UW – Madison Week Five! (July 6th – July 12th)

Monday and Tuesday:

Monday, I reported to Rheta’s to begin my Unit Chef rotation! I began the day by shadowing Tom, the ordering manager, as he turned on various appliances, accepted daily orders, and prepared menus to give to the chefs for the day. Once the chefs arrived, I was given a brief tour of the kitchen before assisting with lunch preparation. One of the chefs, Curtis, explained how he uses the menus printed out by Tom to look at the forecasted number of guests to estimate how much food will be needed. We then began heating soups and sauces, cooking meats, pasta, vegetables, breadsticks, and more:

BBQ Chicken Quarters!

Shortly before lunch service, Curtis and I brought out all the food we had prepared to the various stations:

After lunch, Curtis and I cleaned the appliances we used and prepped a few items for Tuesday’s lunch. Curtis then showed me how he enters into CBORD the actual amount of food served so they can be more accurate the next time they are serving the meal!

I continued my time at Rheta’s on Tuesday with the Unit Chef, Tony Manowske. I began the day by completing a small project for Tony. I weighed a 10# can of black beans with the liquid, and then drained, rinsed, and weighed them again to see how many pounds of actual beans were left:

This will help Tony be more accurate while entering numbers into CBORD when they use drained vs not drained black beans for recipes! After my small project, Tony and I went into his office so he could show me how he uses CBORD as a Unit Chef. He showed me how to forecast guest counts, how menus are created and how order schedules are created off those menus, how to use station recipes, and a few more tricks!

After our lesson, I worked at Fired Up for lunch so I could learn how to use the grill and gain more experience with fryers. After lunch was done, I was taught how to filter the oil in the fryers.

After the cleaning was done, Curtis demonstrated various appliances they have that are unique to Rheta’s, such as a mini Mongolian grill:

and a wok:

Wednesday and Thursday:

On Wednesday morning, we took a break from our Unit Chef rotation to tour UW – Madison’s football stadium, Camp Randall, with the Athletics Dietitian Karla Horsfall!

On the football field! 

In a sky box with an amazing view of the entire stadium! 

Karla told us about her amazing and intense job working with all the athletes at UW – Madison. One of her main duties is coordinating fueling stations, which are scattered around Camp Randall in the multitude of weight rooms and provide athletes with free products such as sports drinks, snacks, milk, and smoothies they are able to blend themselves. Karla also provides nutrition counseling for the athletes. For example, she often answers athlete’s questions about products or plans special diets or menus. Karla also travels in advance of the football team so she can get to the location before the team and help the hotel with meal accommodations for when the team arrives.

After our tour of athletics, I reported to Carson’s to continue my Unit Chef rotation with Kevin Kontny. I got back in time to help with the lunch rush, where I was in charge of running the fryer and keeping fries stocked in the station serving them. After lunch was done, Kevin and I tested one of the new recipes for our theme lunch, our gluten free “California Dreamin” Pizza! We began by cutting and weighing an avocado so we could have exact values for our recipe:

The first pizza we made was the vegetarian version, which is a sauceless gluten free crust with olive oil, mozzarella cheese, onion, tomato, avocado, cilantro, and a chipotle drizzle:

Then, we added chicken and bacon to make the regular version:

The gluten free crust was still a bit chewy, so we tried par baking the crust before adding the toppings, enabling it to become crispier. This way of cooking worked much better:

Thursday marked the last day of our Unit Chef rotation, and I began the day prepping for lunch by cutting and plating some bars:

Shortly after, Kevin and I headed to Gordon Dining and Events Center for our second Allergen Meeting! We discussed options for contacting students before they come to campus with an employee from the Admissions office, and he gave us some feedback on our ideas. Another major topic of interest was providing each unit with special kits containing a variety of cooking utensils to use specifically for allergen free and gluten free products. We discussed how each unit would keep the kits clean, and how we would ensure they were only used for the designated products.

After the meeting was done, Kevin and I went back to Carson’s for the lunch rush and I helped at the Mexican station, Que Rico. I had never seen this station in full service before so I jumped in to help make rice bowls, quesadillas, burritos, tacos, and more! After lunch, Kevin and I tested our second new recipe for our theme lunch, “The Elvis” Panini! Our panini consists of peanut butter, bacon, and banana on sourdough bread. Carson’s doesn’t have a panini press, so we prepared our sandwich on the flattop grill. We made both a vegetarian version (no bacon):

And the regular version:

We have to further discuss ways to cook the panini to keep the flattop grill allergen free while still being able to use peanut butter on the sandwich.

Friday:

Kaylene and I reported to Gordon Dining and Events Center for a focus day to work on our projects. We made some great progress, such as creating the basis of a marketing plan for the Partnership for a Healthier America initiative, and creating complete "wellness meals" for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as according to the strict guidelines set by the initiativeWe also planned the decorations for our theme lunch! I'm excited to see our hard work begin to come together!