Sunday, March 29, 2009

A quick trip to Ithaca, NY

Due to my forgetfulness (and the fact that I had to wake up at 4:30 am to get ready for my early flight), I unfortunately didn't take my camera with me for my trip to Cornell.  My visit with the chemistry department was amazing, and I'll probably reveal my graduate school decision later this week.  (I'm very much leaning towards a place right now, but I shall see if I feel the same way in a few days.)

Even though Ithaca is pretty small, I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of vegan options there.  My first day, my grad student host took me to a bagel shop to get a snack, and I was pleased to see Tofutti cream cheese as a topping option! The shop also had an all vegan wrap. What was rather cute was the vegan cookies by the cash register, which were plainly marked with a bright green sticker saying "VEGAN!" I loved the exclamation point for some reason. Another great option is the pizza place that we went to for lunch on Saturday. Apparently, there is always at least 1 vegan option already made (for those getting it by the slice), and they now have vegan cheese if you want to make your own! How exciting, even if it wasn't Teese.

On the whole, the chemistry department did a reasonably good job at feeding me while I was there.  My host was pretty awesome in checking up on things for me since he was vegetarian himself. During the smorgasbord of offerings Friday night, there was one dish that was vegan: a fruit curry with tofu. It was very good, albeit on the spicy side (even for me). I was informed that the Thai restaurants are pretty good about vegan dishes in general. 

Saturday morning, on the other hand, was a little less than stellar. I had to bypass the various doughnuts, quiche, and muffins for a plain bagel and fruit salad. It made me think wistfully of my yummy Might-O experience in Seattle.

Saturday night was a pleasant surprise. A nicer buffet was offered, and I started off with fruits, veggies, and some hummus with chips. But, thinking this would not be enough for me, a separate dish was specially made for me. When it was brought out, I got not one wrap, but two!  (So much food, that I had to pawn the second wrap off on other people.) It was warmed and contained broccoli, green peppers, onion, cauliflower, and possibly a little cabbage.  Although a little on the dry side, generous portions of guacamole made it better, because, after all, guacamole makes just about anything more awesome.

Overall, I discovered that Ithaca has quite a few vegan options for such a small town, which was a very pleasant surprise. And, Syracuse is only an hour away, which has some awesome vegan options, I have been told.  A day trip would probably be a fun experience to have sometime if I end up going to Cornell.

1 comment:

Chris said...

always happy to receive another German speaker at Cornell (aber ich würde nicht sagen, dass ich deutsch fliessende kann). I don't know much about the vegan scene here, but I can say that the vegetarian options abound.

... btw, I sort of stumbled upon your blog in the midst of a stream-of-consciousness wandering ... when I should have been working on my research paper. Back to that!