Summer 2015 NACUFS Internship!: University of Kansas: Week 4

I want to begin this post by saying first that I am at a loss for how quickly this experience is flying by. With week 4 now behind us, Talia and I are halfway through our summer here at KU. Each day filled with a myriad of information and lessons to be learned, and each day complete in what seems like a blink of the eye. Week 4 was especially fun for me, complete with a field trip and all.

Monday: North College Cafe

Throughout this internship Talia and I have slowly been making our rounds to each dining facility at KU, and this week I got my first introduction to North College Cafe. I was very excited for this shift, as Talia and I rarely get the opportunity to work alongside (besides for project planning and recipe testing). Our shift began bright and early at 7am and we spent the better part of the morning shadowing Bill Corrigan, supervisor, learning the opening procedures for NCC. In the afternoon we met with and spent the rest of our day with Jim Schilling, the NCC Manager. He graciously and enthusiastically answered all of our questions about dining operations and gave us plenty of insight into his role as manager. I believe the highlight of our day was without a doubt our lunch. Multiple members of the staff at NCC are either vegetarian or vegan and we got the opportunity to enjoy a smorgasbord of vegan creations for lunch. I wish I had taken a picture of the mass amounts of food we consumed during our meal, but my fork moved much quicker than my mind and my plate was half gone before I even had the thought to capture the scrumptious food before me. After lunch we sat with Jim and Nicole, the procurement manager for both Oliver and NCC, and discussed the importance of analyzing quarterly budget reports.We also listened in as they analyzed and tweaked the cycle menu for the upcoming school year.

In the evening Talia and I decided to treat ourselves with a fine meal at Jax Fish House in Kansas City and ice cream at Sylvas and Maddy's in downtown Lawrence.

Bourbon and Oysters : )

Have to Love a Canvas Tablecloth

Sylvas and Maddy's a Lawrence Staple

Tuesday: Day 2 at NCC

My second shift at North College Cafe, I spent the day in the kitchen and working at various stations during service. In the morning I worked in the bakery forming pizza dough and making monster cookie bars.

From Scratch Pizza Dough

Monster Cookie Bar (Prebaking)

Later in the shift I moved out to the Mangia Italiana station for service and tried my hand at tossing pizzas. The first dough I attempted to toss ended quite quickly with a large hole right in the center, after further instruction and tips my pizza tossing skills came along quite nicely. I rotated through several stations during lunch service and got a pretty good idea of the importance of portion control and efficiency of service. After lunch I returned to the back of the house and spent the remainder of my day working alongside the sous chef Tommy. We worked on a couple recipes, prepared food for the dinner service, and he taught me how to make a coulis. I learned that coulis is basically just a fancy word for a puree of either a fruit or vegetable.

Mushroom Asiago Pizza

Wednesday: Field Trip Day

Wednesday was a very special day, in which we spent the afternoon with Dave, our internship coordinator, visiting various locations of interest. We started the day at Garden Complements, a contract packing and private labeling food processing company located in Kansas City. From production to bottling and labeling we got the grand tour and got to see the operation in full swing. They were kind enough to even send us off with a gift box filled with several of their sauces and a vegetarian meat substitute.

Talia and I at Garden Complements

After our Garden Complements tour Dave took us to Bichelmeyer Meats, a Kansas city tradition. Bichelmeyer Meats has been family owned and operated for three generations and is dedicated to superior quality meats, a trusted butcher for 65 years. One of the Bichelmeyer's even gave us a tour of the facility and we got to see some grade A butchery in action. Warning: graphic photo below not for the faint of heart.

Bichelmeyer Meats

Aging Beef

After Bichelmeyer Meats it was off to lunch for some Kansas City BBQ, Arthur Bryant's to be exact. Founded in the early 1920's, Arthur Bryant's is often regarded as a BBQ legend.

Arthur Bryant's

Scrumptious Ribs

I must admit though, that my favorite part of the day was our visit to The Farmer's House. The Farmer's House is a not for profit dedicated to the dedication and training of children with developmental disabilities. A working farm where children, youth and young adults can live, work, play, and grow while learning as much as possible about existing farm and ranch communities. Offering a market and garden the Farmer's House sells locally grown and produced farm to table products such as vegetables, fruit, honey, cheese, and home related items.

Thursday: Meetings Galore

Thursday was a busy day filled with meetings. Purchasing, procurement, and micros, we learned quite a bit about the process of managing, analyzing, inputting, and completing orders, the complexity of retail computer systems, and inputting new recipes into the FMS system.

Friday: More Recipe Testing

With our event quickly approaching and the culmination of all we've learned during our time at KU being put to practice, Talia and I are anxious to get all of our recipes for the event tested so that we can finalize our menu. With project planning days in short supply we take full advantage of them by testing recipes, a discussing our plans for our food truck business plan. Recipe testing was a success this week and we're happy to say that both of our pizza's and our roasted vegetables were a hit. Although are still working out some kinks in our roasted beets and sweets recipe the overall flavor and outcome of our tests have been successful.