It has been an awesome week. First, my daughter Melissa came home and spent the whole day with family and friends at the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival 2014. Let me start at the beginning,
The first stop on our food adventure around the world was Mexico. I knew I had to have that frozen Pomegranate and lime Margarita along with their marinated rib eye tacos, Yum! Oh, and of course, this tasty treat wouldn’t be complete without the sounds of the Mariachi band playing in the background. Next up South Korea.
Still full from Mexico, and sipping my margarita, I wanted to make sure I could show you a few of the small bites from the other countries. I had to pace myself to try the samples that the other countries were offering.
Singapore is amazing!
Africa, this is the one. Marinated beef tenderloin pieces with vegetables and mushrooms over grits. Sounds simple right, but the flavors in these dishes are out of this world. The ingredients and spices come together like it was a marriage made in heaven.
We were all thirsty and stumbled upon a tea stand. I tried the mango ginger tea, WOW!
We learned that at this year’s event, they were going to have food specifically from Florida. They offered a Zellwood Sweet Corn And Bacon Hash.
Now comes my favorite thing to do, at the festival, it’s time for the food demos. Melissa and I split off from the rest of our party for some partying of our own. We head over to the Festival Center. This is the place where all the chefs do their food demos, book signings, and all other kinds of cool stuff.
So let me tell you what’s happening here. Starting at the top on the left is the entrance to the center, Then their vast wine display. Then you can see the set for the kitchen demos. There are also many unique displays. My dear friend Pamela Smith, with Spice Blends. has her display here. Pamela will be moderating the food demos all day. Here’s a picture of Pamela with a world-renowned pastry chef, discussing and teaching some pastry techniques.
The picture on the right is a new chef on the scene in the U.S. Maria Isabel, but very well known in her home country of Puerto Rico.
The highlight of my day was watching Chef Carla Hall do her thing at one of the demos. It’s amazing the connection she makes with her audience. She was doing a book signing after the demo. Melissa, bought me her new cookbook, Carla’s Comfort Foods. Needless to say, I hurried over to the standby line because the mainline was sold out in minutes. I was lucky enough to be the first one on standby, so I had my fingers crossed.
I felt like I was meeting royalty. She was everything I knew she’d be, real, sweet, and down to earth. She never left until she talked to everyone, even those of us in the standby line.
Amazing, just awesome, and I even got a bit emotional. My daughter gave me a day I’ll never forget. Thank you so much, Melissa, I love you.
After all of this, we were hungry again. We had to meet up with Christine, Steve’s daughter for dinner.
So the girls put their hats on and took this picture for posterity. How cute are they? Now it’s time to do some walking to reach our destination.
Beautiful scenery, as we made it over to Japan. It’s Melissa’s favorite restaurant.
I would have loved to have shown some pictures of the beautiful and colorful dishes we had but, we were so hungry and tired, I completely forgot.
Listen if you are ever in Orlando during October, make the EPCOT Food And Wine Festival one of your stops. If you live here and have never been, you want to put this on your list of things to do. Visit https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/epcot/epcot-international-food-and-wine-festival/
