We just got home from a day trip out to Stratford. The festival is on, and while we have a long weekend planned in September to see a couple plays, there was one playing earlier we decided we had to see.

First, though: some lunch. We ended up picking LOVAGE, which (a) had a lovely shaded back patio, (b) had the nicest staff ever, and (c) was delicious. You can see some samples on their instagram, and my mouth is watering just seeing some of those dishes again. We had oysters, steak tartare w/ carrot and parsley, trout w/ cucumber & dill, sugar snap peas w/ stracciatella, and potato paillasson w/ herbs & aioli, and a couple of glasses of wine each. Absolutely lovely spot — we’ll find a way to get ourselves back there in September.

The play we wanted to see was Women Of The Fur Trade, playing just down the street at the Studio theatre. Here’s the synopsis from the program:

Set in eighteen hundred and something-something, somewhere upon the banks of a reddish river in Treaty One Territory, where three very different women with a preference for 21st-century slang sit in a fort sharing their views on life, love and the hot nerd Louis Riel. In this lively historical satire of survival and cultural inheritance, playwright Frances Koncan shifts perspectives from the male gaze onto women’s power in the past and present through the lens of the rapidly changing world of the Canadian fur trade.

It was funny and powerful and silly and I’m really glad we saw it.

See you again in a few weeks, Stratford.