I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I am so lucky to have the friends that I do. Last weekend I got to visit EPCOT, which was cool in and of itself because it’s Food & Wine Festival time right now…but even more exciting was the fact that I got to see my friend Melissa run one of the official Food & Wine cooking demos!

We started the day at Disney Springs – it was only a brief stop, but I got to visit the Star Wars and Marvel stores. The former had so many awesome things for sale that I can’t wait to go back if I ever have money to spend (ha) – the latter seemed a bit thrown-together, but man, I do want that Avengers Dooney & Bourke purse that they had on display! (Oh, and this set of BB-8 Mickey Ears is an eventual necessity. Yes, the shirt and purse are already mine.)

From there we went to EPCOT, and wow was it crowded. I blame this on it being the second to last weekend of Food & Wine and the Wine & Dine Half Marathon weekend. Thankfully we still got to ride the new Soarin’ (I didn’t even know it was changed to Soarin’ over the world – or if I did, I’d forgotten about it), *and* wander back and forth through the World Showcase, sampling food and drink. (A lot of drink.)

But of course the highlight of the day was seeing Melissa’s presentation! She made vegetarian ‘chicken’ pot pie with cheddar drop biscuits. Sadly they ran out of the pot pie portion of the meal before they got around to our table, but we did get a whole ton of biscuits and extra wine, both of which were delicious 😉

Sorry not sorry for the picture dump – I’m just really proud of Melissa! She was on the College Program when I was a Restaurant Guest Service Manager for Sunset Ranch Market at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and she was one of the best CP students we had. She returned to school, got her degree, held leadership positions at restaurants outside of Disney and Orlando, and then returned to WDW and rocketed up to where she is now. She’s a hard worker who deserves everything that comes her way. (Oh, and her husband Adrian, who also worked for me at SRM, is pretty great, too!)

After the demonstration, we wandered a bit more, got more drinks, and even eventually went on Test Track. Food-wise, I tried the Greek cake (which was not as good as the fried goat cheese with honey and pistachios, sadly) as well as the Escargots Croissant (again not as good as the single-bite escargot pastries they used to have). Thankfully the pierogies from the Poland installment were still the same!

Oh, and I’d forgotten that they let you “build” your own car for Test Track now, and that you compete against the others in your group. Brian and I with our car “CHEVROLET MECHANICORE TANK OF DOOM” went up against Melissa and Adrian’s “Lisa Frank DOMINANT” and Andrew and Merrilynn’s “Clifford the Big Red Car”. Every single one of our vehicles looked ridiculous (though I think the others looked way crazier than MECHANICORE, but no matter how balanced they tried to make their cars, it turns out that power is what really wins in the end, and we dosed MECHANICORE with a lot of that. (Oh, how sadly appropriate that is right now…power is what really wins in the end. Ugh.)

Anyway, I hadn’t been to Disney since this past January and it was a welcome Sunday getaway from the “real world”…that being a shitty Walking Dead episode and a shockingly horrid presidential election.

But hey, “Forward always. Always forward.” Until the next adventure, I remain, your pansexual SJW female entrepreneur buddy,

Tara Lynne