By Tom D'Antoni

What: The Bite of Oregon
Where: Tom McCall Waterfront Park, SW Naito Pkwy From Clay St to Glisan St, Portland, OR 97204 [map it]
When: August 7th - 9th, 2009
Tickets: $8, ages 12 and under free (general admission fee covers entrance and entertainment but does not included food and beverage.)
Website: biteoforegon.com

Of all the summertime festivals, the one that satisfies almost every human pleasure is The Bite of Oregon. Music, food and drink . . . only love and lust are out of the equation. You're on your own for those, but for three days, Portland's Waterfront Park will be filled with three stages of music, an Oregon Chef stage, hundreds of menu items from the booths lining the festival and a wine garden featuring the work of over thirty of Oregon's finest wineries.

The fun begins on Friday, August 7 at 11:00am and continues through out the weekend until 8:00pm Sunday night. Portland's very own HaléLupé will close the festival.

Of course, that's not all the music; many of Oregon's best players, in every genre imaginable perform throughout the weekend. A tiny sampler: Jason Okamoto, RaChiChi, SweetJuice, Jacob Merlin, Neil Diamond tribute, Tony Starlight, Women Who Rock, Matthew Price and many more. And I mean many, many, many more.

The Bite has added a new Vineyard Stage, offering lounge, wine bar style tunes (In the MIX Wine Pavilion ).

Meanwhile, the Sysco Oregon Chef Stage will feature FOX TV's Hell's Kitchen winner, Executive Chef Rahman "Rock" Harper Friday and Saturday. In addition, the Iron Chef Oregon competition will provide a culinary smackdown; which feature chefs from around Oregon. If you've never seen one of these, the secret ingredient is revealed moments before the competition begins and the chefs improvise dishes in a limited time.

Of course, any time of day you can stroll the festival grounds and find great food - entrees, snacks, soups and salads, side dishes, desserts. A partial list gets you hungry just reading: artisan sausages with pinot noir braised cabbage from Rafati's Elegance in Catering in Portland, Sweet Potato French Fries from Prommes Frites, Oregon fruit pies from Hoffman's Dairy Garden in Canby, Baklava from Greek Cusina in Portland, Dungeness Crab Cakes from Bell buoy of Seaside, and many, many more.

Sitting in the wine garden is always fun. This year's Best of the Bite Gold Medal Winners are there for the drinking: Zebra Cellars from Milton-Freewater, Eola Wine Cellars from Rickreall, Chateau Lorane Winery from Lorane, Pheasant Valley Winery in Hood River, Amity Vineyards in Amity and Sweet Cheeks Winery in Crow. Many other wineries will be there, so there's no lack of the fruit of the gods.

And with that, I haven't even scratched the surface of the treats at this year's Bite. Get down to the waterfront and take a bite for yourself