Family tradition goes into two new flavours for Mayoral Ball

At Di Paolo's Cafe at Marina he sampled Crossroads Special, one of two ice cream flavours developed especially for the ball.

The mayoral charities this year are Hastings and Rother Crossroads and Bexhill Museum.

Luigi Di Paolo has developed Minty Museum to serve at the ball across the road at the De La Warr Pavilion.

But it was his Crossroads Special that His Worship sampled this morning - a blend of mango and blueberry.

Luigi has been brought up in the ice cream-making business. His parents, John and Christine Di Paolo, have run Di Paolo's for 27 years but the family dynasty goes back to when Luigi's great grandfather made ice cream by hand.

Now Luigi is adding technical expertise to family know-how.

He told the Mayor: "I have my certificate.

"I went to Italy last November to the Carpigiani company in Bologna."

Luigi now sports Carpigiani Gelato University workware when creating his specialist lines in the cafe's own production area.

His dad explained: "Carpigiani are the Rolls Rolls - they make the best ice cream-making machines. They have been making the machines for years."

Luigi said: "There is a base course at Carpigiani.

"Last November I went and did the base course. It is a four-day course. It is 9am to 5pm so it is quite a long day.

"You do everything from creating ice creams to presenting them in the shop and marketing them.

"Next January I am going back to the specialist course as well.

"We have been making ice cream here for years but you can always learn more. You see lots of thing and learn lots of things.

"Certainly, I learned a lot - especially on presentation and trying new ingredients."

Luigi created the two new lines for the Mayor's Ball by a process of experimenting with new ingredients, mixing them and tasting the result.

Finishing off his first helping of Crossroads Special, the Mayor said of Luigi's creation: "I think it is a wonderful effort.

"It is a novel way of supporting my mayoral charities.

"At the same time it is nice to be associated with a family business with a great historical link and I cannot think of a better way of supporting the mayoral appeal."

The mayor has spent his year of office reminding the community that Bexhill's motto is Sun And Health.

There had been no sun and not a little rain for the West Parade health walk that the mayor had led before the ice cream launch.

But he added as he finished his sample ice cream: "I feel even more healthy than normal!"