This week was another great one! I was focusing on my
special safari themed lunch this week. I finished designing, printing, and
posting promotional posters, recipe testing five different items for my menu,
and gathering some decoration supplies. The lunch is in just under two weeks
and I still have a lot of work to do, despite this week’s advances.
Monday and Tuesday were scheduled very similarly, in that
both mornings were dedicated to a diversity workshop and both afternoons to
recipe testing. The diversity workshop was put on for UNI faculty and involved
around 25 attendees and facilitators. The focus of the workshop was claiming
our own identities and membership to various groups, as well as learning how to
break stereotypes and change attitudes towards diverse groups. It was a
powerful experience to listen to some of the attendees share their personal
stories of discriminations, healing, and activism. Through the course of the
workshop, I was able to recognize my own learned discriminative thoughts, and
also how to effectively respond to discriminatory or intolerant comments.
In the afternoons on both Monday and Tuesday, I spent
several hours in the dining center kitchen preparing samples of some of my
special event menu items. I tested recipes for orange mango punch, sweet potato
lentil soup, cucumber couscous salad, and tropical fruit pizza. On Monday, I
gathered, measured and organized all of the ingredients that I needed so that
on Tuesday all I had to do was cook the ingredients appropriately. The recipes
turned out fairly successfully with only minor changes needing to be made. The
cucumber couscous salad was the most troublesome because the recipe’s
preparation method did not lend itself well to the kitchen equipment, and also
because there was not enough dressing. I had to double the amount of dressing
and consult with the cooks about using a more efficient cooking method.
On Wednesday, I spent the day with Lisa, my internship
coordinator, and we discussed purchasing procedures and attended meetings. Lisa
is the purchasing manager for UNI dining and she walked me through some of the
behind-the-scene details of the job. Later in the day, we went to the
residential dining staff meeting and listened to a presentation by a candidate
for a Department of Residence assistant marketing manager position. In the
evening, I watched Lion King for the first time in a long time to get some
decorating ideas for my African safari event.
Thursday involved a few meetings and miscellaneous tasks. At
7am I went to the bakery to test out my elephant sugar cookie cut outs. I found
a small, elephant cookie cutter to use and made about 50 cutouts with the sugar
cookie dough the bakers had ready for me. When the cookies were cooled I
colored two different types of icing and decorated half of the cookies with
each kind. I tried out several different piping designs as well, and came up
with a cute design that is fairly simple. When evaluating which icing to use
for the cookies, I considered quality, visual appeal, and time efficiency. The
icing that was preferred by the taste testers was very time consuming to
decorate with because it needs to be spread, leading to a messy look. The other
icing can be melted so the cookies can be dipped and cooled. The cookies with
this icing were much neater looking, still had a high quality taste, and were
much quicker to decorate. Throughout the rest of the day, I went to another
presentation by a job candidate and worked on some designs for my project.
 |
| The bottom cookies are the design and icing I chose. |
Friday was a bit of an unusual day, but it turned out
positively. I was scheduled to work with Lisa all day, but she ended up being
unavailable. Instead, I organized my own schedule for the day and completed
many important tasks. In the morning, I went to the student union and assisted
with making ID cards for incoming freshmen during their orientation. The
process of making ID cards is part of the Department of Residence, which the
dining services are also a part of. I was able to use Lisa’s office to work on
projects and event planning details. After lunchtime, I went craft shopping
with Susan, one of the dining managers and internship coordinators. We went to
Hobby Lobby and found a cartful of supplies for me to use for decorations for
my event. But as we were heading for the checkout, the POWER WENT OUT in the
store. We weren’t really sure what to do because it did not seem like it would
be fixed soon, and only cash and check could be taken for payment during the
outage. We waited for a while but ended up leaving the cart at the front of the
store and will have to go back on Monday. We braved the storm and ran to the
car to carry on with our shopping trip. Several of the surrounding stores and
stop lights were without power as well, but we were able to go to Dollar Tree
and the grocery store further down the road to get a few other items. After our
eventful trip, I visited the catering storage facilities to look for
decorations to borrow for my event. The remainder of the day was spent typing
up a few evaluations.
Next week will consist of project work, meetings, inventory
review, and assisting with job interviews. I have about three and a half weeks
left here, and still have quite a bit to accomplish!
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