More adventures from Yale! Week 6

As you can see, Leandra and I get a bit behind in our blog posting! We are amazed at how quickly the time is passing us, and we have a bit of trouble keeping up.



Tasting some breakfast dishes with
Veronic, Culinary Operations Manager.



6 weeks in and we finally feel as though our sodium analysis and reduction project is coming together! We have analyzed all the menu items and recipes for calories, sodium and fat and then put them together in a report to highlight some of the problem areas. It is has been really useful to see what other sources of sodium there are in recipes besides just salt (we were both surprised to find that rice wine vinegar is high in sodium). Early in the week we got to sample breakfast food from a cook’s helper training going on (mmm…banana nutella French toast), and we’ve also been sampling lots of new salad recipes. Thursday brought a “bread cutting” where different vendors provided products and we got to sample them to give feedback on which products Yale should purchase. We definitely had a sugar high that day after tasting more than 15 sweet muffins and 10 bagels. Yikes!

Friday we were out of the office and shadowing one of the managers at Silliman Dining Hall. We arrived early and got to see a lot of what goes into managing a dining hall. From staff calling in sick to making orders and paying bills, we got to see a variety of the many roles the manager takes on.





Scroll and Key...we thought it was a church and
have frequently tried opening the doors.



Book and Snake



I know you’ve been on the edge of your seat waiting to hear about our adventures with the secret societies, so wait no more! In case you aren’t aware of these east coast, clandestine meetings, Yale is home to a number of secret societies—generally composed of about 15 senior class members. “Tapping” day held in the spring, and students are invited to join the ranks of many influential and powerful alumni. Among other things, the most interesting part of these societies are the meeting locations—or “tombs”—that generally do not contain any windows and are fixed with security cameras. Being the inquisitive interns that we are, Leandra and I often find ourselves in search of these societies, only to end up standing outside the fences in awe, hoping one of the illustrious members will walk by and let us in for a tour (ha!).



Leandra venturing up to the doors of Skull and Bones!



We naturally were drawn to the most famous and elite of the societies first…Skull and Bones. Home to a number of powerful alumni, Skull and Bones has had movies, books and websites all dedicated to the lore surrounding it. Rumors that the tomb is home to Geronimo and Pancho Villa’s bones are enough to spark curiosity in most. Leandra—daredevil at heart—got the courage to run up and touch the door of S&B; as much as I would like to tell you that guns rose out from the roof and lasers were aimed at her, nothing happened.  After visiting Skull and Bones, with the help of Wikipedia, we were able to find 4 more tombs on campus—Wolf’s Head, Berzelius, Scroll and Key, and Snake and Book.  We imagine the members watching their security tapes getting amusement from the silly tourists standing outside their fences acting as if it were Area 51. 

 

There is definitely no shortage of fun to be had here in New Haven. We have a great time with everyone we work for/with, and our evenings and weekends are full of shopping, traveling, concerts and finding good places to eat (which is easy around here)! I think we will both be savoring our last 2 weeks here at Yale.

Trying out one of the famous pizza joints, Bar!