Six Weeks!

Sorry guys! I'm here, I'm here! Just a little late on the post. Let's get the recap started.

This went by at a slower pace since Dustin was gone from Wednesday-Friday at the NACUFS National Conference in Minneapolis! I heard it was a great time with lots and lots of NACUFS people taking over the minny-apple. I hope I'll be able to go to one some day :)

Monday and Tuesday were pretty crazy, though, since we had to get a lot figured out before Dustin et al. left for the week. We were basically jumping from meeting to meeting, finalizing some last plans and details for the FoodPro conference (that is next week already, holy cow!) and discussing the ResHall Catering online module.

Photo of the Playmakers lounge in the CanadInn (thanks Google)

Monday, we met with an event planner from the Canad Inn (the hotel where the guests will be staying) to go over every event that will be taking place at that location and make sure everything we will need had been ordered. After this, we buzzed over to the Art Museum to meet with catering and go over the dinner setup for one of the nights. Trying to fit a buffet-style dinner plus beverages, an entertainer, and a table for photographs in one wing of an art museum with enough space for 8 large roundtables is not a no-brainer. But we got it! And it will be just fabulous, I think. Our last meeting that day was with an event planner from the Alumni Center (a gorgeous building that opened less than a year ago) and we went over some of the same kind of details for the last dinner/reception of the conference that will be held there. I can't wait to see everything that we've been planning come together!

Semi-awkward photo of the presentation taken from the sidelines

On Tuesday, I was able to shadow Dustin as he conducted a nutrition education presentation for the UND Grad School Dean and Faculty. The presentation was originally planned to include both Dustin's education piece as well as a cooking demonstration by Chef Greg, but time was cut short so we had to cut out the demonstration. The group ate a healthy lunch of a hummus/veggie wrap, fruity quinoa salad, and yogurt parfait, and then Dustin spoke a bit about both quinoa and chickpeas, their health benefits, and tips for incorporating them into a lifestyle of eating. This is where the brochures I worked on last week were distributed. The faculty was very receptive and engaged in the presentation and even asked a few questions! Dustin was able to make the presentation personal for the group of people, which I think made it even more of an effective talk. The Dean came up to me afterwards and introduced himself -- a UW Madison grad! and told us how much he enjoyed the presentation. It just made me excited to be able to do something like this in the future and make an impression on others' lives with information I am so passionate about.

Lastly, on Tuesday we met with some more of the managers to go over the progress we'd made with the ResHall catering menu and get even more input before we finalized it for the website. I worked on taking notes from this discussion and improving the various menus for the rest of the week. Whenever I needed to re-organize something, it usually involved creating a new recipe in FoodPro or getting the correct weight for a portion of something and was pretty time consuming given all of the different menus UND is offering for their residence hall events.

Wednesday was a quick day for me since I spent the majority of it up in the kitchen and dining hall getting ready to re-introduce the Signature Salad concept again. This time, I selected an Asian Salad and a Grilled Chicken Strawberry Salad to present. Compared to the first time we set up the salad concept, the production was much smoother this time! Since it was menu-ed in FoodPro, we had all of the ingredients in inventory and each prep area in the kitchen got their specific recipes to prepare. However, I definitely did not anticipate how popular this was going to be with diners! Given the popularity of the salads last time, we projected that we'd go through about 20 of each salad -- so that's how much of the ingredients we prepared. Long story short, we basically had to double everything. I was in the kitchen for a while chopping cilantro and cabbage and slicing strawberries to replenish the ever-depleting specialty bar's stock. When I wasn't doing that, I was out in the dining center getting feedback from customers. Many people were kind enough to fill out a feedback sheet about their experience. Some people commented that the service would have to be quicker during the school year to avoid long lines. One of our main concerns was how to input the recipes into FoodPro -- either as an inclusive recipe or with each ingredient as its own component. Since the majority of customers' requests was to either add chicken or take chicken off of the salad, I think it might be a good solution to take chicken (or whatever protein) out of the salad recipes and menu it as a separate component, so that service records are more accurate and we can project production better and avoid waste.

Grilled Chicken & Strawberry Salad

The salad artists of the day

Both salads + marketing materials

Feedback forms

Thursday and Friday I was basically glued to my seat in the office all day -- no meetings to run off to! and made some headway with the ResHall catering menu and my nutrition information brochures for dining. In addition to the one I created last week about eating disorders, I started a series of brochures about each food group -- whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and protein/dairy (in one). I still want to come up with one about surviving stress healthfully and having a healthy pantry of food in the dorms/college apartments. Hopefully I will have time these next two weeks -- it's looking like busy times ahead!

Went on a walk Saturday and came across this inspirational bit written on the sidewalk :)