Field Trips Continued - Mizzou

One of the field trips we went on was to Goatsbeard Farm. This is a goat farm in which they make goat cheese. Jenn explained the cheese making processes that they do right on site! The goat cheese is sold at many several local stores and restaurants. Information on the farm can be found on their website. Below are pictures from the trip.

Another field trip we went on was to the City Landfill. Here we looked at a compost pile from a few months. The products in the pile were from the CDS picnic in which they are using environmentally friendly products. They are seeing how well the products have been degrading, and if not, to switch to a different product. I've never been to a city landfill, neither has Sara, so this has been a first time for the both of us.

End of the Summer (Part 3 of 3) - Mizzou

Our final project was to present a business plan for a major special event. A major special event is different from a mini-special event in that it is an event that occurs at all the all-you-care-to-eat dining locations (like a Thanksgiving event). The event we created would potentially take place in the Spring semester of 2012. So, we called our project "World Tour 2012." During this event, each all-you-care-to-eat facility will feature a world region. Since there are four, we have - Mediterranean, European, African, and Caribbean. We also created multiple activities to go along with this event to make it more interactive by including social media features. We presented our business plan to the Campus Dining Services Department on our last day. It was a great hit and everyone loved the idea and brought up interesting challenges the event would create. This internship was a great experience and I learned a lot about food services management, more than I would have in any of my classes. I definitely would encourage my peers to apply for a NACUFS internship. The program exceeded my expectations and is an experience that I would never forget.


Special thanks to: Debbie, Julaine, Steve, Eric, all the managers, assistant managers, and sous chefs.

Future interns - if you have any questions at all feel free to contact Sara or me by commenting.

End of the Summer (Part 2) - Mizzou

A few days after Sara's mini-special event, I executed my own, Medieval Mizzou. By creating a mini-special event, we learned a lot about the management and supervision roles and responsibilities within CDS (Campus Dining Services). Unlike Sara's event, was the complete opposite in terms of theme, food, feel, decorations, and counts. The forecasting for this event changed drastically within the week, and after experiencing Sara's event, I wanted to be prepared. Below are pictures of the decorations and food for the Medieval Mizzou event. I enjoyed the creative process involved in creating such an event and working with the staff to make the dishes I put on the menu.

End of the Summer (Part 1) - Mizzou

Hi Everyone,

To conclude the internship at the University of Missouri - Columbia, Sara and I completed several projects. We each executed a mini-special event. These themed events occur in only one dining hall during the lunch or dinner hour. Sara did her mini-special event first, like I mentioned in other posts, her's was Tango de Mango. The event was slightly under-preped and we had over double of the expected turn out. None the less, the food was delicious! Below are several pictures of the event and Sara preparing for the special night. I thought Sara did a great job communicating with the staff to prepare the food the way she wanted and to give them an idea of what she pictured the night would be like.

July 6, 2011 - Mizzou

Hi!

Today Sara and I were assigned A.M. Supervision at Rollins and Plaza 900 respectively. I shadowed one of the assistant managers at first and then the assistant manager/sous chef later in the evening. I learned many of management's responsibilities and watched how they handled the daily problems. One of the major complications they had to face was tardy or no-show staff. They discussed the proper discipline procedures to follow up on such behavior. On the other hand, I was able to sit in on an interview for a food service worker 1 position. The interview was very interesting and I was able to experience the difficulties the managers have to work through, such as language barriers. It was very inspiring how management was able to deal with all the problems of the kitchen and work on their other current projects at the same time. It felt like someone was constantly running into the office to ask a question to a different problem every other minute - but watching the staff work together through these problems was inspirational.

July 5, 2011 - Mizzou

Today Sara and I met with Julaine, who is the Campus Dining Services Director. During our meeting she discussed the different roles of being an RD in a college setting. It was definitely interesting to see how many opportunities there are in a college setting that most people don't even think of.

Later we worked on our mini and major special events. Sara and I are almost done planning our mini-special events. We completed the well-diagrams and placed where our dishes would be placed. We also completed the preparation chart, which assigned different tasks to the staff to prep for our dishes. As for our major event, we are creating a "World Tour" theme. In planning this, students will travel to all the dining halls, in which each one will be a different country with a different cuisine. It's going to be a lot of work and we have such little time. But I am excited to start working on it because it is going to be a great event that CDS can implement in the future.

June 30 and July 1, 2011 - Mizzou

June 30th we worked at Wheatstone Bistro, Starbucks, and the Bookmark Cafe. Wheatstone Bistro is kind of like a combination of Panera and Subway. The bookmark cafe is located right inside of the library and they sell a variety of coffees/lattes/espressos. It was great to take a look at these retail locations because they serve a different crowd than the student center. Even though Starbucks is contracted, it is Student Union run. We were unable to officially work behind the counter for Starbucks because you have to go through their training program.

July 1st Sara worked at Rollins and I worked at Plaza for AM salads. We worked the salad bar and the dessert bar. We basically had to make sure the bars were restocked at all times and prepare the breakfast cart for the next day. We had to prepare foods such as the special salad of the day, whipped toppings, and pastries(that were either frozen or from a premade batter).

June 29, 2011 - Mizzou

Today we worked at the Student Centers again. It was great learning how the retail stores operated differently from the residential dining halls.

 The counters of each location are either made of granite or quartz. This counter is from Kate and Emma's and is made of granite.

 Even though Sunshine Sushi is run through a contract, they are one of the most popular locations and makes sushi made with real fish.

 All the hood fans were carefully crafted from the graphic designer - Casey.

 This machine is located in Infusion - which sells pastries, coffee, ice cream, and other shakes/drinks. They have their own coffee bean roaster.

 This machine removes the rocks from the coffee beans. It uses air to push the coffee beans through, and the rocks do not get pushed up in the air because they are too heavy.

 This is the donut machine in Infusion. they make their own donuts. To control portion size and pricing - they make the donuts smaller, that way you get the same great taste but at a smaller amount.

 They freshly squeeze their own orange juice. This way you know that you are getting the best quality fresh juice.