Hi everyone, our time at UConn is almost over!
On Monday we took a tour of Omar Coffee in Newington, CT. This is the local coffee roaster that provides UConn with coffee. They make blends like UConn Bold, French Vanilla and A Cup of Joe, and we can say from personal experience that these are all pretty delicious. We went behind the scenes and saw where Omar Coffee develops, roasts, packages, and distributes their coffee. They showed us some of their imported coffee beans from places like Mexico, Vietnam, Brazil, and El Salvador! We also learned about green coffee, which are coffee beans that have not yet been roasted. Along with seeing Omar’s roasting equipment, we saw their machinery used to package K-Cups and infuse beans with different flavors, like hazelnut. Omar Coffee offers other products and services, like espresso, brew equipment and equipment service. Their equipment service team is very dedicated to ensuring their equipment is working and repaired in a timely fashion. Many thanks to Shannon Cercone and Greg for showing us around Omar Coffee!
 |
| Equipment used to infuse beans with flavor |
 |
| Coffee beans imported from around the world |
 |
| Green coffee beans |
After our tour of Omar Coffee, we went down to Foxwoods Resort Casino. Mark Genereux, Assistant Executive Chef, gave us a grand tour of the food production side of this huge casino. Foxwoods is the largest resort casino in the US, and we were able to get a glimpse of that as we walked all around the resort. We saw numerous kitchens, including banquet kitchens and some of the kitchens of the casino’s restaurants. We also stopped by the resort’s bakery, where a pastry chef treated us with some tasty desserts. We were able to learn about how Foxwoods maximizes production while minimizing labor costs. They certainly utilize all of their resources! During our tour, we were also able to meet Marian Raczkowski and Maryam Hosseini, who work in the Food Safety and Sanitation department of Foxwoods. We learned about the many different tasks a Food Safety and Sanitation Inspector can have at Foxwoods, from inspecting the resort’s pool to its tattoo parlor. They may or may not get a tan down by the pool in their free time.
 |
| A chocolate raspberry delicacy |
 |
| Carol's pastry! |
 |
| Abby, Executive Chef Mark G., Mariel |
 |
| #FunAtFox |
On Tuesday we worked with Ron Swiller. We helped him make recipes like eggplant with oyster sauce and spam musubi. Spam musubi was a lot tastier than we thought it would be! He also taught us how to saute and properly place food in oil ("You might want to step back if I'm working with oil around you!" -Mariel). We also learned tricks to working with sticky rice. After recipe testing, he showed us how to input recipes into FoodPro and check inventory. Also, we snapped a picture of a deer really close to us outside of McMahon later that day!
 |
| Eggplant with oyster sauce |
 |
| Spam musubi |
On Wednesday, we met with Amy Dunham again to do some more dietary analysis. The longer we work with Amy the more and more we learn about Food Processor and how she monitors her patients on such a large campus. We enjoy learning from Amy and hope to work with her again in the future.
We participated in a UCuisine Photo Shoot on Thursday. We were happy to be there, seeing familiar faces like Chef Angel. A wooden table was set up nearby the Benton with products from the farmer's market and we posed around it with UConn's dining services staff. We are excited to see the cover when the issue comes out!
 |
| Just a glimpse of all the aisles at Sysco |
After posing for the camera, we took a trip to the Sysco facilities in Rocky Hill, CT. Sysco is the world’s largest broadline food distributor, with facilities in the United States and Canada. They provide UConn with a lot of supplies, both of the food and non-food variety. The Sysco in CT provides products to several establishments in Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts. Scott, VP of Operations, gave us a tour of the warehouse. He was very knowledgeable about his work and answered all of our questions about their operations. He shared information ranging from safety precautions to receiving procedures. He showed us their expansive area for dry storage with aisles and aisles of products. He also showed us their refrigerators and he was kind enough to pass over the freezers for our tour. We also met with Scott from marketing and finance, who spoke to us about their redistribution center and their involvement with local companies. Thank you to Shane at Sysco for setting up this tour!
After our Sysco tour, we started our 3-day weekend. We more or less went to the same cities this weekend, but we split off as we had friends visiting this weekend so our adventures are different!
 |
| Neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY |
Mariel – My best friend Katherine from Minnesota visited me this weekend! On Friday, we met her family in NY and from there we drove to Point Pleasant Beach in New Jersey. As the driver for our road trip to NJ, I was nervous about driving in New York and New Jersey, and I still am! I'm not sure I would want to drive in either state ever again, but I’d be content to visit both places again as a passenger. Next time I visit NJ, I'll be prepared for all of their tolls!
 |
| Jenkinson's Boardwalk, Point Pleasant Beach, NJ |
When we first arrived at the Jersey Shore, the weather on the beach was muggy and icky. It looked like it was going to rain, but we stuck around and thankfully the weather cleared up quite nicely! We spent the entire day at Jenkinson’s Boardwalk, where we splashed around in the high-tide beach, shopped, ate, and went on rides. It was a day and night filled with lots of laughter!
 |
| A view of Downtown Salem at night |
On Saturday, we went to Boston where we spent the afternoon in the Boston Public Garden. We went on a swan boat ride in the Public Garden Lagoon, where we passed by ducks and two beautiful swans. We also tried an arepa from a street vendor and watermelon flavored lemonade. After walking around for a little bit, we ventured out to Salem, MA to go on a walking tour of the site where the Salem Witch Trials occurred. A local tour guide showed us various key locations, like the cemetery where many of the accused and accusers have headstones. The events of 1692 was a sobering history lesson of the consequences of corruption. Salem is also known for other things, like being the birthplace of the National Guard. We ended the night back in Boston, enjoying a late dinner in Chinatown at an Asian fusion cafe.
 |
| Katherine and Mariel at BPG |
On Sunday, we spent the afternoon at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. You could easily spend the entire day at this museum, with the three floors of exhibits full of information. We learned about dinosaurs, mammals, meteorites, and many other things. It is hands-down my most favorite museum I have ever visited.
We then went to the Lighthouse Point Park, where we lounged and waded in the water. After the beach, we were in the mood for seafood by the shore, so we went to Beachhead Restaurant in East Haven where we both enjoyed amazing lobster rolls and saw fireworks. We definitely recommend Beachhead!
 |
| Chris eating lobster at Abbott's! |
On Sunday we went to Abbott’s where Chris got his long awaited lobster. I decided to avoid the bib so I got some crab cakes and stole a few bites off Chris’s plate. After our fresh seafood we spent the day relaxing in Mystic. We did some shopping and some boat watching. We decided to try Mystic Pizza and definitely ate too much. I plan to rent the movie to see what all the fame is about!
Until next time!
Abby and Mariel
No comments:
Post a Comment