Mizzou Livin' Weeks 4&5

The last two weeks have been super busy and packed full of activities.

Week 4:
During this week I finished up my work rotation by going to Rollins Dining, the Student Center, and the other cafes on campus. That Monday was my first day at Rollins Dining where I helped work the salad station. The morning was all prepping the salad ingredients so lots of cucumber slicing and pepper chopping. I then learned how to set up the salad cold wells and where all the ingredients belong, there are a lot of them! During lunch I was in charge of keeping the items stocked with the extras stored underneath in coolers. Lunch was fairly busy since Rollins in the summer is only open for prospective students and his/her parents. Because everyone is on the same schedule that means they all come eat at once. So for about an hour I was nonstop stocking items as person after person wanted salad! I enjoyed being this busy and really like how the salad bar is set up for the customers. The Student Center is much different from the residential dining facilities as all the restaurants in the Student Center are run like retail. Mizzou is unique in how they don't contract out any of their restaurants, except Sunshine Sushi, and all the concepts on campus were created specifically by University of Missouri. The Student Center encompasses Infusion for coffee, Kate & Emma's for wraps, Do Mundo's for barbecue, Pomodoro's for pizza and pasta, and Mort's for burgers and fries. Each concept has it's own area but some are connected through the back. What I really liked about these is how unique each one is in their design and staying committed to their concepts so students have more choices; it is nice to see a campus without Burger King, Taco Bell, or Chick Fil A. I really enjoyed working at Mort’s since it was the busiest at the time and a type of food, burgers and fries, which I haven’t worked with much before. Mort’s uses a steam fryer for the chicken fingers and sandwiches which helps reduce the amount of fat in each piece, something I think gives students an option of being slightly healthier while still getting to eat “junk food”. While working at the Student Center Alan, the manager, took us to visit the Mizzou Sports Complex and we got to toured around the facility, including their dining area. As a football and general sports lover, I found this to be really cool!
That Friday we took our first field trip to Bradford Farms and The Meat Lab.At the meat lab, we were explained, luckily not shown, the process a pig or steer undergoes from the time it arrives to the time the meat is sold. The lab only processes animals for educational purposes and then sells the meat out of the front of the building twice a week, bringing in quite a bit of many for such a small facility! After touring the meat lab, we traveled to Bradford Farms, which is an 880-acre University of Missouri farm run by a nice man named Tim.This farm doesn’t grow just regular crops, but mostly has different experimental areas and projects that university students work on. A large project from the last few years was composting, which is students have now gotten to the point of being able to take the composted food from the university, mix it with manure, turn it into great soil, and then grow more crops, a full circle.

Week 5:
This week I started my supervision rotation, that will last for the rest of the time I am here, along with meet with Julaine, the Director of Campus Dining Services. This is the part I have been looking forward to the most since it is an area I haven't had as much experience in. The supervisors all have to work very hard to keep the dining halls running since there seem to be issues coming up constantly on top of their usual tasks and paperwork. Much of this week was also spent preparing for my Special Event which is this coming Tuesday! The managers helped me prepare a prep sheet so all the staff knows what days things need to be accomplished for my meal. Anna and I also got to go decoration shopping and I was able to use many items they already have from previous special events, I can't wait to decorate on Tuesday! Meeting with Julaine was something I had really been looking forward too since she seems like a celebrity in the University Food service world! She explained the importance of dietetics in the food service industry along with gave us some excellent advice on possible jobs when we graduate and how matching your core values to those of the company can help you love your job. Julaine has an extensive food service background, along with being the NACUFS President for a year, she is definitely someone to admire
During this week was Fourth of July so I was able to see some awesome fireworks along with go shopping at the mall in town, a nice midweek day off! Now that all the preparations for my event are complete, along with my poster hanging out front already, I am really excited to start this week and get my event underway.

Pictures of the last two weeks (Really cool stuff)