Four weeks down, four weeks to go!
It was a week full of
much more exploration, both geographically and intellectually J
Monday
On Monday, Mallory and I started off our morning by observing
a few pre-arrival meetings for camps and conferences taking place at KU. Since
the camp groups stay in the residence halls, they often utilize KU Dining
Services in some respect, whether through the dining halls, retail operations,
or catering. Thus, representatives from dining must be present to discuss the
accommodations offered, along with any needs and concerns the camp coordinator
may have.
The meetings went by really quickly, so Mallory and I ended
up having a free afternoon. We drove up to North College Café to grab lunch and
change up our dining routine a bit. We hit the cafeteria along with the lunch
rush, but the food was well worth the wait!
After eating, we headed back to Hashinger to work on some of
our materials for the theme dinner. I’m working on making nutrient comparison
charts for the healthy substitution dishes to show the difference from the
original recipe; Mallory has been putting together small blurbs about the
different farms that we are getting some of our produce from. So far, the
materials look great, and I can’t wait to see what the brilliant designers at
marketing have in store for us!
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| One of the few slurp-able foods |
After putting in a few hours of hard work, Mallory and I
treated ourselves with a trip to Jax Fish House in Kansas City, MO, where we
got some cocktails and appetizers. The oysters were delicious! We also split an
order of hush puppies (perhaps my favorite fried food!), but we unfortunately gobbled
them up too quickly to snap a photo….
Tuesday
On Tuesday, I worked in Oliver Dining Hall in the morning by
assisting with breakfast service. It was a pretty simple meal that consisted of
scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, and blueberry pancakes.
Once the breakfast rush ended, the employee in charge of
receiving orders at Oliver walked me through his duties. On top of checking
that the order has all the correct items in the correct quantities, he also has
to check the inventory of the storeroom and coolers so that when Nichole is
ordering food, she knows how much she needs to order. Communication is vital!
Once I finished at Oliver, I headed to the Kansas Union
building to meet with Sheryl Kidwell, the Assistant Director of Residential
Dining. I have been tasked with the project of creating a nutrition education
video for KU’s Dining Website, so I discussed with Sheryl my ideas. I am
planning on creating a video about the vegan food options offered on campus and
different ways to incorporate more plant-based foods into one’s diet through KU
Dining Services. It’s a very applicable topic right now since the Dining
Services is starting up their Nature’s Finest concept, which is a new line of
vegan recipes and products. Sheryl was excited about my idea, and I can’t wait
to get started!
Wednesday
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| Mallory and I at Garden Compliments |
On Wednesday, Mallory
and I headed into Kansas City, MO for a field trip with David. We started off
at Garden Compliments, a processing plant that produces and bottles a variety
of sauces for local restaurants and companies. Our tour guide walked us through
the plant and explained to us the different steps of the manufacturing process,
from mixing the recipe, to bottling, to labeling, and finally to shipping. I
have never seen such large quantities of tomato paste in my life!
In addition to learning about the manufacturing process, our
guide also discussed with us the different challenges that come with producing
the products in bulk. Often, the sauce recipes must be tweaked to not only
assure that they taste right, but also to keep costs within a reasonable range
-- there’s a big difference between making one bottle and 500 bottles of
barbeque sauce!
After we finished up at Garden Complements, David drove us
to Bichelmeyer Meats, where we received a short tour and some delicious bologna
samples. The guide explained to us that while buying meat at a grocery store
may be cheaper, operations like Bichelmeyer that get their meat locally and
deal with it in smaller quantities allow it to taste a lot fresher. You pay for
what you get! I couldn’t help but agree when I bit into that slice of bologna –
the best I’ve ever tasted!
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| MEAT |
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| SO MUCH MEAT |
We then took a break from our touring and stopped at Arthur
Bryant’s for some authentic Kansas City Barbeque. I ordered the burnt ends and
French fries. It was amazing! I’ve never been a big barbeque person aside from
the occasional pulled pork, but the meal really hit the spot! Dave told us
about two other famous KC barbeque restaurants, and I’m interested to try them
out and see how they compare!
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| EVEN MORE MEAT |
After lunch, we headed to a small farm called The Farmer’s
House. This farm teaches adults with developmental disabilities how to garden
and cook. Not only was it a beautiful place, but it was also a beautiful
concept. The woman who started it up exuded passion for her work, and it was
very inspiring! It opened my eyes to ways I can use my passions to help others.
Thursday
Thursday, Mallory and I had a full morning that consisted of
back-to-back meetings in the Union building with various staff members who work
behind the scenes for Dining Services.
Our first meeting was with Mindy Pendreigh, the Systems
Administrator. She is one of the main staff members in charge of menu
management and purchasing, so she explained to us the different aspects of these
areas and the importance of the Food Management Systems Cycle. Basically, the
cycle describes how the final service menu is created, all the way down to the
ingredients. She emphasized that since the ingredients are the foundation for
every step in the cycle, they must be properly dealt with in the system in
terms of the amount in inventory, the amount put into the recipes, the amount
ordered, and their nutritional value. If any of that information is slightly
off, it will throw off the rest of the information in the system, too. I found
it really interesting to see how all of the different jobs I had been rotating
through came together in Mindy’s hands!
