The University of Kansas: Week Four

I can't believe we are already halfway done with our NACUFS internship at the University of Kansas! This past week Julie and I had our plates full of lots of learning, field trips and ventures into KU Athletics! 

Monday, June 27th

Our Monday was a long one! Julie and I both had the pleasure of working line service and making and plating meals for students at Global Cuisine, KU Dining's international concept. I made Lo Mein - yum! Afterwards, I worked with Mason in learning the hot foods process. I fried lots and LOTS of chicken and tofu, made mass amounts of macaroni and cheese and helped prepare for the front of the house and their dinner service. I had a lot of fun learning from the guys in the back of the house along the way!

Tuesday, June 28th

Tuesday was field trip day - YAY! We traveled to Kansas City to go to Sysco,  KU Dining's primary distributor. The warehouse was HUGE! We walked past dozens of isles full of stock, went into chilly refrigerators and ice cold freezers. We even had to take five minutes to warm up in the heating room after our tour. For lunch, we visited Sysco's test kitchen and Chef John prepared a delicious lunch for us. We had a great conversation with Lorenzo, KU Dining's Sysco representative, Judy, Mrs. E's awesome receiver, and Christine, our preceptor. We left with lots of gifts, snacks and so much great information about Sysco as a company.

What a warm welcome!

Julie loves being my model (or so I like to think)!

Wednesday, June 29th

Today, we had the pleasure of meeting with KU Athletic's sports dietitian, Aaron! We traveled to his office in Anderson Strength Center. We got to check out the Jayhawk's Fueling Station, where Aaron and his assistants are able to feed their athletes with the help of KU Dining, and his DEXA machine. After Julie and I picked Aaron's brain about his role in KU Athletics and the journey he took to get there, we were assigned a project. Julie and I will be compiling data of Lawrence restaurants and the healthy options they provide so that when the athletes dine out, they can easily hop on the Jawhawk Fuel app and see the more nutritious options they have to choose from! We should be pretty busy with this project and we are excited. 

Thursday, June 30th

Today was a hectic but fun day! Julie and I got to work with Christine at the KU Dining tabling during a crazy new student orientation. Julie and I were trained on the KU Dining plans available during the school year so we were able to interact with lots of parents and students inquiring about their options. I had a lot of fun helping out the families and working with Christine and Julie at this event. Later in the afternoon, Julie and I had our first experience in recipe testing! We both made pizza with Chef Mary and Keith at the Cooper Oven, KU Dining's pizza concept. Let's just say if Julie and I were in a pizza making competition, I would have been the unanimous winner ☺. (We actually just found a major flaw in our breakfast pizza that Julie made because we did not have any sauce for the trial - but hey, that's what recipe testing is for!)

Ready to take on new student orientation! Can you spot Christine?!

KU Dining is #1!

Pizza pro!

My masterpiece!

Friday, July 1st

Friday morning, more than Wednesday and Thursday morning, was packed full of project time! Julie and I have been working hard at creating nutrition education material for the school year's monthly nutrition topics. We are creating articles, handouts, infographics, tables tents, PowerPoints, tweets, you name it, for KU Dining! My topics are, "Eating on a Time Crunch" and "Fad Diets" and I have been having a lot of fun with them. After our usual Friday lunch with Christine, we worked with Cheryl in a Jayhawk Grocer walk through. We assessed the student grocery store for correct safety and sanitation procedures. Afterwards, we met with Chef Mary to finalize our "The Original Rules of Breakfast" themed event menu and ordered some products for next week's recipe testing - we're so excited!

Weekend Fun

Over the weekend I traveled to Kansas City to finally visit the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (I've been wanting to go for weeks)! I spent hours there and absolutely loved all their collections and exhibits! Afterwards, I ate at a local BBQ restaurant and had a great first Kansas City BBQ experience. I can't wait to experience KC again! 

Happy Fourth of July to all!

