Week five (ish)

Since I'm really bad at blogging, I'm going to tell you all about the last two weeks of UConn joy!

Last Monday and Tuesday, Kelly and I spent time at Chuck & Augie's, an on campus restaurant located in the Student Union. We spent the first day in the back of house, working as line cooks during the lunch shift, and the second day we worked the front of house. This was a very fun experience to work in both sides of the same restaurant so close together.

When we worked in the kitchen, Kelly and I were able to create our own "NACUFS Interns' Salad" from the fresh ingredients in the kitchen. Our salad was a spinach-base, with roasted corn, watermelon, and housemade croutons. We tossed it all in a balsamic vinaigrette that we made ourselves, and used fresh goat cheese crumbles on top. However haphazard, it was delicious, and we really enjoyed being given free reign over the ingredients. Thanks Tyler May for all of your help!

 The second day, we worked front of house. Kelly got experience as a host, which is something she had yet to do in the restaurant business and had a lot of fun with. She worked with Marc, who was very helpful and enthusiastic. I worked in expoing, which allowed me to delegate between the front and back of house during the busy lunch shift.

Last week, we also worked with Dave Barbera in forecasting. As mentioned in our of our previous posts, we are required to plan and put on a themed meal during our internship. We learned how to forecast for the event, and for future meals. We used an algebraic algorithm (and some random speculation) to figure how much food is needed for each day, and to plan accordingly.

We live for the weekend

Kelly and I had never been to New England before this trip, and decided that because all these states are so squished together and (mostly) easy to traverse, we wanted to see as much of the Northeast as possible. So this past weekend, we traveled to Martha's Vineyard, one of the most popular vacation spots in New England.

We drove to Cape Cod in the morning and took a ferry to the Island in the early afternoon. I immediately went and laid out on the beach - the ocean is the only good part of summertime, in my opinion. Kelly went around Oak Bluffs and saw the shopping, restaurants, and entertainment in the area. After a few hours of just relaxing, we hopped on a bus and rode over to Edgartown, where we got some delicious ice cream and shopped in cute little stores with unique trinkets.

Martha's Vineyard is very expensive, but we were able to find a hostel to stay in overnight, which was significantly cheaper than any hotel we could have gotten. The hostel was very nice and filled with interesting people from around the world. They provided breakfast for us the next morning and then we were off once again!

The second day we were there, we went to the Western side of the Island, toward Aquinnah. My favorite part of the Island was Menemsha, where we ate a delicious lunch of crab cake sandwiches and clam chowda on the beach. I got to go swimming in the ocean (which was surprisingly cold) and relax out on the sand for a few hours. I tanned. Kelly burned. It was great.

We made our way back to Oak Bluffs, ate some dinner and shopped around before hopping on the ferry back to Cape Cod. Driving back to Connecticut was long and exhausting, and we both crashed as soon as we got through the front door of our apartment.

This week has been spent working on the aforementioned theme meal that took place yesterday, June 27. We spent a lot of time collecting decorations, organizing the kitchen, and preparing small details that would make the luncheon great.

Despite being very busy during the week preparing for our event, we were able to sneak away on Wednesday to go on a few tours of providers in the area with Carol, our supervisor. The first tour was at Omar Coffee Company, which distributes coffee and coffee equipment for UConn and even has a specialty blend unique to our campus called "UC Bold" (which I personally enjoy.) The tour was given by Shannon, Kevin, and Greg who were very informative about the process and even let us have some of their coffee to take home with us! (Yessss, more caffeine.)

Afterwards, we went over to FreshPoint, which distributes locally grown produce to different restaurants, and in our case, dining halls, in the area. We were able to learn about their history, sustainable practices, and even toured the warehouse where all the food is stored. (Protip: Bring a jacket, warehouses are cold.) It was a lot of fun, and Dan Batchelder was enthusiastic and accommodating throughout the entire tour.

Up next, we'll tell you all about our event and other weekend adventures!

Until then, this is Hasbrouck and Kelly, signing off!