University of Nevada - Reno | Week 2

I started last week off in UNR's main retail unit, The Overlook, and spent the majority of this week in the same unit. The overall concept in their retail units is familiar to me in that at UW- Madison all of our dining units within DCS are "retail." Here, retail means you pick out what you want to eat and pay for that amount of food as opposed to a dining hall where you would use "swipes," or the like. UNR has several retail units;

• The Overlook --> a marketplace concept including Chinese and sushi, sandwiches, taco salads/potato bar, tossed salads, a grill, and a coffee and smoothie station
• Elements --> Espresso beverages, salads, wraps, ciabatta sandwiches
• Bytes --> Coffee shop with grab-and-go items
• D-C Store --> convenience store with to-go sandwiches and pizza
• Pathways --> Espresso beverages and grab-and-go items
• Las Trojes Express --> Mexican food

Students, professors, staff members, and community members can access these units during their hours of operation and make purchases with cash, credit, foodbucks, their wolf-cards. Several of these units are owned by sub-contractors that run the individual unit including the popular Las Trojes which is operated by the owners of a local Mexican restaurant in downtown Reno. Likewise within The Overlook, Mandalay Bay is a subcontractor serving Chinese food as well as delicious sushi. All together these units bring in plenty of business for UNR's retail sector of it's dining program.

Grill Nation 

Mandalay Bay 

Outtakes - Grab-and-Go 

Starbucks/Freshens 

Well Bread 

The Overlook and Lake Manzanita

Opening in the fall of 2014 is a new retail location called The Works. I am particularly excited to see this unit open up because of its awesome design and it's two unique station concepts. First off The Works is a Steam-Punk Café. If you aren't familiar with what steam-punk is check out some of these pictures to get a better idea. The design of the unit is very intricate and creates an awesome atmosphere, they have even got ahold of some really cool uniforms for employees to wear. The two station concepts are Waffler and Forklift. Waffler will serve classic waffles to savory waffle sandwiches and everything in between. Forklift is a Chipotle style burrito bar. On Monday I got to go over to The Works with Chuck, the retail director, and Shawn the head chef at The Overlook, and create a smallwares order. A smallwares order includes things like knives, thermometers, pans, and much more. After coming up with a comprehensive list, I put together a document with everything on it including quantities and sizes.

Tuesday I began the day with the Silver and Blue Catering team. Along with special events, they hosted a brunch for about 65 people after the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Pennington Student Achievement Center. Guests were first at the construction site, which is essentially a hole in the ground, and were served coffee drinks, juice, and other light refreshments. They then walked up the main quad to the Honor Court, which is a lovely garden-y area. Beautiful tables were set up with amazing flower center pieces. The catering team set up a bar which included mimosas, coffee, juice, and soda as well as a brunch buffet. Everything looked delicious! I was glad I was able to tag along on such a creative event. Later that day I did an online allergen and celiac disease training, which was all review since we spend a fair amount of time on that material in the Dietetics curriculum. I also got to do some training on the Accounts Receivable and Inventory programs which was great because I am interested in learning the day to day management tasks that accompany running a foodservice.

The setup in the Honor Court 

The walk to the buffet line

Individual French Toast Sticks 

Flower Center Piece 

Red White and Blue Fruit Salad 

Wednesday I spent most of the day cashiering and working the Starbucks/Freshens station. In the afternoon I worked on making a comprehensive list of the YouFirst initiatives. The YouFirst program is a Chartwell's customer service initiative that involves several smaller programs to make customers and associates feel appreciated. The handout will be used as a reference guide for newly hired associates and managers when training for The Works.

