Ep. 46: Going Local with Xeo and Burger Time at Jack's

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It's our first podcast of 2010 and we're glad to be back! The new year is already shaping up to be a great one for Eating Ithaca, especially with so many new restaurants opening on our local dining scene.

The big standout for many local food lovers so far has been the opening of the tiny cafe called Xeo (pronounced SAY-oh) in the Collegetown neighborhood. In this podcast Dave talks with Sebastian Villa, the young chef/owner and sole employee of Xeo, to find out why he became so committed to serving the freshest food possible from as many local or regional sources as he can.

We'll also discuss some of the dozen or so other restaurants that have opened or will be opening since our last restaurant review, and then we're right back to eating our way through every restaurant in Ithaca from A-Z. We've reached the letter "J" now, which brings us to Jack's Grill in Collegetown. We have that review, plus up to date info on some of the great food-related events going on around Ithaca, all right here in the podcast!

For continuing updates on everything we're doing, be sure to follow us on Twitter and on Facebook. We'd also love to hear from you directly: write a comment on the blog, leave a message on our voicemail line 607-216-8624 (607-21-MUNCH), or send an email with your thoughts to: feedback [at] eatingithaca [dot] com.

If you really enjoy what we create here at Eating Ithaca, why not make a donation? Your support goes directly to helping us keep this blog and podcast running, and keep making it even better as we go. Just click on the Donate button on the main page and you'll be helping us keep Eating Ithaca!


Click Play to Listen to Episode 46


Get more information on topics from this episode:

• Xeo on Facebook
• Xeo on Twitter
• Jack's Grill
• Events at Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County
• Maple Syrup Tours at Sapsquatch - Enfield, NY
• Food Community Events at Ithaca's Food Web
• Blue Stone Grill Wine Dinner with Standing Stone Winery
  Sunday, March 28th

We're Back...

We finally got back to the microphones this weekend! Join us for a new season of the Eating Ithaca podcast, with new interviews and conversations about the local food community and more of our restaurant reviews from A-Z.

It all starts with Episode 46 on Wednesday March 3rd!

Come to the Downtown Ithaca Chili Cook-Off!

The 12th Annual Great Downtown Ithaca Chili Cook-Off will be taking over the Ithaca Commons this Saturday, February 20th. It's become a highlight of winter for local food lovers and this year looks to be another great one.

We've already heard from organizers that they'll have about 40 different chili recipes competing to be the best, including 26 meat and at least 14 vegetarian varieties, from over 30 restaurants.

If you want to sample these delicious chili varieties for yourself, you'll need to get yourself some Tasting Tickets:

Tickets to Taste are $5 for 5, $10 for 11, or our VIP tickets are 10 for $20 (and you get a special VIP line at each booth). Each ticket gets you a 2-3oz sample of chili or a comparable sample of other items from wine to wings. Tickets are on sale now at Autumn Leaves, CTB (downtown) and the Downtown Ithaca Alliance office. Buy yours now and skip the lines on Saturday!

And while Chili may be the main event, there will be plenty of other events going on all day to keep you warm and entertained until the judging is done - the Chili Idol Karaoke Contest, Guitar Hero competitions, plus lots of live music and live performers throughout the day. If you've never made it to the Chili Cook-Off before, listen to our past coverage of this event in Episode #3 of our podcast to get a good idea of what to expect. We're planning our own full coverage of this year's event as well, including a special report from behind the scenes at the judges' table.

Click Here for a complete Schedule of Events and plan your day now. Events are scheduled from 11:30 am - 4:00 pm regardless of the weather, so dress in layers, bring your favorite spoon, and get ready to enjoy some great eating from Ithaca's best chefs. You won't have another chance to sample this much food in one place... until next year!

This is Important

As we prepare for a new season of Eating Ithaca podcasts, we've been thinking about themes and topics that we'd like to cover in our upcoming interviews. Today, we found one more when we watched this:

British celebrity chef and activist Jamie Oliver received the prestigious TED Prize this week, an award designated to helping him achieve "one wish to change the world." This is what he wished for:

I wish for your help to create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.

We encourage you to help Jamie meet his goal by signing his petition to improve our food system, and let's find out what we can do in our own community to make sure that our connections to real food continue to thrive for future generations.

We want to continue to explore this and other topics in Ithaca and our surrounding region for our podcast and website, and we'd love to hear from you if you have ideas on how to get involved. In the meantime, we encourage you to share this video with someone you know and help spread Jamie's message for change.

Thanks.

2 Years: Where We've Been, Where We're Headed

Two years ago this week, we posted our very first episode of the Eating Ithaca podcast. At the time, we had no idea if anybody would care, or if anyone would listen at all. We were excited to see something we made out there in the world, but it was hard to tell what Eating Ithaca was really going to be.

So we made it all up as we went along. Gradually more and more people found us, we watched the number of downloads go up and comments started coming in on this blog we'd thrown together. Then Andrea became co-host, and our little podcast about the local Ithaca dining scene began to grow into something more than just talking about food.

We started getting out to meet the people behind the local foods of Ithaca and the region. We interviewed our very first guest, Kevin Cuddeback of Gimme! Coffee, in Episode 5. In that time, the podcast continued to evolve, more people found us, and now...

• That first episode has been downloaded more than 500 times; and we're about to hit our 10,000th download overall.
• We've produced 45 podcasts, plus a few specials.
• We've featured more than 34 exclusive interviews with people from all over our food community.
• We've given you our one-of-a-kind reviews of over 70 different restaurants in Ithaca.

It's been great fun . . . But we're just getting started!

Since we went on a podcast hiatus in December, we've been working on a better Eating Ithaca. Thanks to all the great input we got from our recent audience survey, along with the list of ideas we've been wanting to include on our website since the beginning, we're finally taking the time to make some of those changes happen. While we can't promise anything for sure, we will definitely be improving the look and navigation of our website, with a fully searchable and easy to use restaurant guide. We'll also be writing capsule versions of our restaurant reviews to complement our podcast, which will be archived and easy to access when you're looking for where to dine out in town.

Our primary mission remains the same: to keep you connected to local food. We will continue to interview the people behind the food we eat, and share news and stories about what's happening in the community. We're also planning our next special live event, and working with other organizations in the area to help spread awareness of the food culture of Ithaca and the Finger Lakes with the rest of the country. And we're going to have some exciting new opportunities for you to get involved and support us as we grow.

The new year is filled with great opportunities for us. We may still be making it all up as we go along, but at least we know you're listening and reading and sharing, and that makes it all worthwhile. Thank you.

We're still here in the meantime, and we're active most days on Twitter or Facebook if you want to stay in touch. The podcast will be back in February 2010. Talk to you then!

--Your pals at Eating Ithaca