So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye!

It's our last day here at UConn.

The depression has sunken in fully.

We've made so many great memories in our short 8 weeks here and we've learned more than we could've ever imagined.  We are so thankful to everyone that took the time to teach us new skills and share their knowledge with us.  The past 8 weeks have flown by and we wish we had more time to spend with all of the people who made this internship great.

We'd like to give a special shout out to Carol Cronin, our internship coordinator.  She created an amazing schedule for us and was there for us every step of the way.  We have learned every facet of food service management from planting and picking produce to preparing the food to be served at the dining halls.  She arranged exclusive tours for us to give us an inside look at restaurants, casinos, and food manufacturers.  She made this internship the absolute best it could be and we could not be more grateful to her.  We were handed off to her by two extremely protective mothers and she did not let them down when she told them she would take great care of us.  She will forever be our east coast mama.

Thank you to all of the managers, chefs, chef assistants, and kitchen assistants at McMahon, South, Buckley, North, Northwest, Putnam, Gelfenbien, and the Union Street Market for all the tips and tricks they shared with us, especially how to make it through the 6am shifts. 

We definitely won't miss hiking up the mountain of stairs outside McMahon everyday but leaving everything else will be really sad.  Leaving our home away from home is an extremely unpleasant thought but we'll be back soon to see all of you fantastic people.  We'll miss you all dearly!

So long and thanks for all the fish.

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!

Semaine Duex

Bonjour! Je m'appelle Hasbrouck. I am a senior at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I study Hospitality & Tourism Management with a concentration in Restaurant Management and minors in Entrepreneurship and Nutrition.
____________________________________

Our second week here at the University of Connecticut has been filled with a lot of technical work and the on-going education of new skills.

On Wednesday, we met with some of our superiors, Eric Janssen, Derek Carlsen, and Rob Landolphi, to finalize the theme of the event we are planning. At UConn, one of our responsibilities before the 8 weeks is up is to plan a luncheon for one of the Orientation groups coming to campus. Kelly and I have had to come up with a theme, construct a menu, and have design plans for the actual dining hall.

Our theme for this luncheon is The Hobbit. College: An Unexpected Journey (because, let's be honest, there were a ton more things that occurred in college than any of us were prepared for as freshmen). Everyone here is really excited for this theme, especially my fellow Tolkien fans.

After that, we met with Gayle Misener and her assistant to learn how to work the computerized inventory software called FoodPro. Now that our accounts are set up, we can access the entire food inventory and recipes for the dining hall we will be hosting our event in.

The next two days, we got to experience what it was like to be chefs in McMahon. Kelly and I had a lot of fun when we got to work with Beth in the omelette station during morning shift, and again with her and Bruce in the pizza station for lunch. We have such a good time joking around and learning new skills with them (like how to flip an omelette for Kelly, and how not to get covered in flour on a daily basis for me).

Beth looking very disappointed in us for using the serving tongs as castanets.

We had to work on Saturday because we had Monday off for Memorial Day. We worked with Alice Kapsch as managers in McMahon. We helped her with inventory lists and supervising the employees. Saturdays are pretty slow, so we were able to learn easily without the addition of a stressful environment.

WEEKEND ADVENTURES
This Sunday, Kelly and I hobnobbed in Norwalk, CT. We got on a catamaran and rode over to Sheffield Island. We toured the lighthouse and hung out on the island in the beautifully sunny weather before it started raining on our way back.

Sheffield Island Lighthouse

The Mystic Aquarium is where we adventured to on Monday. We got to pet sharks and sting rays and see a lot of ocean wildlife. We also walked around the town of Mystic afterwards, which was super cute and a ton of fun.

We got some ice cream at the Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream shop! 

It was delicious.

Tuesday, Kelly and I went over to the Student Union on campus to work at the Union Street Market. Kelly learned how to be a barista (which she really enjoyed - never give her more than one cup of coffee) and I learned how to make some of the school's smoothies. Terry Cook showed us around and explained the different stations, while later on, Deb taught us both about the PoS system they use.

We also were able to talk with Kim who took us to speak with some of the student managers and supervisors. They told us a lot about how students work in the dining facilities at UConn, which we really enjoyed learning about.

Yesterday we went to a farm!

Spring Valley Farms is a student run farming facility just off campus. Students take responsibility to keep up the crops that are actually used in the dining halls and restaurants on campus. Julia Cartabiano, Sienna, Tyler, and Molly showed us how to harvest and wash spinach and lettuce. We also helped plant morning glories around some of the student houses.

Nice, clean lettuce that we picked ourselves!

Later on, Jim Kupchunos came by and showed us the bees that he keeps on the farmland. We helped feed the bees with a sugar-water solution. Kelly now holds the record as the only NACUFS intern to be stung by one of the bees. Go Kelly! (She's fine.)

These hats are lovely

Playing with the bees!

Today we worked at the UConn Farmer's Market, selling the crops that we harvested yesterday. We also sold other local produce, including strawberries, corn, and honey. A lot of people came by and we had a ton of fun outside in the lovely weather. Thank you, John Smith, James, and Nicole for letting us help out!

Kelly, workin' hard.

Some of the stuff we sold at the market today!

We'll keep you posted in coming weeks for all of our other adventures!

- Hasbie and Speckel