Four Fast Weeks!

        We've hit the halfway point, and I can't believe this internship has gone by so fast! It has been four action packed and educational! This week began with a day in Hot Foods and Line Service! This was an intense day that was fast paced! I learned how the food is prepared, and properly stored until serving. This production was down to the science, as we started dinner menu items at around 10 AM! Line service was also fast paced, while I was serving dinner. I was alerted that the meal we served was one of the most popular meals during the school year.  Sesame chicken and white rice was indeed popular during the summer as well!  

Lunch!

                Tuesday was our first field trip! We traveled to the Sysco Warehouse in Olathe, Kansas. This is the distributing location where KU receives their food orders from. This building was massive. The length of the hallways were incredible, multiple football fields long. The aisles where the inventory was stocked were super long as well. Some of the lights were turned off, because they are motion censored, and those were endless as well! Another neat part of this tour was the tour of the freezers. There were I think 4 different temperature freezers, all with specific items. The freezer the ice cream is stored in is negative 20 degrees (we didn’t go in that one , the 0 degree freezer was chilly enough!).  After the culmination of the warehouse tour, we went upstairs and were provided lunch by the Chef! We were able to see the test and production kitchens! Here recipes were generated, and tested for restaurants, schools and other food businesses.

The salad we ate for lunch! (So yummy!)

Our friends from Sysco, courtesy of Bri

New Student Orientation, courtesy of Bri!

                Wednesday we met with the Sport's Dietitian, Aaron Carbuhn. We learned about a day in his life at KU Athletics, learned of the projects he is working on, and saw the workout facilities for the KU Athletes! This room was massive! This was a very beneficial meeting because having an interest in sports nutrition, and seeing what he does was awesome!  We also spent ample time working on the many projects we have, especially our dinner! Thursday Bri and I worked with Christine at the KU Dining Services table at the New Student Orientation.  An hour has never passed so quickly! We were answering the questions of students and mostly parents, on how meal plans worked and the different locations of KU Dinging! It was great to see so many excited first year students eager for the start of school! It reminded me of my orientation and how overwhelming it was!  After orientation, we were able to begin testing recipes for our special dinner. Who knew what went into creating a recipe! So much trial and error. It was exciting to try new things, and watch the reactions of the different people who tried our "creation".

                Friday was a large project day! We spent a lot of time in Mrs. E's working on our projects! It was a beneficial time in order to get a good start on the projects.  We met with Christine for our Friday Lunch, and then met with RD Cheryl Wiley to do a walkthrough of one of the retail locations were we assessed the sanitation.  We then met with Mary to discuss what products we needed in order to further our recipe testing! I am excited for next week to test, test, test!  

Week Six at the University of Georgia

This has been a very exciting week at UGA! Erin and I have accomplished a lot of progress for both of our projects. We're working hard so that we can put on a good event as well as an informative customer service presentation.

Before I go into detail about our projects, here are some pictures from last Sunday when we treated ourselves at the Independent Bakery and then went to the last show at Athfest, where we saw Kishi Bashi perform. It was such a fun show!

Morning Roll from the Independent Bakery. Basically a cross between a croissant and cinnamon roll. Heavenly!

Kishi Bashi

On Monday, Erin and I met with the executive chef to go over our recipes for our New England event. We made some changes to the recipes before we put them into Foodpro. We'll be serving:

• Chilled Lobster and Shrimp Rolls
• Maple and Chili Glazed Pork Chops
• Summer Squash Lasagna
• Boston Baked Beans
• Rhode Island Clam Chowder
• Cape Cod Salad
• Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

Afterwards, we met with the head chef at the Village Summit to discuss when we could test some of our recipes.

The next day, Erin and I got some administrative experience as we shadowed Dianne who is in charge of paying all of the unit's bills as well as processing the invoices. It's a very important job filled with many details but Dianne gave us handouts to discuss the the daily purchase process which made it a lot easier to understand. Since UGA serves so many students, there's a ton of food and supplies going in and out of their warehouse so it's really important to make sure money is going into the right hands. It was great having the chance to talk to her and learn more about the behind-the-scenes work of food services. 

