Ready, set eat! And drink. And walk. And learn. And spend. A lot.

The 16th Annual Epcot International Food & Wine Festival officially kicks off today. However, for the second year, it got revved up early with the First Bites Opening Reception Thursday evening. Held in the spacious Festival Welcome Center, First Bites is a chance for die-hard festival fans to get a taste of some of the food and beverages available at the various country kiosks, and to see some cooking demonstrations up close and participate in a wine tasting or two.

Last year, the first First Bites, um, bit. The circular space wasn’t utilized properly and everything was too spread out. And, frankly, the quality just wasn’t what it should have been. Certainly not for the cost, which last year had a suggested retail price of $195. Plus tax. Plus admission to the park. Plus parking. (Many of last year’s attendees bought tickets for $100, but one commented to me that he didn’t think it was worth even $50.)

This year the reception was much better. Things seemed to be more suitably spaced and paced. It is not a crowded event, whether by design or because of the cost of the ticket ($175+++ this year; I attended on a media pass). So there were few long lines to sample the food and beverages that were offered this year.

In this week's WMFE-FM segment, Scott talks with 90.7's Judith Smelser about the state of Italian restaurants in Central Florida. You can hear the segment at WMFE-FM/dining.

There was a rumor going around in the early days of my restaurant reviewing career that I did not like Italian restaurants. The rumor may have gotten started because nearly every review of an Italian restaurant I did in those days was ultimately a negative one. But that didn’t mean I didn’t like Italian restaurants; what I didn’t like were the places that were dumping tomato sauce on top of pasta and proclaiming, “That’s Italian!”

That’s not Italian, but that’s what was being foisted on the local dining public. It didn’t help that a major restaurant company based in Orlando was serving its own brand of so-called Italian food that wasn’t any more authentic than the others.

But then things started to change. Some restaurateurs who knew Italian cuisine started dishing up the real thing and educating diners that Italian food didn’t necessarily mean red sauce, and it almost never meant heavy doses of garlic. We now have a wonderful array of authentic Italian restaurants that serve everything from the creamier style sauces of Northern Italy to the seafood specialties of the Ligurian coast to, yes, the tomato sauces of the south. Here are some of my favorites.

I have a couple of library events coming up that I want to tell you about. What’s that? You think it’s odd for a food-oriented website to tout a library? What, you’ve never heard the term egghead?

And besides, these events have quite a bit to do with food.

The first event is one I’ve told you about before, and is one of my favorites. The Bash for Books is Winter Park Public Library’s annual fundraiser with food, wine, auctions and raffles. It’s always been very well attended. In fact, it’s such a popular and fun event that it has outgrown the library. So instead of setting up among the stacks, the BforB will be held at the Winter Park Civic Center, Saturday, Sept. 24, at 7 p.m.

The new venue will give them room to spread out for this year’s theme, Bond...James Bond, a celebration of the literary works of Ian Fleming. The venue will be decked out as the lobby of the Casino Royale hotel, complete with  Aston Martins. I smell a chase scene!