It’s our last week in Pennsylvania and we definitely have
mixed feelings about leaving. It’s been quite the adventure from New York to
Belleville and all the hard work in between. We won’t forget the experience
we’ve had here with our mentors and the friends we’ve made while working.
Like we promised in our last blog, here’s the menu and theme
of our luncheon.
From Marie’s Peach Summer Salad we came up with a French
Vineyard theme. We called our Luncheon Soleil d'été (which means summer sun in
French) – Summer Getaway to a French Vineyard.
The Menu:
Appetizers – French Bread and Gourgeres served with a
Cheese, Jam, and Honey Platter
Entrée – Peach Summer Salad served with lemon basil chicken,
flank steak, or tofu option and a white balsamic vinaigrette
Dessert - Raspberry Crème Brûlée
Specialty Drink – Peach Spritzer
At the end of the meal we will have to-go bags with mini macaroons inside and a thank you note attached to it. Niki and Marie are going to be in the back of the house in charge of the food. They will be working alongside Chef Mark.
We’ve had so much fun planning our luncheon. I think our
favorite part was figuring out and buying our decorations. Hannah and I are in
charge of the front of the house which means that this week we will be the
one’s setting up the tables and getting all the decorations in place. We will
also be in charge of serving the food and making sure everyone’s glasses are
full.
Last week we spent our time working at the Redifer Dining
Hall supervising. I think we were all excited to be able to go shopping for the
luncheon at the end of the week. We bought mason jars to fill with flowers,
burlap table runners, a huge wine glass, fake grapes, wine corks and a frame to
put our photo inside. It took us a while to find everything…we made stops at a
couple of home accessory stores and then Michaels. We also made a few stops to
get some food items from Trader Joes.
The shopping day was also great because we had made plans to
go to Café Laura. Café Laura is run by HRIM and Nutrition students at PSU and
for the class they plan theme days. All of us and Maria got dressed up and went
to Café Laura for the Polynesian theme day. The food was amazing and we
probably ate our weight in food… maybe not, but it sure felt like it. Coconut
Shrimp, Mahi Mahi, Chicken Sliders, and Banana Bread Pudding.
This final week has been crunch time. Hannah and I had a
hard time making sure we had received responses to our evites and what protein
choice people wanted. It was a little bit hectic. Marie and Niki were on top of
food ordering and food prep. They had to place a ton of orders in to the Bakery
for our breads and desserts. Thanks to Mary we had our menu, thank you
notes and cards done by the end of last week. She was amazing at putting
together everything for us, and her designs were just what we wanted.
On Monday we spent the day gathering the rest of the food we
needed from Wegmans – our cheeses for the appetizer…etc. The rest of the day we
put together thank you cards for everyone that we spent time with while at Penn
State.
Also, Mr. Hopey was kind enough to offer some of the flowers from his garden for our luncheon so we wouldn’t have to spend money on flowers. It was perfect because we were thinking of doing yellow, purple and orange flowers which was just what he had. We are going to pick some of them after we finish setting up everything Tuesday morning. – Mr Hopey’s garden and backyard was gorgeous. There were so many flowers to choose from that our arrangements turned out beautiful.
This week is going by so fast. We made another reservation
at Café Laura for Tuesday night. Hannah and I were looking forward to it
because the theme is Under the Sea… Seafood is our favorite. It will be our
last hurrah before our luncheon on Wednesday. We invited Maria, and her mom came
too. The food and company was amazing. We even got a tour of the back of the house from Chef J.P. We learned more about the class that runs the theme day and it was pretty interesting. After all that food, all four of us
reluctantly went on a run to burn it off.
We spent Tuesday putting everything in place for the
luncheon which included polishing silverware, ironing linens, putting up
decorations, printing out menus, name tags, and thank you tags, setting up our
slideshow of pictures, and picking flowers.
The back of the house is pretty busy too… getting some of
the food prep ready for the 25 people planning to attend our luncheon. They
had to marinate the chicken and steak. They also had to make the vinaigrette.
I’m pretty sure we are going to have a lot of food left over. We’ll definitely
be feasting on it afterwards.
WEDNESDAY!! The day of the luncheon – We arrived at Redifer
early in the morning to get everything else set up. Niki and Marie spent the morning cooking up the food and getting it all prepared. Hannah and I brought out the sparkling
white grape juice and put the finishing touches on the tables with bread
baskets and the cheese, honey butter, and jam platter. While Hannah and I managed the front of the house and served food, Niki and Marie were in the back of the house plating salads and making sure everything was looking good. Over all we were
extremely pleased with how it looked. The orange of the peaches in our
spritzer, the yellow and orange of our flowers, and the cheese boards.We were glad Maria could help us with the luncheon and even supply us with our red bow ties which pulled everything together.
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| All our hard work paid off... look at those amazing salads. More delicious than it looks. |
At the end of our luncheon we had a slide show with all of the pictures we have accumulated over our time here…some funny, some serious. We also handed out thank you bags with caramel and chocolate macaroons. They were so delicious!
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| The Macaroons... absolutely on point. |
Overall our luncheon went really well! The food was amazing
and it was great to have everyone together so we could thank them for such a great
NACUFS experience. It was especially hard for Maria seeing as it’s the last
NACUFS interns she will ever have and we are all leaving to go home in the next
few days. We all really appreciated her hard work and effort she put into
making this internship fun and meaningful. It definitely was an experience we
won’t forget. We are glad we had the chance to get to know Pennsylvania and the
friendly people we’ve come in contact with here. It’s going to be hard for us
to leave all of the wonderful people we’ve learned to call family. It has already been so hard to say good-bye.
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| Our mentor Jaime from Pollock |
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| Our mentor Steve at Redifer. |
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| And of course, Maria |
Thank you Penn State for such a great experience!! We ended the NACUFS program with a bang.
- The Last and Final NACUFS Interns of 2016
Hannah and Michelle
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