Later on, Erin and I talked to Haleigh to discuss our marketing plan for our New England event. Our hope is to market to the freshman orientation group to get them to come to the event. Who can say no to a lobster and shrimp roll? 

Afterwards, we met with Craig to discuss our customer service presentation. We also completed a strength-finders test which was awesome! It's a personality test that detects your top 5 personality traits in order to help you hone your skills using those innate characteristics. The test chose the following qualities for me:

1. Learner- "A great desire to learn and want to continuously improve."
2. Input- "A craving to know more."
3. Achiever- "A great deal of stamina and work hard"
4. Futuristic- "Inspired by the future and what could be"
5. Connectedness- "Have faith in the links between all things"

It was a really neat experience because I felt like the test really picked out qualities that define who I am. I'm very appreciative of having the chance to take this test!

That night, Erin and I went to a comedy show at Hendershot's. It was a great time and the comedians were so talented!

Stage at Hendershot's

On Wednesday, Erin and I looked for decorations for our New England Event at the Bolton dining hall. The highlight of this day was taste testing our Boston cream pie cupcakes and lobster and salad rolls. :)

Erin getting the pudding filling ready

Baked vanilla cupcakes

Chocolate icing, yum!

I know I'm biased but I have to say these were definitely delicious

Erin getting the lobster salad prepared

Me chopping up some fresh lobster

Our finished product... Who wants one? 

After testing two of our recipes, Erin and I made some changes into the recipes we had inputted in Foodpro. We then met with an assistant manager who showed us more decorations at one of the dining halls. Then we worked on our customer service presentation.

Friday was comprised on working on our customer service presentation and also trying to decide where we should put our decorations at the Village Summit.

The holiday weekend has been full of fun activities like swimming, fireworks, and barbecuing! Happy Fourth of July :)

Texas Tech- Weeks 4&5 (Catering, Training, Marketing, and Dietetics)

Week 4

At the start of this week, the dietitian Mindy assigned us with a “Week in a Glance” project, similar to what we dietetic students have done during class. The project is essentially creating a week day menu for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even snacks (but not beverages).

The parameters for my “Week in a Glance” were as follows:

1. for the TTU Student Union Building

2. Vegetarian Diet

3. (self-imposed) 1600-1800 calorie days.

I was surprised it took almost two full work days to complete. First I had to go through the online menu and nutrition facts for every dining concept in the SUB and look for vegetarian options. I then started arranging the ideas for different meals. The final part was to sum the calories, macros, and fiber for each meal and day.

Mindy helped by taking me to the Student Union Building on Tuesday so I could see in person what I’ve been planning. I realized I had more snack options and also could better understand what the concepts have to sell.

Mindy had all four of us interns complete the project for different locations that week. She says she is interested in distributing our Week in a Glances to her clients, especially the ones living on campus, who want meal ideas.

Since I’m not vegetarian, this was a good challenge. I do appreciate non-meat protein sources because I don’t buy much meat while I live on campus, both here at TTU and at Auburn (my school). I’m pleased with my 1600-1800 calorie days reaching more than 60g of protein.

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The second part of the week was with Marketing. Megan and I spent one morning visiting different marketing employees, learning about what they do for the department. We also spent two days working at the Red Raider Orientation, talking with incoming freshmen and their parents about how TTU meal plans operate. I love working with freshmen at my university; I felt right at home.

When we weren't with someone from Marketing, Megan and I had time to think about our Captsone project.

Our Capstone project is in two parts. First, we worked on developing or modifying gluten free recipes that the new gluten-free facility will make this fall. Second, we will create an opening event for the venue. “The sky’s the limit!” says our superviser.

