Week 1- NMU Visits GFS in Grand Rapids

Week 1: Northern Michigan University

Hello everyone! My name is Emily Loehmer and I am the NACUFS intern at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan. I will be a senior at Cornell University in the fall, studying Nutritional Sciences and dietetics with a minor in Marketing. I was very excited to be placed at this internship because the four components in the description were dietetics, marketing, food service, and management—all of which I am interested in and need experience in.

The first week of my internship was technically not a scheduled week. The chefs and Registered Dietitian, Robin Rahoi, of NMU were invited to Gordon Food Service to cook in the test kitchens and tour the facilities for a week. I was honored when they extended the invitation to me, and naturally could not wait to meet the crew in Grand Rapids for my first week with NMU staff.

The week at GFS was a ton of work, but we definitely had a lot of fun. The first day we went to Michael’s & Associates where the chefs prepared a number of new dishes for us to sample. The idea behind the sampling was to give us new foods that NMU dining could sell as “Grab-and-Go” pre-portioned food.

Next, we toured the Davis Creek Meats, the meat packing facility and were treated to some juicy steaks and burgers for lunch—talk about appetizing! Before we went into any of the meat-packing areas, we had to suit up for safety and sanitation. However, some of the coats were a little on the small side for our chefs! 

After sampling two meals before 2:00PM, we headed to the GFS test kitchens to greet our bounty—over a week’s worth of food that would soon be prepared for the tasting!

We did a little bit of prep work, and a few of us cried as the onions were chopped, but we didn’t get to cook any dishes on Tuesday. We ended the day with a nice dinner and returned to the hotel to sit on the patio to get to know each other. 

On Wednesday, we divided up recipes that GFS chefs had made solely for university and college dining halls. Since I was the newest and perhaps least experienced member of the team, I thankfully was only assigned one recipe. Some chefs had three or four recipes, which was very impressive. We all cooked breakfast recipes for a few hours and then it was time to feast. By this time, I had cooked up quite an appetite, (pun intended) and was excited to sample the meals. However, I hadn’t anticipated the 25+ dishes, and although I only took very small bites of each dish, I was beyond full by the time I filled up my third plate. At the end of the day, we went back to the hotel but everyone was ready for some well-deserved playtime, so we hit the arcade/mini-golf/laser-tag arena of Grand Rapids and had a blast.

Thursday was by far our longest day, as we had to cook lunch recipes, sample them, clean up, and then do it all over again for dinner recipes. I was given a few more recipes on this day and felt the pressure from the increased responsibility but was thankful for the trust instilled in me by Chef Nathan and the rest of the chefs. This day was exhausting, but very rewarding. Although I didn’t think I could eat another bite, we ended the day at a Tapas restaurant eating even more delicious food. Here is just one of the many beautiful and scrumptious dishes the NMU chefs made during the week:

I was sad to be leaving on Friday morning, but was very excited to get home to Indiana so that I could pack for Marquette. I had the next week off, as Robin, my internship coordinator and the RD for NMU dining, prepared for my arrival.