It may not feel like it, with Melbourne’s rainfall last week, but Spring is here.

We’ll be focusing on dips, like white taramosalata, and saganaki, peppers and fresh dill.

But the change in season needn’t catch a cook off-guard.

For those bogged down in the heavier, slow-cooked braises of winter, Melbourne food guru Vicky Peppos is conducting cooking classes that will embrace the lighter tastes of Spring.

“We’ll be focusing on dips, like white taramosalata, and saganaki, peppers and fresh dill,” she says.

“And dill to Greeks is like basil to Italians; we use it in everything.”

Ms Peppos is running ‘Aphrodite’s Feast’, a Greek cooking class that is part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.

The workshop, which is limited to forty people across four Saturdays, begins with a trip to the market for fresh produce, then the participants will cook and eat from Ms Peppos’ Greek recipes.

Ms Peppos has run workshops with her business, The Sweet Greek, since March this year, and she says Greek food is increasingly popular with non-Greek Australian cooks.

She says there’s more to the popularity of Hellenic food than just the flavours.

“A lot of them have travelled in Greece, and there’s always a memory of food they associate with Greece, and they want to recreate that at home,” she says.

She says sourcing fresh local produce has never been easier, particularly if you shop in season.

“At the moment, you’ve got a lot of farmers’ markets available, and they’re really boosting and pushing the availability of fresh produce to metropolitan consumers.”

But she says she’s not opposed to people buying fresh food from the supermarket.

“I don’t have a problem with it, but when you’re comparing apples and apples, you’re looking at different things,” she says.

But it’s not only fruit and vegetables that Ms Peppos gets locally – she also gets her lamb delivered straight from a farmer in country Victoria.

“Particularly for Spring, the best cuts are coming out now,” she says.

4, 11, 18, 25 September, 10:00AM – 3:30PM, at The Sweet Greek, 18a Haughton Road, Oakleigh.

Bookings: 0411 133 528.

For more information, www.thesweetgreek.com.au