Taste of Ocala 2013

My Saturday was consumed by the Taste of Ocala. The Taste of Ocala is an annual fundraiser that raises money for scholarships for the College of Central Florida. A handful of Ocala’s top restaurants prepare incredibly delicious food for attendees to enjoy and it’s always a lot of fun!

As a member of the planning committee, I met up with the other committee members at the College of Central Florida to decorate and assist participating restaurants on Saturday morning.

I left around 4:15 p.m. to change and pick up Ryan and returned at 5:30 p.m. to help tie up any loose ends before the judges arrived at 6 p.m. 

I walked around with one of the judges and had a great time listening to the restaurants explain their dishes. My mouth was watering and I couldn’t wait to dig into the food once the judges finished and the event officially began.

While the judges walked from booth to booth, the cocktail party outside seemed to be going well!

We moved the event up by several weeks this year since last year’s cocktail party was a little too warm. The weather was perfect and there was a nice breeze that kept everyone cool.

Ryan and I both sipped on some wine while checking out the silent auction.

Big thanks to Reebok, the beautiful W Hotel Atlanta Buckhead and Harry & David for answering my emails and generously donating items to this auction!

Once the doors opened around 7:15 p.m., everyone started making their way around the room and filling their plates.

To say the food was delicious would be an understatement! I ended up feeling so full by the end of the night, but with so many fantastic dishes to try, I didn’t want to miss anything!

My stand-out dishes for the evening included the lobster risotto from the Braised Onion, the cannoli from Magnolia Bakery, Frutissia’s coconut ice cream and the cinnamon sugar grilled pineapple from Ipanema.

It was a fun and filling night!