Chopbiscuit on the road dining review: Moosewood restaurant, Ithaca NY

Vegetarian food for the non-vegetarian

If you ever happen to be traveling through beautiful Upstate NY, make sure to stop by one of my favorite restaurants in the region, Moosewood in Ithaca. The Moosewood restaurant has been a staple with locals for over 35 years and serving some of the best vegetarian fare in the country. This menu offers a varietal of hearty dishes for your most carnivorous of friends. Moosewood was named one of the thirteen most influential restaurants of the 20th Century by Bon Appetit magazine. Nice lil' shout out to a local establishment that was founded on basic principles of healthy cooking.

The Moosewood collective has published may internationally acclaimed cookbooks and has really been a leader in vegetarian instructional cooking, consulting services and retail branding. I had the opportunity to visit the restaurant yesterday during a work trip to the Southern Tier of upstate NY. If you've never been to the region, Ithaca is home to some of the most picturesque backdrops, including Taughannock falls state park and Buttermilk falls. Ithaca has also been named one of the Greenest cities in America.

For lunch I started with Quinoa Tabouli. This may have been the best tasting Quinoa I've ever had. Made with high protein quinoa, sweet bell peppers, parsley and scallions in a lemon-mint vinaigrette. It's served with (opt’l) local Side Hill Acres feta cheese and seedless red grapes. The perfect mix of local and healthy ingredients for a light lunch. For soup I had an everyday split pea, which had some great undertone flavors that spit out Moosewoods classic freshness cues.

Moosewood is truly an iconic Ithaca staple founded by a collective of passionate folks who have a common goal.

According to their mission statement,

The Moosewood Collective is a crew of fourteen women and five men. Some of us moonlight from Moosewood, and among us we have a broad range of interests and avocations. Our group comprises musicians, singers, dancers, actors, performers, mediators, mediator's, activists, teachers, trainers, consultants, writers, gardeners, editors, poets, artists, quilters, calligraphers, martial arts instructors and enthusiasts, health advocates, parents, grandparents, good cooks, and really good eaters.

Much of the romance about groups that resist a hierarchical structure rests on the mythology that a group without a boss is a group without leaders. The "leaderless group" is a popular notion, especially among academics exploring ways to organize committees and teams. We can testify that leadership has little to do with title or chain of command. It is a quality that exists within every successful group. Several leaders among us with courage, creativity, self-discipline, principles, and willingness to learn, teach, support and share, have kept us going.

Leadership emerges in the unplanned heroism and grace under fire that every one of us has shown at times. Leadership is irrepressible. It gets passed around depending on the task. Collective work doesn't automatically generate equal voices. When some of our voices dominate, it's important that others speak up to add balance. The accommodating ones among us have to resist always going with the flow because it's easier. Sometimes we need to be active and raise conflict. We've had to work at developing diplomatic ways to express ourselves so that interpersonal disagreements don't turn into a test of skill and endurance.

The people, culture and atmosphere truly make Moosewood a necessary stop while perusing through the scenic backdrops of Upstate NY.