The Oregon Shakespeare Festival Ashland OR

Its been awhile since I have blogged, as I had anticipated it might be.  I have been running around my hometown getting caught up on visiting family and friends and tying up any loose ends before we head back out on to the open road for the next year. 

Over the past 3 years we have gone to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland OR.  It is just an amazing time, year after year it seems to get even better.  Now, I gotta say, I am not Shakespearean proficienato or anything.  In fact, I was actually the kid that used toothpicks to keep my eyes open during my literature classes in school.  This is not that kind of Shakespeare.  This is Shakespeare modernized by super cool hip and very, very, talented and creative people.  It is often very funny and sometimes they even throw in a little hip hop music every now and then.  There are however the "heavier" "tragic" more traditional plays as well, if that is your flavor.  For sure another "must do" if you ever visit Oregon. http://www.osfashland.org/

Now to the food...We went to a great restaurant  called The Loft  http://loftbrasserie.com/ at the recommendation of our hotel ( The Palm Cottages http://www.palmcottages.com/ ) manager and it was outstanding. Comfort French fusion is what you get here and they know their stuff.  I can often tell if I am going to enjoy my food right off the bat, if the have good bread.  I swear, I could have sat with the lovely bottle of rose' and 10 loaves of that bread and pound of butter, all night. Following that, I had the beet salad with goat cheese hazelnuts with a sherry vinaigrette and my friend Latania had the green butter lettuce salad, with Djion vinaigrette. Both of our salads where amazing as you can see by the pictures.  Then I ordered the special of the evening, braised lamb shank, with herbed polenta, with a port reduction and micro greens. Perfecto! Everything was cooked perfect and all of the flavors were balanced and complimentary to one another.  The herbed polenta was outstanding.  Latania (a vegetarian friend) ordered the truffle scented macaroni gratin...Yes, it was as you can probably imagine, unbelievably good with it's creamy rich truffely perfection! Of course I ordered dessert don't be silly! I ordered the lemon cheesecake and it was also delicious! I am pretty picky about my cheesecake.  I cant stand when it is really heavy and/or dry.  This was moist, light, creaminess, followed with refreshing and very lemony flavor that was outstanding!  Most everything was locally sourced which I really appreciate!

Now you can to drool on your keyboard....you might want to go get a towel.