5 Star Tasting

Friday morning I was able to meet with Bryan, the assistant director of meal plan operations, to discuss his position.  His responsibilities include creating the cycle menu, collaborating with chefs and managers to compose menu items, speaking with vendors to select products used in the dining halls, and seeking out new products (among other things).  He has a background in culinary which enhances his ability to select new products.  When a vendor wants to get their product onto the UGA campus, they must first speak with Bryan.  Bryan schedules a "cutting" or sampling session in which they taste the product and sample them against the current product.  He is responsible for selecting products based on taste, cost, and acceptibility.  New products must work well with the current recipes to make sure the taste on consistency is not thrown off in a unpleasurable way.   One thing UGA recently switched over to was a new brand of tomato products (paste, sauce, marinara) which are bagged in plastic instead of sealed in aluminum cans.  The taste was better, the cost was cheaper, and UGA is saving thousands of dollars by doing away with aluminum cans.  Aluminum cans that get dented must be thrown away and they were losing a lot of inventory because of this rule.  Bryan recently went to the NACUFS confrerence and scouted out new products from a showcase of  vendors.  His job seems really interesting and something I would enjoy doing.  He is able to be creative with the menu and has the authority to enhance the menu as he pleases.  Bryan's most recent change to the menu will be to do away with canned mushrooms and replace them with fresh mushrooms.  Apparently slimy canned mushrooms are gross haha... something I agree with.  By making that simple change, dishes containing mushrooms will have a nicer texture and new freshness.  Bryan also works with Food Pro on a regualr basis to analyze recipes and input inventory onto the cycle menues.  He ruled that we are done the ACI project!  :)  I'm glad we could get as far as we did for them so that their website can be up and running as soon as possible.


Later in the afternoon, we went to a five star dining tasting.  Each year, chefs from colleges throughout the States submit recipes as well as create famous recipes from popular restaurants and then are judged.  The dining hall then creates the winning recipes and samples them to the staff.  We were able to eat with the managers and chefs at this event... and I'm glad we were!! Everything was delicious.  Each dining hall was recponsible for creating a certain section of the menu.  We chowed on everything ranging from crawfish cheesecake to poblano steak and rhubarb crisp.  My favorite dish was an endive fennel salad.  They also made the red and black cake which was submitted by UGA.  It has one layer of chocolate cake and one layer of red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting in the middle and a heavy chocolate frosting on top.  Auh-maz-inggg:)  All the chefs did a wonderful job preparing the meal and it is awesome that they get to be creative in submitting their own recipes each year.  It may not look all that yummy piled all together on the plate like this, but mmmm ut was good!!