Sunday
Melissa: " I went out with my sorority sister Sophia, to visit various tourist attractions in San Francisco. We had so much fun hanging out together and enjoy the beauty of San Francisco!"
Megan: "Sunday was a relaxing day where I took the time to explore campus a little bit more. I decided to go to the top of the clock tower constructed in 1915, called the Campanile on campus, and saw an amazing view. The clock tower was very impressive as it is the 3rd tallest clock tower in the world!"
View from the top of the Golden Gate!
Monday
Today we worked in "The Hub" of Cal Dining. We worked with Tracy in the morning, and she explained the relationship of all the different data bases that Cal Dining uses. Cal Dining is phasing out Food Pro, which has been used for 20 year, and moving over to Eatec, a new data base they have been working on implementing for the past year. As of now, only campus restaurants use Eatec, and all of the residential dining halls will start using the program in August, and eventually catering in the future. Tracy discussed with us the connection between Eatec, MICROS and CBORD. Eatec is the hub of information made up of individual ingredients, which make up each recipe. Eatec also holds the ordering guides for each vendor that we use, which allows the chef of each unit to order. Micros is the system that tracks all of the transactions in all dining facilities, markets, and restaurants across campus. Lastly, CBord is the system that links each of the students CalOne cards, which includes the student's meal plans and points they have to spend throughout the semester. We reviewed the standardized recipes that The Hub has been working to input, that each unitwill utilize for the new fall menu. In the afternoon we met Flo who showed us the reasons why Food Pro could not meet the needs of the Cal Dining as we continuously expand. Flo specifically, has been working to take all the information from Food Pro and put it into Eatec. The change to Eatec has been a huge project and there have been some bumps along the way, but hope that it will pay off and become a very useful resource for each facility on campus. Later in the afternoon, we worked on finishing create all of the smoothie recipes that we had previously started. Chef Jose asked us to finish the recipes at the beginning of the week, so later we can start testing them, and finalized the quantified recipes. We even finished all our work early and were able to leave a tad bit early and went on a hike to the "C'. The "C" is a painted letter on the side of the hill that overlooks the city, it was perfect weather and a great relaxing view after work.
The refreshing hike after work
View of San Francisco from Berkeley!
The big "C" for Cal
Tuesday
Today, we went over the teaching kitchen and wellness station ideas with Renee. We discussed about the equipment and supplies we needed for the kitchen. We also need to work on coming up with themes for cooking classes that would attract students and staffs. Around noon, we went up to Foothill and Clark Kerr to conduct audits. The purpose of an audit, is to ensure the dining service is following health department regulations, employees are working in a safe environment, and to confirm proper food handling. We checked the temperature of the foods served on the line and make sure that they are not above 40F or below 140F. Each chef must has a thermometer at all time. We made sure that we checked each area of the facility based on the audit evaluation paperwork. If any area was not in compliance with the regulations, we would record it and discuss with the manager on duty at the end of audit. We also looked at their pest control log, and time and temperature log to make sure that all the paperwork are up to date. After lunch, the Registered Dietitian of Brown’s, Kristen invited us to do a second round of recipe testing. We were super excited to meet with her and make healthy and delicious foods for Brown’s new fall menu. Here are a list of recipes we tried: hummus, yogurt parfait, and chicken chili. We liked all these recipes! They were delicious. Kristen also gave us some free Chapul’s health bar samples to try. Chapul bars are edible insect bars with protein derived from cricket flour. We both tried two different flavors- Dark Chocolate and Matcha. We were not very fond of the taste. After that, we returned to our office and entered our completed audit into an excel sheet.
Megan all ready to complete the audit with thermometer in hand!
Melissa chopping nuts for the parfaits
Delicious homemade humus!
Fruit parfaits
Chicken Chili we made
Protein Bar with cricket protein
Wednesday
Today we had the opportunity to go to the sustanability conference at San Francisco State University with Shawn, Kristen and Sarah who is part of the sustainability intern team on campus. In the morning we attended a speaking session about "Real Food" and what is considered real food, how it is calculated and what we can do at our campus to have more real food which is more sustainable. We learned from other University of California (UC) schools what new projects they were each implement at their university. Some of the topics that we listened about was calculating the amount of real food that is purchased, using sustainable coffee and the push to use more real food. The next session we attended was hosted by our own UC Berkeley representative Shawn, Kristen and Sarah. They spoke about the revamped local campus restaurant called Brown's, which is the restaurant we have been preparing recipes over the past two weeks. Although we both knew a lot about the project, it was really neat to see them present the idea that they have been spending so much time working on. In addition, there was a very good turnout to the session and people were very engaged and interested in the new Brown's. After lunch, the last session of the day we attended was about implementing a farmers market at UC Davis, improving the food in the local school district surrounding Santa Cruz, and lastly a new student sustainability program at UC Davis. We both found this session really interesting and definitely sparked each of our interests in the area of improving the food quality in K-12 schools. Overall we had a really great day at the conference which really opened our eyes to new ways to look at food and sustainability!
Shawn speaking about Brown's!
Thursday
Today, we both worked at the Den. The Den is a retail location where included a wrap and smoothie station, and Peet’s coffee. We were learning how to prepare wraps, smoothies, sandwiches, specialty drinks and espresso beverages. Megan learned how to make cappuccino for the first time! Melissa was very excited to try their new infused tea beverages for the summer. We both had a lot of fun working at the Den! The employees were extremely friendly and sweet. They were very patient when teaching us to use the espresso machines for the first time. We also handled sales transactions under the supervision of Ahmed. After lunch, we went to Brown’s and meet with Kristen for another round of recipe testing. We made sweet and savory breakfast porridge by two different kind of oatmeal alternatives: millet and polenta. The sweet breakfast porridge was topped with chopped peaches and toasted nuts. For the savory breakfast porridge, we made a Mexican version and Asian version. Both of them tasted so good! After recipe tasting, Kristen talked about the additional projects that we can work on for the reopening of Brown’s in the fall. We also met with the sustainability team to go over projects that they are working on for the fall. During the meeting, we also provided ideas and feedback based on each of our experience with dining services on our own college campus.
Megan preparing Renee's coffee!
Melissa preparing a breakfast bagel!
Megan working her magic in Peet's!
Melissa patiently awaiting her next customer
Three styles of breakfast options
Melissa, Kristen and Megan with their final product
Friday
Today we worked with Renee to do recipe testing for wellness station. We made gluten free vegan pasta carbonara and vegetable quinoa paella. First, we gathered all of the ingredients from various location throughout the kitchen. Then, we started chopping and prepping all of the ingredients used in the dish. For the pasta carbonara, we baked mushrooms as an alternative to bacon. In the sauce we used soft tofu as the base along with vegetables and seasonings. Then for the paella we combined quinoa, kidney beans, peppers, zucchini and various seasonings to achieve the desired color and flavor. Each dish we thought was alright, but know there could be improvements made to alter the flavor. Later in the day, we met with Thierry to go over our internship experience in Cal Dining. We provided valuable feedback and changes that can be made for a more productive experience. Lastly we finished up the week by meeting with Lucky and Shannon to sample the final products at GBC for the fall which we LOVED, especially the chicken burrito!
Melissa chopping garlic
All the ingredients chopping and ready to be pureed
Megan preparing mushrooms for the pasta dish
Megan and Renee preparing the mushrooms
Melissa preparing the paella
Yeah, both of those recipes kinda sucked. Thanks for your patience through the recipe testing process. I did them over during the weekend with lots of adjustments and they both came out great.
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