Cookery Class With Di Holuigue

The hands-on format starts the minute you call. Each participant is asked to give input into what the menu might include - not just the dishes, but the techniques youd like to master to be a comfortable, confident cook in your own home.

Be it making Italian risotto, roasting the best crisp-skinned duck, feeling at home with French soufflé-making and complex sauces, insight into the new 'fusion' of cutting edge Australian cuisine, a Thai or Moroccan dish, delicate fish dishes, puff pastry or a classy, made-in-advance dessert, Di will find a like-minded group for you.

Your class starts at 9.30am and its all hands on deck to cook a sumptuous, four-course sit-down lunch with wine. When we wrap up at 3.30pm, the students will have had a full 6 hours to learn as much as possible from Dis skills, talents and years of experience.

Initially trained at Le Cordon Bleu Paris, and LEcole Le Nôtre, Paris (pâtisserie and charcuterie), Diane continually augments this outstanding grounding with classes around the world, and in the kitchens of famous chefs, including those of Michel Guérard, Freddy Girardet, Roger Vergé, Alain Senderens, La Tour d Argent, Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck.

Di has been food editor of several national magazines, among them Home Beautiful, Epicurean, The Australian Magazine, Ita and the Sunday Herald Magazine. She is currently cooking columnist for The Age/Sydney Morning Herald Good Weekend, and for 2 years was resident chef on the national TV programme Good Morning Australia.