After meeting with Mindy, Mallory and I sat down with Karen
Cross to discus CS-Gold and Micros, which are the computer systems that handle
the cashiering for KU Dining Services. These systems are important because they
not only keep records of the money brought in from customers, but they also
allow for more accurate forecast numbers. For example, Karen can go into the
system and see what the busiest time frames are for each operation. Although I
find cashiering to be rather boring, Karen helped me to realize that it’s an important
aspect of dining services.
Mallory and I finished off our meetings with Lisa Kreie who
is involved with procurement. Like Mindy, she also discussed with us the Food
Management System Cycle, but she talked more about the recipe input (Lisa is
the main person in charge of putting a new recipe into the system). It’s a much
more complicated process than most people think because there are a lot of
specifications about the amount of ingredients and the type of ingredient for
the recipe. For example, she showed us that cocoa powder has six different
names in the system, so when she gets a new recipe with this ingredient, she
must assure that the one she chooses is correct. Mallory and I will be working
with her closely when we finalize our theme dinner recipes!
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| Lentil Mushroom Soup |
After meeting with Lisa, Mallory and I were starving, so we
headed over to Impromptu for some grub. I’ve been having dreams about the Blackened
Salmon Salad that I ordered last week, so of course I had to get it again. I
also tried out the soup of the day, Lentil Mushroom, which was delicious as
well! And of course that warm bread always hits the spot J.
With satisfied stomachs, Mallory and I headed over to the
marketing office to print our food truck surveys and discuss our video
projects. Lauren and Chad were more than helpful in offering us advice on the
best way to go about filming our videos. I will be borrowing their iPad to film
and complete a survey about students’ perceptions of vegan food. I’ve got a lot
of work on my hands for next week!
Later in the afternoon, Mallory and I took the food truck
surveys to the information fair at New Student Orientation and had some of the
incoming freshmen fill them out. It was really exciting to get some feedback on
what KU students would like to see on the food truck. We’ll have more planning
to do this weekend with the student feedback at our fingertips!
Friday: Talia and Mallory vs. Theme Dinner Recipes, Round 4
Friday was another day for recipe testing. In addition to
re-testing the Beets n’ Sweets, we also tested two pizza recipes and some
roasted broccoli.
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| Oh, did I burn the broccoli? More for me... ;) |
I started with the roasted broccoli. The first time around
it didn’t turn out too well. The flavors of the lemon juice and garlic didn’t
really come through, while the black pepper was way too prominent.
Additionally, the broccoli came out a little burnt. While crunchy roasted broccoli
is one of my guilty pleasures, I don’t think the masses would enjoy it, so I
gave it another try. With more lemon juice and garlic and a lower roasting
temperature, the broccoli turned out much better!
Talia and Mallory: 10. Recipe Fails: 2.
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| Veggie pizza, emphasis on the veggies |
The beets and sweets recipe required that we roasted the
beets on their own for about an hour in order to soften the skin for peeling,
so Mallory and I tackled the pizzas next. Mallory worked on a barbeque chicken
pineapple pizza, while I put together the vegetable pizza. Both pizzas use whole
wheat crust, a more nutritional substitution to traditional pizza crust.
Additionally, I cut down some of the cheese in the vegetable pizza and loaded
up on the green peppers, red onions, artichoke hearts, mushrooms, and black
olives.
Both of our pizzas got rave reviews! Some people didn’t like
the pineapple on the barbeque chicken pizza, but Mallory and I thought it was a
great flavor component, so we are going to keep it in the recipe.
Talia and Mallory: 12. Recipe Fails: 2.
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| Beets n' Sweets |
Even after finishing the pizzas, the beets and sweets were
still giving us some issues. The beets ended up needing to be roasted for two
hours in order to soften the skin enough for peeling! After we got everything
put in the oven, they ended up turning out much better than the first time
around. The sweet potatoes weren’t a mushy mess, and the onions were cut into
larger chunks, so they didn’t burn to a crisp. The beets still needed a little
more roasting time to get to the right texture, but we were overall satisfied
with the outcome this time around. We know that a lot of prep will have to go
into this recipe, though, so we will be tasking people with roasting and
peeling the beets the day before our theme dinner to assure that everything
works out on time!
Talia and Mallory: 13. Recipe Fails: 2.
Saturday was definitely a “veg out” day for both Mallory and
me. We did manage to venture out of our beds for dinner at a local restaurant
called Yokohama. While it’s known for sushi, Mallory and I were both craving
some vegetables, rice, and miso soup. Yokohama definitely delivered! Our eyes
were much bigger than our stomachs, though, so we had some leftovers to take
back to our rooms.
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| Octopus and cucumber salad -- everything I never knew I always wanted. |
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