Week 3 at UConn

Hello everyone, it's been another great week at UConn for us! We've done a lot, from 4 a.m. bakery shifts to visiting a goat farm.

On Monday, we visited our witty friend Peter Haynes down at the Commissary. Our first week here, he taught us about purchasing, like inventory and ordering additions. This week, we were able to see him in action printing orders for different vendors. The printing for purchasing usually occurs everyday Monday-Friday at 10 a.m. It's a system that managers, the Commissary, and UConn's vendors are accustomed to. It's also delicate, especially at the Commissary where ordering mistakes can affect all of the dining halls and other food service locations on campus.

On Monday we also got to tour The Burton Family Complex with Steve Sharkis. It is a dining hall that is much different than anything else we have seen on campus. It is very unique in the sense that it is geared directly towards athletes, specifically football players. It has many tips and tricks posted around to help the athletes eat a healthier, more balanced diet. It was a very informative tour and we enjoyed seeing inside this exclusive dining experience.

One of the salads we found that looks delicious!

We also worked on our big 4-week salad rotation project. We added so many FoodPro recipes to our colorful spreadsheet that we eventually switched over to searching the Internet for some other tasty ones. As we searched for recipes, we looked for gluten-free and/or vegan salads. We also checked the ingredients to make sure that we weren't entering a lot of salads that were too similar. We're aiming for a bright, fun salad menu with something different every day!

On Tuesday, we went to UConn's Avery Point Campus with our internship coordinator Carol Cronin. It's a beautiful campus right alongside the Eastern Point Bay. We met the Assistant Manager at Mort's Cafe, Kim Barahona, and she gave us a tour of her facilities. We also learned about how Mort's operates with camps during the summer and in the fall when it gets busier. The workers at Mort's may do a little of everything, from catering to baking. After eating there, you can even play a game of foosball in the game room that's right outside of Mort's.

The view at Avery Point Campus

We finished up our time on the Avery Point Campus by taking a walk alongside the beautiful ocean. Before leaving campus, we peeked inside Project Oceanology and the Branford House. Project Oceanology is a marine science and environmental education program. The Branford House was built in the 19th century and designed to look similar to the Newport Mansions in Rhode Island. If you visit this house, find the bathroom with a fireplace inside of it.

Standing in front of the Branford House

We then stopped at Abbott's Lobster in the Rough for some tasty lunch. It's a waterfront restaurant in Noank, CT. For one of us, various seafoods were tried for the first time. We also saw a 50-some year old lobster in the tank at Abbott's. One of the workers picked up the lobster and we were able to touch it!

Grandpa/grandma lobster

We finally got our goat fix at Beltane Farm. We started our trip to the farm by getting a tour of the milking station and cheese kitchen with Paul Trubey, owner of Beltane Farm. Paul is extremely welcoming and friendly. He is very passionate about what he does and sparked a love for goat farming in our hearts. He let us feed some adorable 4 day old kids with a bottle. Once they were all fed and hyped up we watched them skip and hop around the farm. We also saw many of his other animals including cows, chickens, ducks, and many many goats! We also got to try some of the goat cheese and other products. We especially liked the farm's maple syrup in goat milk yogurt and the cheese with dill. We had an amazing time at the farm and can't wait to visit again.

Some of the cheeses on the menu

Cheeses aging

Feed me!

This kid's all set for naptime on Abby's lap

Thanks Paul for the photo!

Paul with one of his beloved animals on the farm

This week we also worked a shift at Chuck & Augie's in the Student Union. Everyone there was so nice and we had a great day working with the staff! Sous Chef Kyle Davis greeted us and showed us around their kitchen, including the planters outside with edible plants and herbs that are sometimes used in their dishes. At Chuck & Augie's it is a tradition for NACUFS interns to create a salad and have it as a special of the day. Chef Tyler May's expertise helped us through the creation process of our salad, from ingredients to plating. Our salad was a lettuce bouquet with pickled onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, crispy chickpeas, feta cheese, and a spicy edible plant we can't pronounce (if curious of the name, ask Tyler). We created an avocado balsamic dressing to go along with it. After creating our salad, we split up and worked different stations for the lunch rush. (Chef Tyler also made us some burgers on our lunch break, which were some of the best burgers we've ever had. Thanks Chef!)

The salad we created!

Kyle Davis, Chris Weber, Justin Goloski,
Tyler May, Clavo Sanchez, Abby, Mariel

Abby - I got to work with Justin Goloski on the salad line. We made all the side salads and entree salads for the lunch rush. Thank goodness Justin was patient because I can't remember how many salads I messed up due to special orders. I learned quickly to double check whether or not the dressing would be on the side. Justin also showed me how to prep the avocados to be grilled by Tyler May. I also got to do the plating for our specialty salad! I really enjoyed working on the salad line with Justin. He is great at what he does and he taught me a lot about working a screen and creating orders.

