Monday, June 25, 2012

KU Dining Week #2: Residential Dining/ Amish Farm Field Trip





In Short:
·      During week 2 Leslie and I explored the various facets of the “residential” part of KU Dining.

·      On Wednesday we were invited to go on an educational field trip to a local Amish farm where some of the produce used at KU Dining is grown and supplied through SYSCO Kansas City.

·      Also, Barb set up a special meeting with one of the Registered Dietitians at HyVee Grocery Store to learn about the new and booming concept of Super Market Dietitians.

Residential Dining Rotation @ Mrs. E’s

My mind was blown this week with the amount of planning and work (and of course love) that goes into feeding the masses at a university residential dining hall. There are 3 residential dining centers at the University of Kansas campus. We worked at the largest facility with open summer hours, Mrs. E’s Dining Center which serves approximately 3,300 students, faculty and staff daily during the school year. Believe me when I say the place was hoppin’! All week (and all summer) Mrs. E’s caters to various camps with campers of all ages bustling around campus as well as students taking summer courses and interns.  I was thoroughly impressed with the level of excellence that was upheld at Mrs. E’s. The wide variety of food items, quality ingredients, delicious original recipes and genuine customer care is what makes the residential dining department at KU so exceptional.

We learned about and experienced:
·      Receiving, ordering, forecasting, inventory
·      Line service, cashiering
·      Chill foods and Hot foods preparation
·      Pot & Pan/ Dishroom cleaning
·      Management techniques and tips
·      We even got to sit in on a Residential Manager’s meeting!

Amish Farm @ Stanberry, MO

            KU Dining has a strong desire to bring fresh nutritious food options to campus in a way that has a positive impact on the community. One such way that they achieve this goal is buying local produce when available from their supplier, SYSCO. SYSCO Kansas City has a partnership with Good Natured Family Farms, a group of 150 local family farms. On Wednesday Leslie and I had the opportunity to tour one of the farms that happens to be operated by an Amish community outside of Stanberry, MO. It was so incredibly interesting to see their clever ways of upholding good food handling and safety standards—all without electricity! The “refrigerator” that kept fresh produce at a safe temperature consisted of an enormous block of ice that was cut out a pond on the farm during January inside of an insulated shed. 









Supermarket Dietitian

            As a nutrition and dietetics major, I can say that Barbara has done an excellent job of catering this internship to our interests. This week she set up a special appointment with a local supermarket Dietitian named Kylene Etzel. We got a chance to ask her questions and learn about what she does. Kylene is Registered and Licensed Dietitian and has a great deal of passion and zeal for her career choice. It was interesting to see the great impact that she had on the wellness of the community.  She also gave us some great tips on how to keep nutrition simple and “back to the basics”.

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