Thursday I was assigned my special projects for the internship which I am very eager to get working on. My first smaller project is to sit down with the bakery chefs and devise a game plan to make the bakery and their products more allergen friendly. UNR has already gone to great lengths to make a lot of their menu items as allergen friendly as possible so the next step is to bring the concepts to the bakery. My bigger project, and the one that I am most excited about, is called Design Your Dine. Because the main dining hall is mostly self-serve, student have the opportunity to create dishes out of everything that is available to them, not just the standard menu items. It is my duty to come up with recipes for those students who lack the initiate or creativity to come up with these awesome ideas on their own. By using menu items, I will create healthy alternative dishes that students can make on their own. I am so excited about this because its the way I normally eat anyways and I love making recipes, trying new combinations, and creating things with food!

On Thursday I also created a ServSafe at a Glance packet to be used for training at The Works. New hires will be given serve safe booklets, but the guide serves as a quick reference for them and talking points for the managers and chefs that will be training them mid-July.

Friday was pretty laid back and I spent most of the day cashiering and talking with Chuck about brand compliance, promotions, marketing, and pricing. It's been a long week but I have learned a lot from my time with Retail. I am really looking forward to getting back with the team towards the end of July when they begin testing and training at The Works.

Ram's Horn: Day 14

Today was a full day. I got right into the swing of things as I started my morning at 6:30am with Jason.   Jason gave me an overview of how he begin his operation each morning.

An hour later I joined Tammy at the cash register.  I enjoy customer interaction and I had a great time talking with Tammy.  Most of the customers were high school students and pretty pleasant to talk to.  One of students even engaged in a personal conversation with me and commented that she liked my hair :) .

After my stint with Tammy I joined Steve in the pantry room where I helped him set-up for lunch.  My first task was to slice Oreo cheesecake pies.  This is one of my least favorite tasks despite the fact that I love baking.  I always pass the task of cake cutting onto someone else, even if it is just brownie squares.  Steve started off the first slice and I completed the rest.  Surprisingly, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected.  Really, all I had to do was be patient while cutting.  I actually enjoyed slicing the pie - probably because I did a lot better than I expected.

After putting the pies out in the Dining Hall, Steve also wanted me to take out buns and magic bars.  This really wasn't a big deal, however, he also wanted me to label them.  My friends, family and professors have always criticized me for my poor penmanship.  I thought "goodness, if I can manage cutting a cake, I should be able to write legibly."  I think I did an o.k. job.  Either that or nobody read the labels.

As the Dining Hall opened, I was assigned to the Comfort Foods station (pastas, pizzas, meat).  Although I was serving food, I experienced less interaction with the customers possibly due to the Sneeze Guards or the fact that they were rushing off to eat.  I've been a student cook for a year working on the serving lines and it was interesting to see how Ram Horn operated, specifically in reference to food safety.

After serving, I helped Anthony at the Salad Bar.  He had everything down-pack.  I didn't think that there was anything much to the Salad Bar but Anthony proved me wrong.  Anthony gave me an entire spiel about temperatures, sanitizers, a tour of the cold prep and the salad coolers, typical items and why items may change and the many different dressings.  He explained to me why the pre-made salads weren’t dressed until it was taken out to the bar (acids in the dressing can make the vegetables wilt).  We even talked about how HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) was created by NASA to prevent food poisoning for astronauts in outer-space.

Today I realized that I really enjoy learning about my co-workers as much as the foodservice itself.  It is interesting to hear other person's stories about how they found themselves here in Colorado or Ram's Horn specifically.

After work, I headed in to Old Town on my bike and made it to The Caribbean Shack!  I ordered a veggie roti and doubles.  It was good.  However, it was not nearly as pepper as I have had before.  I’ve had doubles from about 3 different restaurants and they all taste different.  I enjoyed my meal and I plan to go back again and try other items on the menu.

Note: My phone is broken, so I have no pictures of the food :( .

