Upcoming Orlando foodie events to mark on your calendar

The three-day-long Florida Local Food Summit will bring together farmers, food entrepreneurs, policy makers, chefs and food-conscious folks of all stripes, Thursday through Saturday, Sept. 8-10, at East End Market and other Audubon Park Garden District locales. Cost is $53.25.

Some of the celebrity chefs appearing at this year’s Epcot Food & Wine Festival (Sept. 14-Nov. 14) include Iron Chefs Geoffrey Zakarian and Masaharu Morimoto, Chopped judge Maneet Chauhan, as well as Graham Elliot, Robert Irvine, Cat Cora, Norman Van Aken, Elizabeth Falkner, Buddy Valastro and Jamie Deen.

Join master sommelier Andrew McNamara at Norman’s Orlando Oct. 1 for a Wine & Dine event highlighting French wines. The five-course dinner costs $175.

Cows ’n Cabs, a popular outdoor event at which you can see 15 or 20 of your favorite local chefs as well as hundreds of pretty attendees all dressed up like cowboys, goes from 7-10 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22, in Winter Park’s West Meadow. Tickets for the smorgasbord of food and wine samples are $110, with VIP packages starting at $140 for early admission; word to the wise, this event sells out most years. 

This article appears in Aug 17-23, 2016.