Week 4 at Cal!

This week marked the halfway point of our internship!

Monday: July 4th Holiday!

Cafe 3

Tuesday and Wednesday: Again we were split up to separate dining facilities, but this time we shadowed the executive chefs, Mary (at Crossroads) and Sean (at Cafe 3). During our time with the chefs, we learned about how to forecast food production needs for the week, which is vital to placing accurate purchase orders. Forecasting is a lot of educated guessing based on past consumption history, any upcoming events, and other miscellaneous circumstances (like a weekend versus a weekday, for example). Chefs also must maintain a keen eye on their inventory to ensure they never run low on needed items. Aside from purchasing and forecasting, we also walked through with each chef as they completed their storage checks. These checks ensure food in fridges and dry storage are properly labeled and dated, following a first in-first out (FIFO) system (oldest product gets used first to ensure it doesn't expire). The chef will also check that the facilities are sanitary and follow all food safety protocols (covered, maintained in proper temperature, etc.). After office work is completed, the executive chefs also have a crucial role in taste-testing line items and directing their sous chefs in the day's tasks.

Prepping beef tri-tip for dinner

Thursday: We spent time today with the sustainability team, including the sustainability coordinator, Sam, and her two interns. We began by preparing the CKC gardens for the fall (which included planting basil, cumin, spreading compost, and feeding the worm garden). The harvests from the garden are used in the CKC kitchen during the school year! We also had the opportunity to join the sustainability interns as they completed their audits of the facilities. The audits ensure that the dining halls are composting and recycling the correct items. Any item found improperly discarded (e.g. food waste in the landfill and not composted) counts for one point off from the facility's sustainability score. Points can also be deducted for missing trash/recycling/compost bins. The winner of the twice monthly audits gets a trophy to proudly display. It's fun to see the team at each location get competitive about the contest; they take their sustainability efforts seriously! In the afternoon we met with another intern and worked on healthy recipes ideas for the dining halls, called Bear Bites. Each bear bite is based on a monthly theme for the upcoming school year; whole grain, plant forward, fair trade, local, sustainable seafood, and pulses (a type of legume!). Each recipe utilizes food found in the dining hall in unique ways to make healthy and creative meals!

Waste audit score sheet

The prized trophy!

Friday: Today we took a field trip to Stanford University to learn about the food service and dining program there! Stanford is Cal’s rival so it was fun to see the campus and facilities from that perspective. We met up with Stanford’s dietitian who showed us around one of the dining halls there and also their new instructional kitchen. Here they are implementing a new culinary program with Jamie Oliver’s cookery school, which Jamie Oliver himself came to kick off! Instructional cooking classes are offered to all students, covering a variety of topics such as salads, breakfast foods, meats, and include lessons such as knife skills and flavor combinations. Each class also includes a nutrition lesson as well that complements the material being covered, like seasonal produce and the importance of eating breakfast. In addition to this program, special cooking classes have been offered especially for athletes during the summer, since these students may not have the time to attend during the normal semester.

Stanford's dining facilities are real food certified!

After seeing the dining hall and instructional kitchen, we went outside to one of the 9 (yes 9!) student-run gardens on Stanford’s main campus. Student interns regularly come to maintain and harvest the produce, although they are community gardens and any student or faculty on campus is welcome to pick some produce as they walk by. We got to try some interesting plants like ground cherries and edible flowers!

It was definitely cool to see another amazing example of university food service. Stanford is doing a lot of really exciting things in dining, and implementing many projects to get students to eat healthier and more balanced meals in the dining halls.

Alamere Falls from above!

Weekend: On Saturday we decided to spend the day on the west side of the bay hiking and taking in the beautiful scenery. We stopped by Point Reyes National Seashore, where we hiked along the cliffs on the Pacific Ocean to a place called Alamere Falls. Then we drove north a little bit to the historic Point Reyes lighthouse. It was stunning!!