Michigan State Weeks 1 and 2

            Our internship at Michigan State is flying by so fast we've forgotten to blog! We arrived two weeks ago, but after our initial day of tours, trainings, and introductions, it’s felt like we've been here all along. We are staying in wonderful on-campus apartments, about a ten-minute walk from Brody Dining Commons, where we do the majority of our work. Brody is the biggest, most impressive dining hall I’ve ever been too; sushi, pasta, paninis, and stir-fries made to order are only a few of the options. We were excited to jump right in and start learning how each station was run. As dietetics/nutrition majors, Macy and I discovered we had many of the same goals for the internship, mainly involving learning how things are cooked, and trying to make healthier versions. We also wanted to set up a day to talk with Brody’s dietitian, to find out more about MSU’s nutrition initiatives.  

We started out working in the back of house at Brody, where we learned about hot and cold prep. I thought this was a good place to start, so that when we did go out to cook at the stations, we knew the work that had gone into preparing everything. While vegetable-chopping in Brody’s sunny kitchen was relaxing, we found the lunch rush of the stations fun too. Everyone here says this is nothing compared to the crowds that come during the school year, but it still gets quite busy.  Here a few things we've done at the stations so far:

·         Boiling Point—the pasta station. I got to watch homemade pasta squeeze out of the pasta machine, and then I learned the methods of making pasta stir-fries for people.  

·         Pangea—omelets and Asian stir-fry. I proudly mastered the omelet flip in the morning. During lunch, I learned how to use the wok, and enjoyed the heat and speed of stir-frying, keeping up with the rush of orders.

·         Sushi—Macy and I learned how to roll sushi, another relaxing task.

 

·         Cayenne—the Mexican-style cuisine. We got to fry tortilla chips in the deep fryer, and make tortillas in a machine that cooks them fast at a high temperature and spits them out at the bottom.

·         Ciao—the pizza/sandwich station. We got to make and serve pizza; we learned that pizza-making can be a pretty slow operation over the summer, until elementary school field trips come for lunch.

·         Veg Out—the vegetarian station. We helped prep and cook veggies, quiches, and pierogis.

In addition to these stations, we’ve gotten to do some of our own creations. When the chefs discovered our passion for nutrition and farm-fresh foods, they started bringing us produce from the student organic farm at MSU. We made up a recipe for a quinoa salad with beans, avocados, and pickled radishes (from the farm).

 We also created some delicious herbed pickles with fresh cucumbers. It’s been fun working together and having the freedom to use our creativity. We are excited for all the opportunities still to come as we settle in at MSU!  

University of Oklahoma - Week 2

Monday
Today we didn't have a busy schedule.  We mostly worked on our  employee in-service lesson plan and brainstorm ideas.  We noticed from working an actual 8-5 job that our lifestyle has become much more sedentary from life at college even though we work out still in the afternoon.  However, we know that not everyone are health and wellness freaks like me and Grace =P.  So we came up with a topic for our project, how to manage weight with a sedentary job.  I came up with the clever title "Manage Weight Sooner" (OU school mascot is a sooner).  For the project we are using the weight management program they already have, Healthy Sooners, and ChooseMyPlate.gov to introduce maybe something new to the staff that they haven't heard of before.  We got the idea approved by Dot, so now we are actually trying to condense our ideas to make a 20 minute presentation to the staff.  It is challenging because we have so many good ideas that we could present to them but we only have so much time so we are struggling with making it more focused and direct.

Tuesday
Today we continued to work on our employee in-service and got a little bit further by outlining more on the information that we will present and what we want to do for handouts.  Grace came up with the idea that we should make healthy, delicious snacks to handout during the presentation.  Who doesn't love free delicious food!! We also met the Program Coordinator, Rayanna Reidy whose job entails kind of the liaison between housing and food services.  This position was created to solve the problem of disconnection between housing and foodservices.  Rayanna has been with housing and food services ever since she was 15 working at Cate for Shawn Henry! Being the Program Coordinator entails a lot of responsibilities such as the RAs cater menu develop that she updates every year.  She also looks over the sponsorship requests for big events. Additionally she helps Louis with the international program that they have here at OU and the event they hold for the international students.  I was overwhelmed with just hearing how much Rayanna does as the Program Coordinator, I couldn't keep up!  Those were just a few of her responsibilities that I remember.

