Michigan State University Week 2

Monday morning of this week, Tammy and I were assigned to help make salads for the Sparty Stores, similar to convenient stores, to be delivered to their various locations around the MSU campus. The process is not hard, but it is time consuming because you have to make sure every ingredient placed on the salad is a certain amount or weight, and aesthetically appealing. After producing over 200 salads we learned that this amount hardly compares to what they need during the school year (about 3x more!). We then worked with the food truck taking orders before returning to the test kitchen to make more salads for the next day.

Tuesday we spent the morning with our preceptor's assistants, Dorothy, Kyna, and Mitch, to learn about what they do in depth. Dorothy and Kyna discussed their roles with scheduling employees, and TRPs, which is the system they use to keep track of their employee's hours in order to ensure they are paid for their time worked. The part I really enjoyed was when they informed us on the hiring process they use and interview questions they ask. Mitch described what he does as far as paperwork like billing and invoices.

Wednesday was probably my favorite day of this week. Tammy found a couple of different recipes for dressings to put on fruit salad. I really enjoyed being able to play around with the ingredients and changing them to compliment the salad. After some changes were made, the favorite ended up being a lemon-basil dressing for which we substituted a balsamic vinegar for white-wine vinegar. Something cool I learned through this was that adding dijon mustard it will emulsify the dressing, and it tastes pretty good too.

Thursday Tammy and I weighed out each ingredient separately that we had used in the salads we had prepared earlier this week. We were given special tweezers meant specifically for this kind of work to guarantee precise separation of ingredients. The purpose for this was to determine a more accurate cost of the salads. Although this takes a while, the reasoning behind it is clear and important; if the salads follow the recipe, money will be made. Plain and simple.

Friday we took a field trip to University of Michigan to tour their dining facilities. The designs were all very nice, but what stood out to me the most was their gluten-free, closed off section. In order to get into this room, the user must swipe his or her ID of approval before the door will unlock. I really like this idea because it keeps the gluten free items safe from being contaminated by other food items.

When I decided to be a dietetic major, I hadn't considered a career in food service. My mind was set on working in either sports nutrition, or some kind of clinical setting. I had zero intentions of working in any other area. However, over the last year and a half I found myself a lot more interested, which lead me to apply for this internship. It has truly been a blessing because in just a short amount of time. I know I can see myself working in a university setting like this one. I have an appreciation for food service that has gone beyond my expectations.