THE meeting began in the usual way with plans for the Christmas meeting next month.

Members have arranged a trip to Waitrose in Cheltenham to see their Christmas produce. There are carol concerts to which members have been invited by other groups in the county so really felt in the Christmas spirit.

There were lovely smells of cooking coming from the kitchen and green, red and white flags everywhere. Then, the president introduced two very good looking young men called Luppo and Angelo, who were going to talk about Italy, Italian cooking and setting up an Italian restaurant in Tewkesbury.

Luppo introduced himself as the owner of Salernos restaurant and Angelo is one of his chefs.

He first explained how he came to have a restaurant in this part of the world. He was taking a tour of the Midlands and when he drove through Tewkesbury he noticed that there were no Italian restaurants. He determined to remedy this lack and set up Salernos. He has lived in Bristol all his life but Angelo has only been in this country for a year.

Luppo described the food of southern Italy from whence his family originate. He explained that Italy had the longest coastline in Europe so fish was plentiful added to fresh salad. He explained that the food had to be fresh and local to the area, Angelo said that he came from northern Italy which was much more industrialised and where the food was meat such as sausages and beans and pulses that could be preserved by drying. At this point the members began to ask questions. Fascinating information!

After the talk ended members were introduced to the cause of the scents from the kitchen which was home-made Lasagne and salad, accompanied by white Italian wine and delicious Affogato desert.

It was a brilliant evening, Bonisimo!