Wednesday
Today Me and Grace worked at the Flying Cow Cafe in the National Weather Center.  We met Rhonda Winkleman, the manager of the Flying Cow Cafe. She was really nice and laid back.  We learned how she became manager of the operation and how she manages the Flying Cow Cafe.    She has 5 full time employees.  She loves when students work for her but she mentions the struggle of scheduling the students due that the Flying Cow Cafe closes at 3pm and the day is prime time for students to be in class.  She also mentions the limitation on space.  She does combined inventory with other on campus food operations that way she only stores what she needs to prevent waste.  Rhonda also mentions the slight lack of productivity due to the unique design of the Flying Cow Cafe.  The Flying Cow Cafe was designed to match the rest of the building but this design isn't the best setup for the most production, she says that she makes it work the best she can though.  Rhonda mentioned how she is able to stay open during the summer time is from the merchandise she sells that advertises the Flying Cow.  Also, her workers come into work at six in the morning to make hundreds of sandwiches to sell at other on campus dining locations.  During our day at the Flying Cow, we hand rolled dough and made the famous Indian taco.  I never heard of this item before so I had to try it for lunch it was delicious.  The fresh fry bread we made tasted like a funnel cake!! It got a little hectic for bout an hour and half during lunch time because everyone wanted the Indian taco but you can only make so many fry breads so there was a line that they had to wait for the fry bread to be made.  The machine that makes the fry bread only made three at a time and me and grace alone hand rolled at least 40 fry breads ahead of time but they sold quick!  The Flying Cow Cafe makes best with what they have, they don't have anymore room for another machine to make the fry bread and we make as many as we can ahead of time.  However, due to the lack of space for another machine, I noticed it decreases productivity because we were waiting on more fry bread to be made in order to make the Indian taco so that was stressful.  But we managed :) and the Indian tacos were well worth the wait for the fresh fry bread!

Indian Taco

 

Thursday

Today we just continued working on our employee in-service project and outlined the actual information that we would like to use for the presentation while locating our sources.  We also got to sit in on a managers meeting today which was interesting.

Friday
Today we got most of our employee in-service project done, we are bout 80% complete.  Sorry, not really exciting the past few days.  Just mostly been working on this project as of now sent we are presenting soon.

Ram's Horn: Day 13

I definitely have to get a bike when I return to Saint Joseph, Minnesota.  As an international student without a car, any transportation other than my two legs would be a plus.

This morning as I got ready for work I noticed it was raining lightly, or as we would call it in the Bahamas, "sprying".  I thought this was nice as I figured it would help to keep me cool as I rode my bike to work.

Today was pretty much a secondary orientation for me.  We toured Ram's Horn and discussed my plans for the rest of the rotation.  After the tour, I hopped back on my bike and headed over to Palmer (Housing and Dining Admin Building) for the Student Manager's meeting.  We all introduced ourselves by stating our name, unit and favourite river.  As everyone listed off their favourite river, I thought about the fact that I haven’t even seen a river until coming to Colorado, however, in The Bahamas we do have blueholes which I really love.  I have not visited a bluehole in about two years.  I will definitely see a few at the end of this summer when I go home and visit Eleuthera, Bahamas.  We continued our meeting by discussing plans for orientation for the incoming student employees for the fall semester.  This was a really useful and productive discussion for me as my team at SJU is currently working on our program as well.

I headed back over to Ram's Horn and it was still "sprying".  Just last weekend, or maybe my first weekend - I don't remember- I was advised that if you don't like the weather in Colorado, just wait five minutes, it will change and that is so true.  We had a brief meeting with the staff as they went over policies and introduced me to the team.    By the time the meeting had ended, the sun was out again and I was happy to drive home in the sunshine, kid me not - the weather went back and forth between sunny and gloomy at least two more times after that.  I was briefly introduced to a conference program and product movement issue concerning retail and cashiering by Jo.

