Week 9!

This week has been pretty crazy so I've only been in the office half of the week. On Monday I had class day with the other OUHSC interns in Tulsa. We learned more about eating disorders from a Dietitian who works at the Laureate Eating Disorder Center. We also had the chance to tour the facility which was pretty neat.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I spent most of my time in the office working on projects and finishing up my Management Review Assignment. I also helped get things ready for the BIG Made In Oklahoma Event. I was bummed that I had to miss that event because I heard it was super fun. I spent that day at a Dietetic Conference at the OU Children's Hospital. I learned more about tube feedings and hospital protocols sounds boring, but it was actually pretty interesting. The rest of the day I spent driving to Enid, OK to get set up for my clinical rotation next week. I'll be working at the hospital there and I'm really excited for that experience!

I can't believe that today, is my last day here!! I've enjoyed my time in the many dining facilities across campus. It gave me a new perspective to what food service managers do and the many small projects they take on throughout the day. It was also fun to help out with the booths and events that Dot was a part of during the 9 weeks I was here. I liked being able to talk to the college students and make a difference. I've made good friends here at OU Housing and Food and will be sad to leave.

Week 8

I can't believe week 8 is already over! On Tuesday I went over to Headington Hall and worked with Curtis. He showed me what he has been working on with recipes on CBORD and gave me insight into how the hiring process goes. On CBORD he is trying to make all the portion sizes uniform on all vegetable recipes and make the yield into pans instead of oz. It seems like a lot of the problems in food service stem from not having the correct yield or portioning things out incorrectly.

I spent Wednesday preparing for the Food Allergy Awareness Fair. Thursday we set up for the Fair in the Cate Rock Garden. It was a little chilly, but thankfully it wasn't raining. All the food Dot ordered for the event was really delicious. There was Gluten Free flat bread with hummus, a Mexican Quinoa Casserole, Grilled Vegetables, and a Fruit Salad. We had a lot of people stop by for lunch and ask questions about food allergies. Overall I felt like the event was successful!    

 

                              

On Friday I spent the day with Fran learning about what she does as a Dietitian.We went over to Crossroads to work with Danny on serving sizes so the nutritional information can be more accurate. It's amazing to see how an increase in serving size or portions can make a huge difference on not only nutrition but also food cost. They are trying to figure out how to use measured scoops (or really anything that can measure volume) with things like avocado spread, salts, sauces, cheese...etc. The biggest challenge is to get employees to follow through and understand that there needs to be consistency and accuracy in measuring out ingredients. The nutritional information will be completely inaccurate if the portion size is off. The same goes for recipe development and nutritional information because CBORD uses weights to figure out the nutritional component of recipes. I definitely learned a lot just by seeing how things are measured out and prepared by food service employees.

Fran also gave me useful information and tips on becoming a Registered Dietitian which I really appreciated. I still feel like I'm not exactly sure where I want to go with it yet. I learned however, there are plenty of resources out there and plenty of job opportunities. It was interesting to see what Fran does and how she constantly keeps up to date on federal regulations and food labeling among other things. She truly is passionate about her work and that made it fun to spend the day with her!

Week 7

Things are wrapping up here with my management rotation. I only have two more weeks after this week, time has really gone fast!! This week I was busy getting ready for my Employee In-service presentation. I've been waiting to do this for a while and was anxious complete this project. 

On Wednesday I was able to meet with Lauren from the TOD department. I learned a lot about staffing for OU Food Service. It was exciting to see her passion and enthusiasm for getting students ready to work and have a great experience. I loved hearing about the on-boarding and orientation process for workers. It's not just about making sure workers know what's expected, it's also about making sure workers feel confident and comfortable in the work environment. One thing she said stuck out... This job is a great experience for anybody no matter what their major is. Whether you're trying to become a doctor or an engineer, you learn valuable skills. This job teaches customer service, communication skills, and leadership skills among other things. I hadn't really thought about it that way before. 

Thursday was the big day. I spent the majority of the day preparing for the presentation and making sure I had everything put together and ready to go. I was pretty nervous beforehand, but once the meeting started I knew it was going to be fine. Everyone was kind and willing to listen to what I had to say. Plus, there were tons of jokes and teasing going on among mangers beforehand...so I totally felt at home. It definitely broke the ice and made me feel less nervous. 

Week 1

I'm Michelle, the new OUHSC Dietetic Intern.  I'm originally from Minnesota, but completed my Bachelors degree in Dietetics at Brigham Young University in Utah. Needless to say I'm pretty far from home, but I'm excited to be here in Oklahoma completing my internship. It's my first week in my management rotation working at OU Housing and Food with Dot Flowers. I'm excited to experience food service on OU Campus.

