Summer 2013... NACUFS Intern Style!: Americas Birthday: Fourth of July week at UGA

WEEK 5: Over Half Way there..Where did the time go?

Monday: Catering and Menu

Our week started off bright and early again! We reported to Brumby where me met Wayne and assisted with the Freshman College Orientation Breakfast/Registration. The Freshman College is who Meghan and I are planning the closing banquet for so we got to get acquainted with our future guests this morning. The event was the same as when we worked with the orientation team except there was a breakfast buffet line to maintain as well as greeting. Wayne had other events to manage that morning so he allowed Meghan and I to run the event and supervise the catering staff that was there. We greeted the freshman and their parents, delegated tasks, kept the food stocked, and answered questions. There were a few familiar faces from the first time we worked with catering so it was nice to work with them again.I really enjoy spending time in catering since I have a somewhat of background in events/catering. I have never seen it run at the university level so I enjoy learning what types of events they cover and how they work with the spaces they are given.

After the catering event we were off to The Summit (seemed to be our home this week) to talk banquet with Bryan and Sam. We met them to discuss/finalize our menu and I can proudly say we did that! Our requirements were Four Entrees--one being vegetarian, 3 side dishes (one starch), salad, bread, and my favorite DESSERTS. During our meeting we brought our recipes to share with them and review. They looked over them to see if the recipes overall looked good and were up to their standards. Bryan and Sam also looked to see if the measurements seemed accurate and chose some substitute ingredients to better the recipes we had. We discussed our test runs from last week and worked through how we were going to prepare them as well as serve. The main one we had trouble with was the deep dish pizza, but we decided that we were going to bake it on a sheet pan and use the cake sides to add the height. We figured it will make more than the round pans and will allow us to transfer to a chafing dish a lot easier. Bryan then gave us the materials to work on our recipe writing and Meghan and I got started. Once we finalized our menu we were able to send our final draft to Allison who then put together a sample menu. We will be using this menu or something very close for the banquet. Drumroll please.....

Our theme is Under The City Lights: Coast to Coast. Meghan and I picked a hand full of cities from across the United States and then chose dishes/popular items from each place. In the end we are going for an elegant look which the freshman will remember. We love the idea of skylines and incorporating iconic landmarks of the cities in our decorations.

Tuesday July 2: Inventory and training table

Meghan and I reported to Bolton to work in the stock room again, this time for inventory. We assisted them with their weekly inventory which occurs every Tuesday. I was surprised that they do it weekly and I was glad we could assist them because there are so many items that need to be counted. Some differences from the retail side of inventory is that it is done weekly not monthly, they do not use PDA's to enter their numbers it is all done by writing, and the items we took inventory on. I learned that you do not count the boxes/containers that have been opened because they are considered "in production" which was important to remember while we were counting. Also since there is a lot more items than retail so things can be scattered around occasionally and it is important to scan the area when counting to make sure you are not missing any products.The process can get confusing because the item can be the same but be put in a different package such as a can or pouch. Another difference is crushed vs. sliced and it is important to be aware of this especially when you are doing it for the first time. Lastly, the thing I had the most trouble remembering was that there are different units that you are looking for. For example you may be taking inventory on cereal which are stored out of their boxes in just their bags, but the inventory is asking for how many boxes of cereal they have on hand. In this case you have to figure out how many go in a box and calculate it that way, but you have to remember that some may be considered "in production" because they do not make up a full box.

After working with the Bolton inventory we had some time to work on our projects. We took this time to get started on writing our recipes. It takes some time because all of the units have to be converted to the units that Food Pro recognizes. We did a few recipes and then headed over to Snelling to show Gregg what we had done so far for The Niche projects. We got feedback from him and then changed a few of the documents to better suite what they need for The Niche.

Meghan working on our projects

In the afternoon Meghan and I headed to meet Susan in her office so we could go to the Training Table meeting at Central Food Storage. This meeting occurs weekly between the sport nutritionist, Chef Paul (catering), and Susan to discuss the menu for the athletes that participate in Training Table. In total they serve about 160 athletes daily from Monday through Thursday over a 3 hour service window. It can change daily depending on the athletes schedules and possibly what is on the menu. Not all of the teams participate in Training Table and in order for an athlete to be eligible they have to be on the meal plan. Some of the teams that participate in it are the football team (largest team), men and women's basketball, some of baseball, gymnastics, and men and women's golf team. The reason why there is a Training Table is because the NCAA allows for athletes to have 1 special meal/day compared to 'normal' campus students.

