. Preheat grill to high, place the fish on a baking tray, pour over the spice mixture and grill for 4-5 minutes on each side or until cooked through. Place fish on plates, garnish with coriander and serve a bowl of the avocado salad on the side.