Aside from an ability to chew and string a sentence together, what other attributes are needed to become a food critic and the judge of whether a chef’s a champ or a chump ?

Unlike other branches of journalism, there are no courses to take or exams to pass that qualify you to declare whether a meal’s good. bad or indifferent.

And telling me to give a restaurant a miss because basically you didn’t like it, is highly questionable.

Before we first began looking for somewhere to live in Abruzzo, we’d drooled over the guidebook descriptions of all the local goodies we could look forward to trying and buying in the shops and markets; and the prospect of sampling all this wonderful Abruzzo food whenever we went out for a meal.

But it didn’t quite turn out like that…

Lanciano’s extraordinary Notte Bianche – ‘White Nights’ – is on the A-List of Abruzzo festa. Starting off the festivities is Il Maestrogiurato – an extravaganza of pageantry in full medieval costume. But the heart of Notte Bianche is a dazzling and deafening firework display that starts at 4am – yes, 0400 – on September 14 each year. It’s worth disrupting your body clock and heading for Lanciano to become part of the experience.