SARAH HUDSON meets the driving force behind a renowned Woodend cooking school.

Back in the '80s, Diana Marsland was one of Melbourne's "famous five".

"There was Beverley Sutherland-Smith, Elizabeth Chong, Meera Freeman, The French Kitchen and myself," says Diana.

"We were the major cooking schools and the Food and Wine Festival dubbed us the famous five. There was great camaraderie between us."

Unluckily for Melbourne - but lucky for country Victoria - Diana upped stumps and left the big smoke for Woodend 12 years ago, where she now runs her school.

Walking around the kitchen garden that surrounds her 1860s home-cum-school, Diana may have left this epicentre of gastronomy behind, but she is still very much the matriarch of the kitchen.

"The house was derelict when I first bought it and so I've done a lot of work to it. In 2000 I established this kitchen garden," she says, picking some wild rocket and chewing it.

"I've always been about food, wine and gardens. It's my great love."

Indeed, having recently celebrated her 70th birthday, Diana is busier than ever.

She's only recently returned from Cambodia and Vietnam, and next week, she says, she is off to China, all for her global cooking tours.

Then there's her workshops and cooking classes for her corporate clients, which incorporate cooking and gardening skills.

She's heavily involved in the slow food movement of central Victoria.

And of course, she still conducts her hands-on classes for the public, albeit about five times a year.

"After 30 years of working I have chosen to do a few things differently. In 2005 I had breast cancer and so I had to change."

Diana grew up in Melbourne and worked as a nurse while nurturing her food skills, which included a stint studying at London's Cordon Bleu in the '60s as well as William Angliss.

"Even though I was nursing I knew I was heading towards food. I always said when I was 40 I wanted to start a cooking school.

"In those days it was fun. You could do anything you wanted."

In September 1981 she ran her first class, which was immediately booked out.

Each subsequent class was equally as popular: "I quit my nursing job and I was off and running."

Aside from classes, which initially focused on French cooking but now lean more to Italian, Diana also established a name for bringing international guest chefs to Australia: Joanne Weir, from the US, "Italian Gourmet" Diane Seed and UK celebrity chef Valentina Harris.

Out of this evolved her own globe-trotting foodie tours, not just internationally, but also to celebrate local food, including a "Fork to Fork - garden to plate" tour of the Western District.

These days Diana says she's keen to focus on her own Woodend garden.

She walks to a shrub with giant green fronds.

"This is a cardoon, or an artichoke thistle, and Italians love to blanche the stalks - not the leaves - and then mix it with egg, flour and parmesan, make it into balls and cook it."

Then she plucks what look like fat four-leaf clovers, which cover a large section of her lawn.

"This is winter purslane. It's crunchy and a bit gelatinous. My friend George Biron (of Sunnybrae in Birregurra) uses it in his dishes and calls it miner's lettuce."

After being involved with food for almost a lifetime, Diane says she's amazed by the current hoopla of the industry, particularly TV food shows.

"Everyone wants to be a master chef," she says.

"It's great but the only thing that worried me is their clothing and hair and jewellery in the food. They have T-shirts that show their boobs and they're splashing around all this hot oil.

"I always wear my regimental dress."

She believes anyone can be a cook, with organisation the key.

"You've got to read the recipe well and tray up and weigh up before you start cooking. If you are methodical it will work. Then have a bowl for all the rubbish so you're not walking back and forth to the bin.

"People call me and ask, 'Am I good enough to do a class?'

"I say, this is not a competition, it's a workshop to improve your skills on your level. If you want to be advanced and want to bone a quail, we can work with you. If you've never turned on a food processor then we can also work with you.

"Cooking is all about being comfy and confident and trying things you've not tried before."