My interest in cooking started with making cakes in the holidays as a child, progressing to family dinner parties (with my sister) when I was a teenager. I hope this doesn't sound like a little master chef, I wasn't. It was just that my mother let us have free range in the kitchen! The culinary metamorphosis of Australian eating habits has been a great influence on my cooking style. We were changing from Anglo-Celtic ones to eager adoption of the exciting and delicious foods brought by post war migrants.

Since training at the Cordon Blue in London, concentrating on mainly the English and French styles, I cooked professionally in Australia, Italy and the USA, where I was influenced by other European cuisines as well as American and Asian. Now, like many, the demands of daily family life has brought its culinary challenges too!

I get a lot of pleasure out of using every day ingredients, when they are in season, and making the most of their potential. I am particularly fond of enhancing food simply by using fresh herbs, and like the end result to look simple, elegant and uncomplicated. Taste is all important and choosing the right cooking technique for each ingredient is vital. Good food should not be intimidating. Preparation beforehand is everything, as well as choosing a menu to suit the occasion, the kitchen and the cook.

My current class programme centres on cooking techniques, offering you the chance to pick up the skills I have acquired over 25 years of professional cooking. I take familiar foods and try to show how to cook and present them so that they are stylish yet uncomplicated.

Examples of constantly popular subjects are -
Breadmaking Skills - Home-made Pasta - Tackling Fresh Fish - Cooking Game - Butchery and Meat Cooking - Making the Most of Vegetables - Pastry Making - Dinner Party Desserts - Cooking with Fresh Herbs - Imaginative Barbecues.

Perhaps the most important element of my teaching of good cooking is encouraging cooks to find the very best quality ingredients, and then prepare them themselves for the table. Here in the Marches - on the borders of England and Wales - we have a great agricultural tradition and are experiencing an amazing renaissance of dedicated food producers who are constantly raising the standards of meats, dairy products, fruit and vegetables etc. etc.

I hope my enthusiasm for flavoursome and imaginative home made food will spur others on to achieve the same without compromising on quality. I offer many tips to make it all less daunting, so your dinner parties run smoothly and enjoyably. Whether it is family meals, casual food for Sunday lunches or something a little more formal and needing extra effort, my classes should inspire you, build your confidence and help to hone your cooking skills. And you'll be better prepared for what it's all for - namely thoroughly enjoyable cooking, eating and entertaining.