Dining

Friday Night Macro Dinners: Everyone Is Family

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Nestled amongst the maple trees off of Coddington Road, Priscilla Timberlake’s and Lewis Freedman’s cozy country house radiated warm light out into the chilly November night. For over twenty years, every Friday at 6:45pm about fifty people, an eclectic mix of friends, neighbors, colleagues, students and a handful of curious strangers, come together to share a home cooked, plant-based meal around candle-lit dinner tables. It’s best described as a giant, vegan, gluten-free family dinner, where the word “family” is employed loosely; in Priscilla and Lewis’s home, anyone and everyone is treated and fed like family.

Apple Harvest Festival

Apple Harvest Festival: A Snapshot of Life Upstate

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In true Ithaca fashion, Apple Harvest Festival is something caught between a nostalgic, agrarian county fair and an eclectic, trendy Brooklyn food festival. It’s a celebration of all things apple — apple pies, apple cider and candied apples — but more than that, it’s a celebration of the Finger Lakes area and the people who shape it. With millions of acres of farmland (52,000 of which are devoted exclusively to apple orchards), Upstate New York is a mecca for farmers, chefs, bakers and wine makers who come together one weekend in late September to share their passion for food with the masses.

classic

Thompson and Bleecker: Neapolitan With a Twist

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What Thompson and Bleecker has to offer surely goes beyond its creative artisanal pizza. Gazing around this vibrant Ithaca Commons spot on a Thursday evening transports me; I am no longer in Ithaca, but in New York City, almost. Perhaps this feeling is evoked since owners Milly and George named Thompson and Bleecker after the intersection of their first apartment in the city. The candles on each sleek, wooden table twinkle. Milly makes her rounds, ensuring all guests are having a wonderful time, which is an easy feat. Patrons sip on red wine while simultaneously biting into doughy crust and cheesy goodness.

Ag Quad

Celebrate Earth Week at the Cornell Farmers Market

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On a breezy Thursday afternoon, I breathed in the brisk spring air as I took my routine walk across the Ag Quad to Trillium for lunch. With a hurried pace and pumping heart, I mentally prepared to re-enact the Hunger Games in order to secure a spot in the line for the burrito station and a highly coveted seat. Before I could reach Trillium, however, something peculiar stopped me in my tracks. Tucked in a corner of the Ag Quad were clusters of people bouncing between a row of small tents. I immediately recounted the dreamy, warm days of early September, spent having leisurely lunches with friends while sprawled across red checkered picnic blankets on the grassy quad. The Cornell Farmers Market was back for spring, and I could not have been happier.

brunch

Northstar House: the Bright Glow in Ithaca’s Gray Winters

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The Northstar Plate, a dish that can satisfy both your sweet and savory breakfast cravings, comes with choice of French toast or pancakes, bacon or sausage and potatoes or grits with two eggs your way. Northstar’s French toast is soaked overnight, giving it a cinnamon-y flavor throughout to its center. Topped with New York maple syrup, this French toast outshines all other French toast options in Ithaca.

college housing

PIETSCH | The Rent is Too Damn High

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Conditions in Collegetown lately seem to echo a sentiment proclaimed by Jimmy McMillan, who ran for governor of New York in 2010: “The rent is too damn high.”

Humorous campaign slogan aside, this has become the mantra of Cornell students as well, as rent rates for apartments in Collegetown have increased substantially over the past several years. According to The Ithaca Times, in 2014, Ithaca was ranked 11th on The New York Times’ list of most expensive United States cities, just one spot behind the nation’s financial capital of New York. This accompanied a report released by the Urban Institute in 2015, which revealed that about 44 percent of American renters spent over 35 percent of their income on rent in 2010. The rent issue is a result of too many students searching for too few off-campus housing options. Over half Cornell’s 14,000 undergraduate students live off campus, and Cornell’s on-campus facilities cannot accommodate the demand for housing.

Arts & Culture

X Ambassadors and Young the Giant to Headline the Second Annual Cayuga Sound Festival in Stewart Park

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X Ambassadors and Young the Giant will headline the second annual Cayuga Sound Festival in Stewart Park. This year, however, the festival will last two days as opposed to the one last year and will take place September 21 and 22. Other artists performing will include Matt and Kim, Sofi Tukker, Talib Kweli, Buddy, Morgxn, Knew, Lady D and the Shadow Spirits and Cornell’s very own No Comply. More artists remain to be announced. X Ambassadors are the curators of Cayuga Sound Festival and were formed in Ithaca.

Arts & Culture

Love in Free Fall: A Review of Bright Half Life

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“Falling in love” is a fascinating expression. In my native language, Chinese, the two most-used equivalents of the phrase compare love to things one could physically fall into, such as a river or a net, but English expression might just be superior because of its ambiguity. Do we fall into love, or are we falling when we’re in love? The Kitchen Theater’s Bright Half Life seems to say it’s both. Written by Tanya Barfield and directed by Sara Lampert Hoover, Bright Half Life is a two-women play that follows the story of Vicky (Shannon Tyo) and Erica (Jennifer Bareilles) through the decades.

Arts & Culture

Festival 24: The Epitome of Creativity

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What did you do in the 24 hours starting from Friday at 6:30 p.m.? A group of students were creating something incredible from scratch. Festival 24, which started in 2008 with only theatre productions, recently added film and dance performances to showcase the work of other students in the Performing and Media Arts department. Festival 24 challenges students to produce a story from a  one-word theme in 24 hours. Playwrights stayed up all night to write a 10-minute play.

cornell tech

EDITORIAL | Back to Work

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Last semester Cornell was witness to a potential hate crime in Collegetown, continued overzealous behavior by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a display of rank anti-Semitism and the abrupt end to the once-promising political career of a graduate of Cornell in a precursor to the #MeToo movement.