The second week has been just as exciting as the last!

Since Taylor and I are both dietetics majors our director Carol Cronin sent up a meeting with UCONN's head dietician Amy Dunham. She welcomed us to her office for an informal Q&A session about her academic career, position at UCONN, and personal health. Pregnant with her third child, she was able to give us valuable insight about life as a full time working woman and a mom. Throughout Amy's career at UCONN, she has brought several programs to the campus that promote self acceptance of body image and healthy life styles. Both she and her team see students one-on-one to access any healthy concerns and help coordinate with dinning halls to accommodate for any intolerance students may have. 

For the last half of our day we traveled to what seems to be our home base, 

McMahon dinning hall, where we participated in assistant manager training. Joe Ferris, Area Manager of McMahon, explained his responsibilities. With such a large facility he has to proactively have his hands in every part of service, from employees and computer systems to scheduling. Being the Area Manager of McMahon is no simple task. Fortunately, Joe has a team of skilled assistant mangers, some of which have come from other dinning halls during the summer session, who help maintain the machine that is McMahon. One of those lovely gentlemen is Bruce Hessing, Assistant Manager at Gelfenbein.

                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                    Bruce Hessing

During our evening shift we walked between the five cooking stations; pizza, tandoori, grill, wok, and saute to check with each sections cooks. Since it was a slower evening, Bruce decided to take us on a surprise tour of the Kosher/ Halal kitchen. He explained how the 2003 renovations of Gelfenbein had included the addition of a Kosher kitchen. Funding for the kosher kitchen came from many benefactors across the state of Connecticut. The new kitchen was split into two sections with meat on one side and dairy on the other. 

To end our evening, we followed Randy Markes around, aka the keeper of the vacuum. Randy was very passionate about keep McMahon looking its best! No task is to big or small for him including taking a hand held vacuum around to clan vents or renegade gnats. UCONN has very dedicated employees!

On Thursday we had a surprise adventure to New Haven's local news station to watch one of UCONN's own, Rob Landolphi, host a gluten free cooking segment. It was both Taylor and my first time at a news station. To our surprise, we realized that most news rooms are one large area with segmented areas. In the mock kitchen area, Rob made a gluten free vanilla angle food cake with a mixed berry compote and set up a copy of his latest book with Cooking Light "The Gluten-Free Baking Book." It was a privilege to see a great chef in action. At UCONN, he works tirelessly to improve to quality of the universities gluten free, vegan, and healthy options. 

The longer I work at UCONN, I realize just how dedicated the employees are to improving the quality students meals. Whether it be through Kosher dinning halls, staff excellency, or gluten free options, UCONN truly cares about their students! 

Rachael Rounsley