My first week was pretty slow just getting familiar with the campus and meeting everyone. When I first came in to Dot's office, the first thing I noticed was about 20 boxes of shoes stacked up in front of her desk. I wondered why she had so many shoes. I soon found out that on top of working with food allergies and food ingredients, she was in charge of ordering and returning shoes for the food service employees and managers. I spent most of the week helping her with shoe orders. It's sometimes a lot more complicated than you think.

Dot also mentioned that she was preparing for a Food Allergy Training for food service workers at the end of the week. I helped Dot with her presentation and also ended up grading the Food Allergy Training Quizzes.

The next thing we had on our schedule was Move-In day the following week.

Week 6

I'm starting week six here at OU Housing and Food. I was supposed to work with Windeon at Cate the other day, but apparently he was out sick. After talking to Dot about my upcoming assignments I needed to complete, I started preparing for my Presentation next week. For this presentation I will be giving a 30 minute Employee In-Service on Food Safety and Sanitation. The bulk of my presentation will go along with my Performance Improvement Project involving Sanitizing Solution and Procedures.

After my Quality Safety and Sanitation Inspection with Kevin, I realized that coming up with a standardized Sanitation Policy and Procedure to be used across OU campus would be beneficial. It was brought to my attention as I traveled around different dining areas on campus that some dining halls still used cotton rags for sanitizing instead of special sanitizing rags. There were other small changes that needed to be made as well.

For my in service I will be covering food safety: 1. Time and temperature of foods and 2. Sanitizing solutions. The main point I want to cover however, is the WHY of using special sanitizing rags instead of cotton rags. As this in service will be given to managers, I will spend some of my presentation covering the importance of policies and procedures and also of training and re-training employees.

This presentation will help me complete both my In-service assignment and my Performance Improvement assignment. The only assignment left for me to complete will be the Management Review which I probably should have completed first ;) I might be making my rounds to ask questions, so be prepared with answers over the next few weeks.

Week 5

Another week with OU Housing and Food! I had off on Monday for Labor Day so I started the week on Tuesday in Walker Tower. We had two days until our next event, the Sustainable Food Terms Info Fair. Dot wanted me to make the ingredient tags for all the recipes she was using at the event. There was going to be a lot of food. Sweet Potato Hummus, Vegan GF Fruit Dumplings, Vegan Three Layer Dip, GF flax Garlic Flat Bread and a Fusion Bowl which included Quinoa, Crispy Roasted Lentils, Cucumber Sprout Kimchee, and Roasted Butternut Squash.

Besides putting together the ingredient tags, I was in charge of putting together a sheet of paper with the recipes for each food item. I had fun organizing and designing the handout even if it took me a long time to put together. I finally finished it on Wednesday and spent the rest of the day helping to load the wagon and make sure everything else was ready for the event. Dot, Cheyanne, and I met up early the next morning at the Cate Rock Garden to start setting up. The event didn't go quite as we had planned, mainly because some of our recipes weren't made and we were missing several things for our booths. We eventually got things set up and had several people stop by to try our food and learn about sustainable food terms. It was great having a Adrian as our DJ, it helped attract more students to our event and made it fun! The info fair went from 10:30 to 2pm and the rest of the day we spent tearing down.

Week 4

I spent the next few days over at Dunham College with Chase Wiens. It was neat to see the differences in layout with each dining area. Dunham shares it's kitchen space with Headington College and each dining hall has the same stations and foods served. I was impressed with the equipment and layout but that's probably because these dining halls and residential colleges are newly renovated.

My first day I was at Dunham working in the stir-fry station. Before we switched to lunch, we made egg scramblers and waffles.  I had never used their equipment so that was definitely a new experience. When lunch time hit, I was glad we didn't have too much of a lunch rush. I enjoyed working with the other employees cooking.

The next day I started working at the salad station with Anita. It was a great day being able to help her prep the food and make salads. We were busy the whole time and I had fun interacting with the students who came in for lunch. I even became more familiar with where foods were stored and how prep was done for the next shift.

I had a break from working at Dunham on Wednesday so we could pack up the wagons and make sure our recipe orders were completed for the S.W.E.E.P. Event on Thursday. I was lucky to have Samantha help me get the Citrus Infused Water made last minute. Everything seemed to be in place for getting our booth set up by 10:45 am. I also made handouts for the event and we reused my boards for the event.

Thursday came and weather was actually a bit of a problem. It was a windy day and everything seemed to be blowing away. Eventually we got things under control and our booth had little problems. We didn't have as many students stop by, but everyone seemed to enjoy my salsas. The favorite was the Strawberry Mango Salsa. Looking back, we could have talked more about the resources that OU Housing and Food offers to students, but it was still a good event. I was just glad that my recipes made enough and turned out great!