I had plans to visit a music show in Old Town but I ended up staying at the gym way longer than I expected and missed the show.  I still felt the need to get off campus so I got on my bike and headed to Pizza Casbah for dinner (no I didn’t eat pizza right after the gym).

 I’m going to spend the rest of my evening catching up on Dave Carnegie’s book.

Marketing & HACCP: Day 12

As a part of my internship here with CSU I will be planning four special meals which will involve creating the outlines in preparation for the upcoming academic year.  One of the meals will highlight my very own culture (Bahamian/Caribbean)!  I'm pretty excited.  I love who I am, where I am from and my local culture.  I enjoy being given the opportunity to share it with others.

Ben and I met with Christian from the Multimedia Department to discuss planning and preparation for these events.  Christian was really animated and enthusiastic about the projects.  Christian had suggested that I create a mood board to get me started on the projects - which sounded a lot like Pinterest to me.

Those of you who know me well, know that I have to be busy and on the go all the time.  I just cannot be stagnant.  So I was pretty excited when I was approached by Ben and Lori yesterday to take on additional assignments.  Along with helping Lori with administrative reports, I'll also be working with Brittney (Dietitian and Employee Manager) on a food allergy policy project.  I'm pretty excited about this, as food allergies are also a concern at SJU as well - as it is for just about every college dining service.

Only two more days before I would have completed two weeks here at CSU!  CSU is really beginning to feel like home for me.  I still remember how uncomfortable I felt that Sunday night as I ate in the dining hall alone.  I almost find it funny now to think that eating alone was a problem for me.  It is not my preference to eat alone, and I still try to avoid it - simply because I enjoy interacting with people.  Surprisingly I am enjoying the alone time now as I realize that I can catch up on my reading and actually reflect on the events of each day.

Week 1: Madison,

Day 3: Wednesday

Kyle and I wrapped up Day 3 with a handful of final visits with the staff of DCS. It was a big morning! We began our day with the lovely Joie Schoonover, a hardworking, goal-oriented (and goal-achieving), sincerely genuine and kind Director of Dining and Culinary Services here at UW-Madison. As a bright-eyed intern, I simply cannot speak enough about Joie. Our conversation with her was empowering as she explained her journey to where she is now. Her top 3 tips: Listen, Be Yourself, Work Hard! and true to her words, this is exactly how she made her way to the top. 

Joie's Engagement Plan Sheet

 

In her time as Director of Dining at UW-Madison, Joie has successfully overseen the construction and opening of the two largest dining facilities on campus (Four Lakes Market and Gordon), lead a major staff restructuring eliminating the excess layers to increase communication between departments and department heads, spearheading a purchasing overhaul that included adding in a cycle menu to increase forecasting accuracy and combined vendor contracts. We learned that it was Joie who moved the dining halls from the cafeteria, stainless steel era into its current marketplace, branded-concept setup.

I was of course humbled by her achievements, but only to a point of quiet adoration. One of the greatest aspects of Joie's character shines through in her management style and treatment of the people and organizations she interacts with.  She explained to us that her preferred style of management is one that emphasizes giving back and employee engagement. She developed an amazing plan she calls the 
Employee Engagement Model to increase the development of interpersonal relationships and employee satisfaction. The model is simple enough on paper, but I was taken by its well-thought out organization and progressive style. It starts with Interpersonal Relationships and links in Professional Development, Cooperation/Respect, Policy Fairness and Transparency, and Employee Recognition. As a manager, I hope to serve as an ambassador to Joie's attention to respect and teamwork. I truly believe that the most direct route to success not just in management or food-service, is the recognition of the diversity of talent and the power of employee engagement with their higher-ups. 

