6 Weeks at The University of New Hampshire

I know that this is my first post and its WEEK 6, but its because I have been so busy here learning so much. My experience at the University of New Hampshire has been nothing less than amazing. From the people, to the students, to the majestic campus that I have called home for the last month and half, UNH has embraced this UNC-Greensboro senior with open arms. From my first day here they treated me just like another part of the staff, my amazing bosses, Richard LeHoullier and Dahlia Nardone, decking me out with my own assortment of UNH Dining Services polos and tees, as well as my own personal name tag. Although that first breakfast at 8 am on June 17th felt a bit overwhelming, meeting numerous members of the Dining Services team and trying to keep up with all of their names and titles, I quickly began to realize exactly why Jon Plodzik, Director of UNH Dining is such a stickler for name tags. On my first day here I jumped right in head first, familiarizing myself with the Union Court, which is one of the major retail locations located in the student center, the Memorial Union Building. Here students and faculty can choose from a variety of food options such as the Chick'n Kitchen and Serrano Fresh Mex. As well as Artisan Fresh, a gourmet sandwich shop and your building own salad concept called Creative Greens. Like most know, the secret to a successful food service operation is a well organized kitchen. For the first week I learned how to take inventory and determine what items needed to be ordered, as well as learned how to write an inventory sheet. "Sheet to Shelf" is the term, meaning that the order the inventory numbers are in on paper is the same order that the items are on the shelf.
As a dietetics major, a lot of my focus has been on the nutritional side of food service. Whether that has been analyzing recipes for their nutritional content, collecting information to determine the guiding star rating of dishes, or writing and manipulating recipes myself, I have been very hand-on throughout all steps of the process. During my first week here I had the pleasure of meeting the very smart, witty, and adventurous Rochelle L'Italien, M.S., R.D.,L.D. the official dietitian on staff. She is an excellent resource, has a lot of experience, and is passionate about her work. She even took me to into a planning meeting with the head chefs of the dining hall when they sat down to talk about modifying their online ordering system for their gluten free students.
As my weeks have continued here I have done a number of activities from working at various foods concepts around campus, ordering products, taking inventory, writing recipes, making nutrition fact labels to even getting to cook in the kitchen myself. UNH thus far has been awesome place to intern and I am looking forward to sharing more of my stories.

The Union Court in the Memorial Union Building.