Week 3

I completed my Quality Sanitation and Safety Inspection assignment this week with Kevin Barker. We headed to Couch at around 11 am to check out the main serving lines and kitchen. We arrived a few minutes before the Couch Restaurants opened. Kevin told me he always just observes first to see what employees are doing, if they are washing hands, if the sanitation buckets are set up correctly. He also told me particular things to look for when doing an assessment. One of the things he stressed was food temperature logs. Besides getting the temperatures of foods on the line, it’s important for that the dining hall restaurants keep logs of food temperature before it is set out on the line. If a food item is under temperature on the line then we can find out what temperature it was at before-hand. There is about a two hour time period to take corrective action before the food needs to be thrown away for food safety reasons.

Another item that was brought up was the sanitation solution. An interesting thing I learned while going through this Safety Assessment was that in using quat solution there needs to be a special rag to use with it. A cotton rag immersed in quat solution actually neutralizes the solution making it ineffective. There were a few sanitation buckets that had cotton rags in it instead of sanitizing cloths. As soon as we found this, Kevin made sure to tell the student managers and Couch Restaurant about this so they could fix it right away and re-enforce it. The other common problem found with these safety inspections is having “magic bullet” towels lying around. “Magic bullet” towels are towels that might be used to wipe up one area and then end up lying around a counter top. While it is okay to use cotton towels to wipe up spills, they should be thrown in the dirty rag bin once done being used.

I definitely learned a lot by following Kevin around and completing the Sanitation and Safety Inspection. It was good to see how corrective action was taken right away to keep foods at safe temperatures.  

The rest of the week was busy. I spent the rest of the week at Couch Restaurants with Sam. I was trained at Freshens which was pretty fun. I made several smoothies and dished out several bowls of frozen yogurt. I was also busy preparing recipes for another event Dot had coming up the S.W.E.E.P. event; Safety Wellness Environmental Emergency Preparedness. We needed to do recipe development for the recipes I found - Fresh Salsa and Strawberry Mango Salsa. I was able to get that completed and put the recipes into CBORD so we could send out the order. Overall, it was a successful week. 

Week 2

It's my second week with OU Housing and Food! This week consisted of preparing for the big Move-In day. My job was to put together several poster board displays for this event. I spent most of the week brainstorming topic ideas for each board and eventually created sketches for each board. I created three boards each covering a different topic; Food Allergy Myths and Facts, Food Allergy: Tips and Tricks for Navigating Campus Dining, and a Healthy Eating board. Overall I thought the boards were very professional and looked great!

The Big Day was Thursday. We all got to the Walker Adams Mall early to unload our wagons and start setting up. We had tons of food to display and give away, along with the recipes we had ordered from Couch. Our table probably had the most appeal with Vegan, Gluten-free, and Top 8 allergen free chocolate donuts and muffins. We had several students stop by our booth and talk to us. It was exciting to see all the other booths set up and all the freshman getting ready for the school year. The pictures below show our booth with displays and food to give away.

Week 8

Hi, I hope everyone had a great long weekend. This is week #8 and only one more week to go. This week I completed my in-service presentation on Thursday, I think it went well and thank you to everyone who came and participated in the pre and post-quizzes. I hope you have learned something new and find some new cuisine you want to try. Besides preparing for my presentation and working on my other projects, I also attended a menu meeting with Curtis and his team at Wagner on Tuesday morning. The meeting went for almost 5 hours, and we revised all the cycle menus for summer 2017, and Fall 2017. I enjoyed being part of the discussion and listening to different opinions. Next week is my last week! I hope it will go slow because I am enjoying my time here!  

Week 7

This week went fast! I got to spend some time with Lauren and Amanda in the TOD office on Monday. Both of them were very welcoming and helpful with my questions. I learned that part of their job is conducting central hiring for student employees and provide a 3-day training to them, which are different than the time I was hired as a student worker several years ago. On Friday, I worked at the Union Market for a day. Amy is an awesome manager, and she leads a team of hard workers. Every staff at the union market provides great customer services. I also had the opportunity to sit down with Amy to talk about her job as the manager.  Things I really liked about union market is that there are individual ordering machines on the Range Sandwich station, and fresh sushi are delivered to the store every morning. Here are some pictures of the union market.

Week 6

Time is flying by! This is already week 6 and only 3 more weeks left for me at OU H&F.

This week was a fun week too! I spent most of my time in the office working on my projects. One of them is going to be my presentation on May 25^th, which is about culture and food all around the world.  And I am also working on my project on food waste management.

Besides my time spent in the office, I had the opportunity to see the Leafy Green Machine and OU Food Pantry with Windeon on Tuesday. I was amazed by everything inside the machine and I think it is definitely the future of farming. Food Pantry is also an awesome project. I really like the idea of online registration and ordering. 