A few weeks ago, I didn’t appreciate why we had started working on the Capstone project so early. Now I understand. That would have been too much work for the week we have set aside to work on the project. As of right now, we feel pretty confident about our progress.

Week 5

This week, Megan and I worked with training and catering. Training has great Title Nine and Clery Act videos. Catering was neat to see because I knew so little about it. We learned about the whole process. They showed us how they enter their event information into their catering software and interact with the clients. We also looked into how the financial side of catering works.

We had a very detailed tour of the massive catering kitchen. In the end, we were driven around to different catering sites (some were preparing to host events that afternoon!).

All in all, the catering staff was modest about their jobs, but the numbers they mentioned for their events just in the last two months were staggering.

Next week, we will be 100% working on our Capstone Project! Our presentation is July 11th!

Week 4 at CSU

It's hard to believe I'm half way through my internship!  Time has flown by and it has been a lot of learning, exploring, and having fun!  This past week was relatively light because of working last

Noosa Factory

weekend at the Bike MS event, but it was still productive and exciting.

Monday, June 27: After working on the weekend, I was given today off.  My morning began with a nice run with a former teammate who is now going to graduate school at CSU.  After the run, I walked to Lucille’s, the infamous Cajun/Creole restaurant in Old Town.  Everyone I have asked at CSU for restaurant recommendations has been ecstatic about Lucille’s, so I couldn’t wait to try it!  I ordered the Eggs New Orleans, which was poached eggs on fried eggplant slices with Creole sauce (a chunky tomato and onion sauce) and a side of collard greens.  It also came with a biscuit, which was absolutely huge.  They make everything from scratch, including their jams and ketchup. 

Lucille's incredible breakfast

Of course I had to sample the jams and marmalades, both of which were delicious.  Later in the afternoon, I drove to Bellevue, where Noosa Yoghurt Headquarters are located.  Unfortunately, the factory doesn’t give tours, but there was a pleasant café on the property of the milk farm, Morning Farms Dairy, that Noosa uses for their yogurt. It was all essentially in the same complex, so I spent the afternoon drinking coffee, reading, and eating Noosa with locally made granola.  There was a delightful aroma of cows outside, so I limited my time on the patio.  Before dinner, I took a wonderful yoga class at Om Ananda Yoga in Old Town, then went to Slyce Pizza for a quick dinner.

Tuesday, June 28: I spent today with Chuckie, who works with catering.  We discussed the different services catering provides, from water and coffee tables for groups of 10 to box lunches and entire dinners for groups of 500 to 1,000.  Catering is located out of Durrell and it was interesting to learn how staffing and cooking works when Durrell is open and catering has a large event.  I also helped prep sandwiches for a catered lunch on campus.  I made chicken salad wraps and veggie ranch wraps.  After lunch, Chuckie tough me how to create invoices for events.  I worked on editing existing ones and creating new ones for future events.  At the end of the day, she gave me a tour Durrell Express, one of two express locations at CSU.  They make homemade gelato that I would have loved to try, but unfortunately they aren’t open during the summer.  I couldn’t let a Tuesday night go by without going to the Food Truck Rally.  Tonight I went with a former cross country teammate who is doing research/going to graduate school at CSU.  We both chose Umami for dinner and Ba-nom-a-noms for dessert!

Wednesday, June 29: Today I experienced a typical day of catering working with two student employees.  CSU is hosting Royal Family Kids, a group of about 100 kids and adults, for the week and catering three meals a day for them. 

Sandwiches for lunch

The day consisted of serving breakfast, cleaning up and setting up for lunch, serving lunch, and finally cleaning up lunch and setting up for dinner.  This was the group I made the sandwiches for yesterday and it was interesting to see the entire process unfold, from making the sandwiches to delivering them to the site to doing the dishes in the kitchen.  It was a quick, busy, and fun day.

