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| The first intern selfie - Dana (left), Jennifer (right) |
We started our first day by meeting some key food service managers in the MSU culinary services, namely Matt, Rich, Guy, and Natan. They introduced us to the dining services at MSU and gave us a brief history. Although we could already tell that MSU dining facilities were tremendous, we quickly learned that MSU is the largest independent university dining service, housing the largest non-military dining hall (Brody Hall), and serving upwards of 40,000 meals per day during the academic semester. We were completely perplexed.
After touring the residential dining services, we were paired with one of Brody Hall's dining managers, Karen. She showed us how the university conducts their catering service and gave us some interesting insight regarding staffing and student help.
We were then passed off to the next manager, Tim. He is responsible for sanitation and composting within Brody dining hall. He described many of the features of the hall which were designed to improve the university's sustainability efforts, such as natural light-sensing lights, and water cycling flowerbeds. He then showed us the dining hall's "Food Pulper," a very large machine used for composting food waste. All the food waste removed from the plates in the dish room flowed to this food pulper, and then were compressed to form a mixed waste that could be used at the organic farm.
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| Close up of the food pulp |
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| The food pulper |
Wednesday, June 1st
Our first assignment was to meet with the Corporate Chef, Kurt. He explained his role in the university foodservice, as well as shared some of the events he's brought to the corporate kitchen, such as cooking classes for the sports teams. We even got to see Kurt in action a bit, watching him instruct his student culinary interns as to how to properly cook a pig head.
We then followed Kurt to a meeting with the executive chefs. Here, the 5 executive chefs and Kurt discussed their plans and goals for the upcoming semester, ranging from the organization of CBORD to adjusting to understaffed conditions. It was extremely interesting to see the chefs discuss their experiences in their different dining halls and collaborate to create an overall better dining experience.
Our next meeting was with the campus Registered Dietitian, Gina. She discussed how her role has developed, beginning with her simply organizing CBORD to more recently becoming more nutritionally involved and launching an intensive allergen prevention training program. She gave us our project, which was to develop a recipe from creation to sale in the Sparty's retail dining centers.
For lunch, we stopped by the staff appreciation picnic. Here, all the culinary service workers were simply eating and enjoying themselves. Jen, Natan, and I spent most of our time dancing with some of the other staff. We had a blast.
Upon returning to Brody, we met with Jim, another manager. He discussed his more "behind-the-scenes" role, ranging from kitchen prep to forecasting and preforming inventory. It was very interesting to see the logistics and forecasting side of running such a large foodservice operation.
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| Staff appreciation picnic food tent |
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| Culinary Services Staff doing the Cha Cha Slide |
Thursday, June 2nd
To understand the daily tasks of the foodservice employees, Complex Dining Manager Rich wanted us to get experience in the dining venues. Therefore, we began the day by working with chef Sandy in the Brimstone Kitchen. We prepared various foods, ranging from Philly cheesesteaks to grilled cheese. We made sure to pay special attention to HAACP procedures, such as temperature checking all the meats as they cooked. We served the customers as well.
At 1pm, we were scheduled to drive to MSU's student organic farm for an Anaerobic Digester tour. MSU's anaerobic digester is a machine that converts waste into useable energy in the absence of oxygen, and is one of only 3 digesters on college campuses nationwide. The digester recycles cow manure from the organic farm, milk byproducts from the dining hall, grease waste from restaurants, and vegetable waste from local supermarkets, converting it into either usable electricity or fertilizer. The digester produces up to 400 kilowatts of electricity a day, enough to power 250 to 300 houses!
Lastly, Natan took me and Jennifer to explore the organic farm a bit more. We were able to walk into one of the dairy stables, where we pet several cows.
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| The anaerobic digester |
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| Jennifer meeting the cows at the Student Organic Farm |
Friday, June 3rd
We began our morning with the rest of the Brody dining team, at the daily staff meeting. Here, they run through their available staff and decide where each team member will be placed for the day. We were placed in Ciao!, a dining platform which serves pizza and sandwiches. Jennifer and I spent the day making pizzas, as well as serving them. It was extremely entertaining.
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| Dana working the pizza oven at Ciao! |
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