School combines love of food and home's beauty

BEAUTIFUL THINGS: Mary Biggs is starting The Country Cooking School in her Featherston kitchen -- a project combining her love of food, her home and the land.

Mary Biggs' personal philosophy is inspired by a song lyric by Jewel - "if we surround ourselves with beauty, one day we'll become what we see".

With this in mind, the Featherston entrepreneur is starting her latest project based on her favourite 'beautiful things': food, teaching, her 19th century home and expansive garden.

Having run her business, Lavender's Green, specialising in lemon-based comestibles, for 17 years, Mrs Biggs is soon to launch The Country Cooking School, where she will teach people to prepare homely meals from her Underhill Rd kitchen.

Mrs Biggs, a trained chef from Le Cordon Bleu Institute, said the main aims of the cooking school are to build students' confidence in the kitchen, and to encourage relaxation and well-being through the simple act of preparing a roast, casserole or fruit cake.

Adding to the relaxed feel is the location; a sprawling 1860s colonial home on 14 hectares (35 acres), surrounded by hundreds of fruit trees and native birds, on a quiet country road.

"When people come here, they leave feeling relaxed," she said.

"We want people to share good food and local wine, eat among the trees, our cats and the birds and walk away well-fed and entertained.

"If you surround yourself with things which are soothing for the soul, you end up a more content, peaceful person."

Mrs Biggs began Lavender's Green when she and her family relocated to Underhill Rd in the late 1990s, making cordial, preserves and jellies from the copious lemons she found in her back garden and using old family recipes.

The family moved to Melbourne in 2006, where Mrs Biggs continued to run the business, and also worked as assistant chef with the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, helping guest chefs run master classes.

One of the highlights, she said, was working with Nigella Lawson, who she describes as very down to earth.

"She'd come into the class wearing these Louis Vuitton heels, but she'd slip them off and put on a pair of jandals."

Returning to Featherston in December, Mrs Biggs, inspired by her primary school teacher daughter, decided to revive her childhood dream of teaching, and began planning the cooking school.

She looks forward to teaching students how to "forage" for food on her property -- using seasonal vegetables, eggs from the chicken run, watercress from the creek and fruit from the lemon, apple, plum and pear trees.

Meal ideas will be seasonal, and have "lots of colour and herbs", and be simple enough for a modern-day schedule.

She said many people lack confidence when it comes to cooking, so she plans to start with the basics.

"Not everyone was blessed with being able to watch their mother or grandmother in the kitchen.

"There are plenty of simple ways to make delicious food, once you start from the beginning and boil an egg."

For more information, message Mary Biggs at the Lavender's Green Facebook page: www.facebook.com/Lavenders-Green.