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The fall version of Grande Lakes Orlando’s Curated Experiences will be Nov. 5 through 7 in and around the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott Orlando. It will be a weekend of food, wine, cocktails, exotic cars, fine watches and jewels, demonstrations, workshops and activities. A high point will be a four-course dinner Saturday night with celebrity chefs John Tesar (Knife & Spoon), Art Smith (Homecoming) and Bradley Kilgore (Alter Miami) with Maggie Kruse, winemaker for Jordan in Sonoma County, followed by a concert featuring Sister Hazel.

I attended the inaugural Curated Experiences weekend in February and found so much going on that it took two articles to relate it all. You can read Part One here and Part Two here.

The last time I had the sandwich known as the Abigail, it was at George’s Gourmet Cookie’s in a small storefront space at the corner of Lee Road and Orlando Avenue in what was then the Kmart-anchored shopping plaza. The sandwich, a take on a reuben, was revelatory. And even though it was in 2016 that I had it, that sandwich came to mind often – usually anytime I ordered a reuben elsewhere only to be disappointed in comparison.

Sometime during the haze of the pandemic, George’s moved to Park Avenue, taking over the former Brandywine Deli space. Gourmet Cookies was dropped from the name, but not from the menu, and it is now known as George’s Cafe.

Wa Sushi, the popular Casselberry restaurant, was closed for almost exactly a year, from February 2020 to February 2021. The reason for closing was not pandemic related – we didn’t start seeing closures until the following month. Instead, according to a post on the restaurant’s Facebook page at the time, there was an issue with drainage at its original location that forced it to close and look for a place to relocate.

But really, if you had to close your restaurant for a year, 2020 was the perfect choice.