Another thing that I admire in Joie was her determination. She set goals, she strategized, and she achieved those goals. Her accomplishments began as enormous projects, but she never faltered in her vision. I know personally, I have began many projects only to doubt myself half-way through, or feel that progress was not being made, or the opposition was too strong, and I gave up. No more of that! Of course, not all ideas are good ideas, but with careful attention to detail and bit of self-confidence many things are possible and they can be the difference between average and great. 

 
Working through the rest of the office, Kyle and I finally met with the ladies whose smiles have greeted us each morning with an enthusiasm that seemed to over score my own perceptions of self-importance. The last-but not least Kris and Jenn, Central Office Functions Receptionists. As a receptionist in the mail room at UNH, I know how the responsibilities of these women serve as the life blood to the operation. A kitchen can have an army of talented chefs, but without the dishwasher, no one gets served! Kris and Jenn make sure no one goes hungry!They keep track of the sometimes overlooked aspects of a food-service operation. Changing prices as they filter through from purchasing, fronting phone calls from seriously confused parents , printing/labeling product, and of course, someone has to update the website and TV menu boards so that patrons know when, where and what they can access for food.

As we move into our food service rotations tomorrow, the information we received from Paula Storch, Cook/Chill and Bakery Unit Chef at Gordon Dining Center was certainly a great start to understanding how those jobs get done. Paula gave a walk through of the paperwork and scheduling that provides the food prep staff the materials, foresight and accuracy to get their job done. It is quite the process to get from menu to mouth. I still haven't sorted out all of the on-paper information yet, but Paula promises it will start to make more sense as we see the process of menu planning, ordering, and production in real time. Something that I found quite striking about her role was the amount of detail that goes into planning a menu. We discussed how sometimes determining a menu goes beyond simple numbers on a register. Sometimes Paula has to do a bit of mind-reading, guessing on the psychology of the students and customers on any given day; what they're going to prefer to eat that day, what season it is, the weather, etc. It was amazing to me the attention to detail required to be a chef. It's not just about creating something yummy to eat. I am excited to get more into this aspect of food service as the weeks go along. As a student dining associate at UNH, I know the ins and outs of making food, but I have always sort of taken advantage of the fact that the food I cook comes from a system of great complexity.

The recipe list we used to mark off allergens/gluten using CBORD

Finishing up lunch, Kyle and I headed over to Liz Waters to continue work on our allergen/gluten free menu which we have been building with Kevin Hoblit using the recipe nutrition database, CBORD. We made great headway today, finishing up recipe checking for allergen and gluten contents. It was a tedious process, but I feel that I have really benefited personally from scrutinizing ingredient labels. It has really sharpened my skills at recognizing gluten-containing ingredients (which can sometimes be hidden), and I know that reading these labels will be of great use to me when I take Food Science next semester. Something that really shocked the Slow Foodie in me was the amount of ingredients in items who's names would suggest simplicity. Nothing to turn you off from that chicken nugget in the dining hall than knowing it contains somewhere in the range of 20-30 ingredients, most of which I can't pronounce.

Searching for those pesky glutens!

Going above and beyond expectations (because we are awesome!), Kyle and I typed up a consolidated list of each recipe that Kevin could use to create his menu. We made a list of eliminations for those that we found contained treenuts, peanuts, or shellfish, a list of recipes that contained no allergens or gluten, and a list that contained gluten but could be modified in some way to make it gluten-free. (i.e removing the bun, substituting for gluten-free version). I know these are the kinds of things I will most certainly be tasked with as a dietitian, and even if that is not that path I venture down learning to pay attention, make recommendations, and produce accurate and clear reports for superiors is a necessary skill of any employment.

Another long day tomorrow, but I'm ready! The next few days, we will be working in the dishroom, and I have to admit I'm pretty excited! It will be a bit of brain break for me. I have been working in the dining halls for 3 years, and I have cross-trained on every station. I hope that I will learn new things, but also have a chance to shine and show off my work ethic.

That's it from this intern! Stay tuned.