Thursday, June 30: Lori and I walked across campus to the Horticulture Center in the morning, where we attended a lettuce tasting.  I visited the greenhouse with Royce during the first week of my internship and the lettuce was in the initial stages of its growing process. 

Some of the sustainably-grown lettuce

Free flowers!

Pineapple plants growing in the greenhouse

Just a refresher –
the horticulture department and Dining Services are trying to join together and use sustainably grown lettuce in one of the dining halls on campus.  Today we tasted a few types of lettuce, grown using hydroponics and specialized LED lights, that will possibly be used for the sandwiches at the President’s Picnic in August.  walking around the greenhouse, stumbling upon an entire room of free plants, and finding a few pineapple plants in a separate room, Lori and I went to Ram’s Horn to help with lunch.  We put together to-go containers at meal swipe, which were high in demand from the group of about 1,000 girls from the WELS Conference staying on campus.  On our way out of the dining hall, we went through the kitchen and found a plate of cheesecake slices.  Being a dessert enthusiast, I was intrigued!  One of the chefs was experimenting with a recipe and made a stewed green tomato and cantaloupe cheesecake with a chocolate crust.  The staff offered me a taste and it was absolutely incredible!  I

Not the prettiest, but absolutely delicious!

would never have thought of that combination, but it was superb!  I headed back to Palmer and took an online training test that all hourly employees have to take.  It included information about proper attire, customer service, knife skills, cleaning, etc.  Lori also wanted to add a small section about diversity at CSU and the importance of treating all employees with the same level of respect.  I’m glad I got a chance to see part of the training process for hourlies.  I was able to finish the day a little early, so I decided to try the chocolate flight at Nuance Chocolate in Old Town.  Nuance is one of the only bean to bar chocolate factories in the country, which means they roast and grind beans before making their chocolate.  I chose the half order of the Single Origin Taster Flight #1, which is their original taster flight (they now have three – two single origin and one with flavored milk chocolate).  Being a dark chocolate fanatic, I was really interested in the complexity of the flavors and the uniqueness of each piece.  The flight came instructions on how to correctly taste the chocolate (cleanse your palate with water and crackers, let the chocolate melt in your mouth, etc.) and a card for tasting notes.  It was quite the experience and I will definitely have to go back to try some of their truffles!

Friday, July 1: I had today off for an extended Fourth of July weekend, so I began my morning with a run followed by breakfast at Snooze AM Eatery.  I had been early in June with my parents before my internship started, but we all ordered egg dishes.  Today I was in the mood for pancakes! 

The Goodness Cake

They have a really creative breakfast menu and many of their sweet dishes are more like dessert.

Mushrooms from Hazel Dell

I ordered a whole wheat and quinoa pancake, which was scrumptious!  After a few morning errands, I drove to Hazel Dell Mushrooms, a local mushroom farm that supplies many of the restaurants in the area.  Royce told me about the retail shop at the farm and I figured I had time today, so I went.  I got a variety of types to use for dinner.  Now that my teammate is here and living in an apartment, I have access to a kitchen, which is absolutely fantastic.  I’ve missed cooking at home!

More Fort Collins adventures to come!

Food Shows, Vendor Tours, and Buffets at Rutgers University (Week 4!)

This past week has been the much anticipated field trip and project week!

On Monday, our preceptors brought us to the Fancy Food Show in New York, and the experience was so amazing! The Fancy Food Show is a 3-day show with vendors showcasing their local cheese, coffees, spices, spreads, food pairings, ethnic cuisines, and more! Denisse and I had never been to a food show before so we were overjoyed by the variety of unique food options and inventive food substitutions.

