Beauty Of The Salad Is Breathtaking: The Best Of Gloria Russakov, Part 2.

Gloria Russakov worked with a staff from Oregon Magazine to evaluate a slough of restaurants in Oregon.  Her reviews are both personal and humorous. She describes herself as “the short woman in the big glasses” and always paid for her meals.  She warns people to be careful when eating at Samovar Bakery-Restaurant Lunch in Beaverton:  Nothing upsets the staff more than to see the Amerikanskis(Amerikantsy) blatantly waste food.  Even reassuring them that you like your lunch, but that some 5’2″ females are susceptible to weight gain even on Perrier, will not assuage their anger.  Leavings trigger grimaces, shrugged shoulders, mumbles of “terrible” in two languages, and a posse which runs after you with the unfinished apple strudel you were trying to escape.  However, Gloria can become quite poetic when she encounters a creative dish:  “Beauty of the salad is breathtaking.  Chunks of cucumber, zucchini, green pepper, celery, iceberg lettuce and tomato all tossed with an oil-based sweet and sour dressing accented with onion, all bordered with tall cabbage leaves.  Flowers from The Country Inn garden are arranged among the layers of leaves.”  Such is the description of a salad from The Country Inn in Eugene.  Compare this with the salad at The Keeping Room in Cannon Beach:  “Salad is one of those combinations no one(wisely) bothered inventing before.  Pieces of cantaloupe are combined with pieces of cucumber, then dressed with a semi-sweet, watery white dressing.  All are deposited on a lettuce leaf to catch the run-off.”  Her description of their cheesecake is positively lethal:  While it(ginger cheesecake) inspired one California tourist to write in for the recipe, it inspired another to grab her coffee cup, gulp fast and rush down the block to cleanse her palate with nibbles from the leaves of nasturtiums planted in front of the White Bird Gallery.  Nasturtium leaves are visually appealing, impeccably fresh and mercifully unsauced.”