Monday
The beginning of my third
week came bright and early as I reported to Gordon Dining and Events Center to
learn the ins and outs of receiving! I jumped right in and immediately began
processing food orders that had recently arrived. I practiced checking for
order accuracy and quality as we separated the shipment and put items away in
their respective places, including various freezers and refrigerators. We found
a box that was leaking and were able to witness the procedure of reporting
unsatisfactory items back to distributor drivers. He took the box back and
credited dining hall the money for those items. After putting away the
shipment, I reported back to the office to learn about
their ordering system, CBORD. Barb, the inventory control coordinator and ordering manager, showed me how she places orders through
CBORD, how she can use CBORD to look at the inventory of Gordon in addition to
all the other dining halls, and more! After our lesson, we began Barb’s second
duty: assisting with front of house management. We prepared for the large number of guests
coming for lunch by re-filling napkin holders, making sure tables were clean,
and placing mats out to keep the floors dry since it was raining outside. When
the guests came, Barb held a counter and counted as each customer came through
so she could alert the cooks how much more food would be needed! It seemed to
be an effective system to keep the people in the kitchen up to date with the
customers in the front of the house.
 |
| Just the beginning of the lunch rush! |
As guests entering for
lunch began to slow, and people began to leave, I jumped in to help the
coffee shop, the Bean and Creamery, deal with the large rush that had come to
them! I handed out ice cream to the guests and assisted making drinks such as
smoothies. This made the afternoon go by very quickly, and before I knew it,
the afternoon was over after a quick meeting with the coordinator, Sue.
Tuesday
Tuesday began bright and
early once again, except today I reported to Four Lakes Market to assist with
inventory! Once again, I jumped right in
and began taking inventory of the items in dry storage:
About mid-morning, I headed
to Gordon Dining and Events Center for a meeting with Julie Luke about our
Healthy America project! Kaylene and I were able to talk to graphic artists
about our assignment and how we will be able to help creatively market the
changes UW – Dining and Culinary Services will be doing for Michelle Obama’s
Healthy America campaign! We left the meeting with a to-do list to accomplish
before our next meeting in a couple weeks!
I headed back to Four Lakes
Market to continue my inventory training with Todd, the inventory control
coordinator and ordering manager at Four Lakes! He talked with me about CBORD and what he uses it for. After
our lesson, we headed to Todd’s second duty, front of house management as Barb
does. Since they were not as busy as Gordon, Todd was able to walk around to
each station and check to see how everyone was doing. As lunch was ending, I
reported back to the inventory control assistant, Cory, I had been working with
that morning to complete inventory duties! We entered data into CBORD and
looked for mistakes or numbers that didn’t make any sense from inventory
entered that morning and corrected the mistakes. Cory also showed me how they
use CBORD to run various reports about forecasted product use, and how they use
inventory data to compare that to actual product use.
After we finished checking
reports, I met with Claire, who does ordering for the catering services! She
explained her duties and the challenges she faces as she places orders for
catering. My meeting with Claire concluded this week’s ordering/inventory
training!
Wednesday
On Wednesday, I reported to
Ted, one of the catering managers located in the Gordon Dining and Events
Center! I began my shift by shadowing Ted on his daily duties when preparing
for an event. I then moved to the catering kitchen in the Central Production area of Gordon, where I helped plate desserts and season steaks for the event
that night:
After the food was prepped, I assisted with
last minute packing on carts to take items to the off site event! We then
loaded the carts onto the Catering truck to take to the event location!
When we arrived at the
event location, we unloaded the carts and moved them to the room next to where
the event was being held.
We set up the buffet line:
The bar:
The seating:
And finally, the grill:
The executive chef of
Dining and Culinary Services, Paul, stopped by the event to grill the steaks I
had helped to season earlier. He even let me grill for a while and gave me tips
on grilling the perfect steak! This impromptu cooking lesson was really cool
and much appreciated!
As the event began, our job
was to bartend for the customers, which involved opening bottles and pouring
glasses of wine. We were also in charge of making sure the buffet line was
fully stocked at all times and ensuring it looked tidy and professional.
As the event came to a
close, we packed up leftover food and broke down tables and chairs. We
re-packed the carts with supplies and loaded them back onto
the truck to haul back to Gordon.
Overall, it was really cool to begin the morning helping prepare food and supplies for the event
and see our hard work come to life later that day at the actual event.
Thursday
Thursday morning, I began
shadowing the second Catering manager, Joe. Since there were no major events
planned that day, Joe spent the morning teaching me how to use their event
planning software, called Event Manager. He showed me how he is able to enter
the details about each type of event, including the service they will be
providing (i.e. plated dinner vs buffet line), the supplies necessary, the
menu, the location, etc. When the number of guests is entered, the supplies and
food scale to how many will be attending, which makes things much
easier for Joe. All he must do is fine-tune exactly what will be needed based
on his experience before printing out the lists and sending them to the
kitchen, bakery, and cart prep area!
Next on Joe’s agenda was
some paperwork! Although it was not as exciting as running events, it is
completely necessary to organize past event paperwork not only for their own
records, but also to submit to accounting for billing purposes.
I ended the day with Joe a
little early in order to head over to a meeting with Kevin Kontny about our
Theme Lunch! We discussed a few recipes that must be created and entered into
CBORD so we will be able to order food to complete these recipes. We finalized
a few more menu details and ended the day with a homework assignment for
Kaylene and I: copy down our new recipes onto the official recipe testing
forms!
Friday
Friday began early once
again as I assisted the catering team in setting up breakfast events! The first
event was just across the street, so one of the chefs, Izzy, and I rolled a hotbox and a
cart with supplies over to the building!
When we got to the location
we discovered an unpleasant surprise: the doors were still locked! We waited
for a short while before employees came and let us in to set up their event!
This event was a formal breakfast buffet, so we set up a formal buffet and refreshments
line:
After we finished setting
up this event, we went back to Gordon and loaded some pre-packed carts onto a catering truck to transport to the next two breakfast buffet locations!
The second event was very
small; just a quick drop off of some breakfast pastries and refreshments:
The third event of the
morning had been moved due to a chemical smell in the original room, so we had
to think on our feet and set up a makeshift breakfast buffet in new room for that event: a library!
After the morning events
were set up, we returned to Gordon and I reported back to Joe, the Catering
manager. I helped him enter more events into Event Manager and he showed me some advanced features that make entering events exponentially easier
and faster!
After this was complete,
Joe and I went to a past event site to clean up our supplies! Joe explained that they typically
visit off site event locations before the actual event to see what they are
dealing with, including any potential problems, so they can plan accordingly! While we were on that side of campus, we visited the location for a 400-guest picnic to be held in a couple weeks so
he could assess the main issue they will be facing: no electricity!
Joe and I tried to
troubleshoot by discussing the possibility of bringing a generator, cooking as
much as possible at the event, or finding nearby outlets, such as in the
parking structure across the street! I will be interested to hear what they
decide to do in a couple weeks!
After we arrived back at
Gordon and unloaded the carts, I went to the second floor Catering Kitchen to
assist catering employees in an essential catering piece: pre-packing carts to
be brought to future events! I was taught how to read the lists Joe printed off
earlier and efficiently pack supplies on as few carts as possible to be ready
for future events!
After we were finished
packing the carts, we concluded the day by going to the Catering kitchen in the
Central Production area to assist the daily cleaning (i.e. sweeping, mopping,
taking out the trash).
This concludes my training
with the University Dining and Culinary Catering Services! I look forward to
what next week will bring!
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