From left to right: Denisse, Kristin, Kelly (preceptor), Peggy (preceptor), and Carly (Peggy's Healthy Dining Team Intern)

The food show was split amongst several floors, with each floor circulating on its own theme. For example, the first floor was based on “states” so each row showcased foods from a different state, and the second floor was split based on different countries. We arrived at around 10:30am and decided to peruse the first floor. It took us 5 hours to finish the first floor before we even started the second! Some of the highlights at the show for me were an avocado-based mayonnaise, an almond butter that tasted like cheese, and elderflower & lingoberry extract. The funkiest food we tried was a salt made out of crushed worms and grasshoppers. It was actually pretty good! The worms gave the salt a natural spiciness that was quite appetizing. The key themes seen throughout the day were vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free, and plant-based.

A shelf stable spinach wrap that had the consistency of a fruit-roll up, but paired well with the hummus!

Olive Oil Tastings

Different vinaigrettes

So many olives! There were rows and rows of olives.

Overall, attending this food show was such an incredible experience. It was awesome that a lot of companies are recreating popular foods, such as chips, to reach out to gluten-free and dairy-free audiences. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so many different types of food at once, but I wouldn’t object to doing it again! ;)  

Sophie, Kristin, Denisse, and Carly (Sophie and Carly are Healthy Dining Team Interns at Rutgers University)

On Tuesday, we went on a vendor tour to J&J Snack Foods. J&J Snack Foods is a big vendor for many of the popular snack foods such as churros, pretzels, Minute Maid frozen lemonade cups, chocolate chip cookies, and funnel fries. One of the inventive products involving pretzels that I found interesting was the pretzel sandwich. After a pretzel was baked, it would be cut in half (hamburger style) and lettuce, tomatoes, or other fillings would be placed between the two halves of the pretzels. The eyes of the pretzel were still visible though, so the placement of the toppings had to be precise. Another interesting snack choice was a giant pretzel that would be placed in a large pizza box and different dips would be placed in the pretzel eyes (alternative to those late night pizza cravings?). We received a comprehensive presentation from the Marketing Manager of J&J Snack Foods and got to taste some of their new products in their Research & Development Lab.

On Wednesday, we went on a vendor tour to the Seviroli Pasta Factory. Anthony, one of the well-rounded employees at the factory, gave us a tour of the facility. Because Seviroli is expanding, they have multiple factories that are adjacent to one another, but not connected. The company was producing tortellini for the day, so we got to walk along the catwalk to view tortellini being produced in the masses. We also got a quick peek at the pasta sauce factory. Afterwards, we attended Pasta Making 101, where the wonderful chefs taught us how to make our own handmade pasta. The session was followed by a wonderful lunch, where we tasted the handmade noodles, tortellini, and chicken ravioli.

The wonderful chefs at the Seviroli Factory taught us how to make pasta and cooked us a delicious lunch!

On Thursday, Denisse and I implemented our buffet line menu at the Rutgers Club. We’ve been preparing for this with the big help of Chef Tommy since the last time we went to the Rutgers Club (two weeks ago!).

Our menu:

Sweet Corn Soup with Leeks and Fresh Basil

Strawberry, Arugula, Goat Cheese, and Hazelnut Salad with a Cherry Vinaigrette

Quinoa Power Salad with Avocado Cilantro Dressing

Cucumber, Cherry Tomatoes, Onions, and Mozzarella Balls Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

Pan Roasted Salmon with Mango Salsa

Rosemary Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

Sauteed Baby Zucchini and Carrots with Roasted Garlic and Parsley

Penne Pasta Tossed with Arugula Pesto and Roasted Red Peppers

Marinated Flank with Chimichurri Sauce

Us with Chef Tommy at the Rutgers Club with our Buffet Line

On Friday, we started preparing the decor for our farewell luncheon, which will be on July 26th. We made some cute props for our photobooth. Rukiah, the marketing manager, helped us create a wonderful animated invitation letter, which will be sent to approximately 200 Rutgers staff. Jenny, the catering manager, also drove us to Hobby Lobby, a large craft store, to pick out some preliminary decorations for our luncheon. We are all super excited to prepare for this event, so more to come about that! This exciting week has been a wonderful segue to a relaxing three-day weekend!