The topic of the meeting this week was trying to finalize the menu. Maria, one of the sports nutritionist, draws of the first draft of the menu and then they all meet and go through it. The menu is a four week cycle menu which switches every semester and is the same for every sport. There are certain things that the food service staff has to look at such as the cost, preparation/ production needs, and variety. One problem they ran into was that Maria put the Boston Butt on the menu for a Monday which is a problem because that type of meat needs a lot of preparation and takes a long time to cook. With a few menu changes they were able to make a three way swap and move it to a Tuesday so they can fulfill the preparation and cooking needs.Something that Maria takes into account when she is working on the menu is she will put fattier items as well as treats ( this semester Tuesday) in the beginning of the week and put more carbohydrates on the menu for the end of the week to prepare them for games. She also has to look for foods that have a large amount of sodium because the athletes sweat it out so often and it is important to keep them hydrated. Along with the health related concerns the sports nutritionist also provides the athletes with a chicken dish daily because they love chicken and will always eat it.

There were a few new discussion topics today after the necessary changes were made one being about the salad dressing. The Niche is going to be carrying Naturally Fresh salad dressing and this can now be an option for Training Table. More salad dressing was one of the request/ suggestions of an athlete in the previous years so this was perfect timing. Along with looking at Naturally Fresh's options we went through FoodPro and looked at homemade dressing produced by the kitchen and used by Taste of Home (a retail operation). In the end Maria decided that she was going to incorporate some of these into the menu. Finally, we discussed bringing in already made sandwiches. In the past there has been sandwich options, but the ingredients have not put together and it is up to the athletes to do this. The athletes do not realized that the ingredients are meant to make a sandwich so it would be better to either make a presentation plate or have more already made sandwiches. The concerns with that are they need to be all hot ingredients in a sandwich or all cold ingredients as well as bread that will be able to hold well in a chafing dish. The meeting was very informative and I enjoyed learning about all that it takes to put together this 1 meal per day, it infidelity keeps all involved very busy. It made me start to think maybe I should have played a sport in college..the options were looking pretty yummy!

Wednesday July 3: Banquet Preparation

Meghan and I reported to the summit to work on preparation for the Freshman College Opening Banquet. There was only so much that could be done today because of the day off in between and the fact they they were still open for service on Friday morning/afternoon. Throughout the day we assisted with making flower arrangements for each table (red flowers and black vases for Georgia colors), making roll-ups, and making sure everything we could do was done.There was a little hiccup in the day when Adam realized that they did not have the china for the event. He had to scramble and get in touch with Wayne to borrow them from catering, but for the most part the day went smoothly.

Working on the 88 arrangements

Hard at work

Meghan transporting the flowers to the cooler!

Throughout the day we also had some time to work on ideas for the banquet. We talked about decorations with Adam as well as food with Sam. We came up with some ideas for the centerpieces and buffet area. Helping prepare for the banquet gave us an idea of what types of things we can get done before the day of our banquet.

Thursday July 4: FOURTH OF JULY!

We celebrated Americas 237th birthday with A LOT OF RAIN and some sparklers!

Friday July 5: Freshman College Opening Banquet

We arrived in the morning to prepare for the banquet which started at 6pm. Meghan and I set the tables only to find out that we did not make enough flowers, so it was back to flower arrangements ( I am not very good). Thank goodness there were extra flowers from the day before in cooler or else we would have been scrambling. We also helped set up the buffet line and other miscellaneous tasks that had to be done. There was only so much that could be done before 2:30 when The Summit closes for the day. Time management is a very important aspect in planning events and making them run smoothly. Thorughout the day Meghan and I would stop and look around and discuss things such as decorations, layouts, and napkin holders for our banquet. Helping and seeing how to set up a banquet was a benefit for us! In the late afternoon Meghan and I got to sit down with Bryan and edit our recipes to make sure they were up to standards so our next step is to get in touch with Bryan Varin and get them entered into FoodPro. At around 5:50 the freshman started to arrive and in no time we were serving them. In the end there was enough food (and extra for us), the most popular entree item seemed to be the salmon and as far as desserts it was an Oreo dream bar. After they left we all pitched in and helped flip the dining room back to its regular set up and were out of there by 9pm. It got both Meghan and I very excited for our banquet-- 3 weeks away!!