Mariel - I worked with Clavo Sanchez, who showed me how to make different sandwiches from a veggie panini to a BLT. A lot of different items were ordered, so I sometimes forgot how to make certain things, but Clavo was always patient and taught me the ingredients and the order they went in. There was a lot going on at his side of the kitchen, from toasting breads to making pub french fries and sweet potato fries. We passed on the sandwiches, burgers, and fries to Tyler and Kyle who finished the orders by grilling, adding more ingredients, and plating. It was really busy and it's impressive that Clavo worked on so many orders at one time!

Salmon Crab Avocado rolls

After our shift at Chuck & Augie's, we went over to McMahon where Chef David Mills taught us how to make sushi. Originally we were going to use a machine to roll the ingredients, but we ended up doing it by manually with a roller and sushi rolling mats. It was definitely a better learning experience to do it ourselves. We're not sure if we're a fan of working with sticky rice, but people enjoyed our Salmon Crab Avocado rolls. Thanks to Carol, Alice Kapsch (South Assistant Manager) and Chef David for this great experience!

Mariel, Steve Karosi, Matt Beckwith, Abby

We woke up bright and early on a couple days this week for our bakery shifts at 4 a.m. We can't say that we would love to do that everyday but it was fun for a few days. On our first day there, we got to work with Steve Karosi and Matt Beckwith with bread making. They let us be hands on with everything. They taught us how to roll pizza dough into the right-sized shape, which as Matt said, "is harder than it looks." The dough without creases will rise the best and hopefully be free of cracks when baked. Rolling was difficult but we eventually caught on (not all that quick though!). We also French-rolled brioche bread (which was a lot easier than pizza dough rolling) and made a three-cheese jalapeño bread. Matt made some of the brioche bread loaves with a cinnamon swirl inside. All of the bread tasted delicious! When we had extra time while everything was baking and cooling, Steve got some pizza dough out and taught us how to braid bread. We had never done braiding before and it was really neat. We tried a 3-, 4- and a 6-strand braid. Matt and Steve are very knowledgeable about what they do and we really enjoyed working with them. During our first day at the bakery, Ron Swiller came into the bakery and slapped us with flour. We are going to get him back somehow but we just have to wait for the perfect opportunity. Watch out Ron!



On our second day at the bakery, we worked with Megan who works on decorating the bakery's items. She showed us a lot of different frosting techniques. We made buttercream frosting and made several different colors of it. We learned how to make carrot shapes, daffodils, dot flowers, and roses. We also learned how tricky working with frosting can be, especially as the pink frosting got too soft to work with while we were making roses. After we each finished decorating a cake of our own, Megan surprised us by saying the cakes were ours to take home! Since two cakes were too much for the two of us, we left one at the commissary and at Bishop for the people there to enjoy (not before taking some cake for ourselves first though). Megan was a great teacher and we can't wait to use our new decorating skills in our future baking endeavors!

Abby's beautiful cake

Mariel's beautiful cake

Carrot cake we frosted

  

Thread City Crossing

A band at the Willimantic street fest

During our free time this week, we went to the Willimantic's 3rd Thursday Street Fest where we enjoyed ice cream, vendors, and entertainment. There aren't these kind of block parties in Ohio or Minnesota, at least nearby us, so it was a really nice experience to see everyone out there having a good time. We also have to mention the cool frogs we saw on a nearby bridge. The story about them goes way back to June of 1754, when the "Battle of the Frogs" occurred (look it up, it's interesting!).

After taking a nap after our bakery shift on Friday, we went to Diana's Pool. It's a great park with natural pools and waterfalls. There were quite a few people there, including a group of about 10+ children playing with toy guns.

Mariel asleep on the riverboat

We also ventured off to Gillette's Castle. It was a nice train, ferry, hiking, and riverboat adventure. William Gillette is famous for portraying Sherlock Holmes and also was a huge cat lover. On the riverboat back from Gillette's Castle, we saw three weddings on the Connecticut River waterfront.

Sunset at Menemsha Beach

For the rest of the weekend, we had Monday off so we decided to take advantage of the extra day by taking a weekend trip to Martha's Vineyard, Masschussetts. It was a nice little vacation! We saw lots of Jaws sights. We didn't jump off of the Jaws bridge though, it was way too cold. But we did muster up the courage to dive inside the nearby State Beach, which was certainly refreshing (aka very, very cold). We laid out on the beaches and even got to have dinner and see the sunset on Menemsha beach. The food was really good and the bus drivers were really nice and helped us get around the island. We soaked the sun in on Monday for a bit before heading back to Storrs, CT - ready to start another great week at UConn!



Until next time,
Abby and Mariel