  

On Thursday, I spent my day in Wagner Dining Hall. It was great to be back there and see some old friends. Now, nutrition labels are on top of each dish and burgers can be made up to orders. Yeah! 

 

Week 5

This week I worked at Couch cafeteria. Mr. Sam Ford was great in having me in different areas so I could have an overall idea of the operation.

I spent most of my time at the food stations and also engaged in different managerial situations. The first day happened to be the monthly inventory day, so I joined in a physical inventory check of food items. In the afternoon, I had the opportunity to sit in a meeting with Sam and Coke Cola representative to discuss upgrading of soda machines. On day two, I shadowed Chef Bird in the morning. He showed me what his job is like and how to place purchasing orders for fitter foods. On Wednesday, I observed 2 job interviews conducted by Marcia and Sam of hiring new staff. It was an interesting experience. Thursday was a fun day. I worked at Casa to serve food to customers up to orders. I also helped to make tamales and ceviche for Friday, which is the special meal for Cinco de Mayo. 

Week 4

Week 4
On Monday and Tuesday, I attended the 2017 American Society for Nutrition (ASN)’s Scientific Sessions at the McCormick Convention Center in Chicago. After my registration, I made my first stop to the exhibition area where over 300 company booths were located, as well as over 1000 posters. Many latest experimental supplies and devices were showed in here. Then I started to go to different conference rooms for presentations. Generally speaking, I enjoyed all the speakers that I attended. The speakers were very diverse, there were food scientists, college professors, international nutrition organization representatives, and college students. My favorite presentation “Public Health and a Bag ‘O Tricks” was led by Guy H Johnson, who is the executive director of McCormick Science Institute. He used many scientific studies in his slices to illustrate the relationship between public health and food scientists, which was very informative.

              

When I got back to work on Wednesday, I started to finalize my displays and pack my supplies for the Health Fair on Thursday. I was worried about my 100 copies of pamphlets weren’t print out yet on my way to work, but fortunately, Dot has me covered and they were ready to pick up when I got to the office. Everything was ready to roll on Thursday morning, included the foods from Couch. We served my recipe, the Moroccan Salad at the Health Fair, which is a sweet salad. The ingredients are spinach, quinoa, dates, white beans, orange slices with cilantro and orange juice dressing. The event started at 10 AM, there were much more people attended than I thought would be. And we had a constant line in front of our tables. Most people stopped by to play the nutrition question game and to get free food samples. At the end, we handed out about 400 sample servings of salad, 60 copies of pamphlets, one case of bananas, one case of oranges, and a half case of apples. Overall, I think this event went very well with all the help I got from our team members. Something I would do to make it better is to rearrange the nutrition information displays in between the food and the game wheel, therefore people would be able to read the displays after they get the food samples and before they go play the game. And always remember to bring boxes of vinyl gloves when foods will be served. I enjoyed this event very much!

Week 3

This week is a short week for me to be at work. I will be attending two conferences from Thursday to Tuesday. On this Monday, I joined Kevin Barker in a sanitation inspection of Couch from 11 AM to 1 PM. We inspected three stations in Couch, which are Casa, Stir-fry, and Smokehouse. Kevin did a great job of leading an efficient sanitation inspection in all aspects. I have learned so much from him. We mainly checked on food holding temperatures, sanitation condition of surface areas, and staff personal hygiene. We caught several problems during the inspection, but the manager and staff responded quickly and took corrective actions proactively. Overall, the staff at Couch did a good job in keeping the workstations clean and serving food safely.

In the afternoon, I retested my salad recipe in a 25 serving portion at Couch for my business plan, which is the OU Staff Week on April 27. I learned from Dot that in order to make a new recipe, the original recipe should be tested first, and then retest it in a bigger portion to check if the food turns out in the right quality and quantity. Here is a picture of my salad. 

In the last two days, I also worked on writing my recipe on CBord and made my displays for this event. I am glad that I have most of the things done and ready to go for the event. And I am looking forward to carrying it out on the event day.

On Thursday and Friday, I attended the 2017 Oklahoma Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (okAND) annual conference. This is a 2 days conference includes 16 presentation sessions. I got to listen to nutrition experts from the different scope of nutrition practices and looked at some interesting posters. One presentation I enjoyed the most is the one led by Elizabeth Strickland. Her expertise includes Autism Spectrum Disorder, PDD-NOS, Asperger', ADD and ADHD. She is also the author of "Eating for Autism". In her presentation, she talked about the use of nutraceuticals in the treatment of ASD. One most interesting poster I looked at is that a student from UCO used edible crickets to make cookies to improve the protein content. I am not sure I would eat those cookies, but she did a good job on making a creative food science experiment. 

This is a picture of the okAND conference

Week 2

Hi, week 2 was a busy week! During this week, I worked on putting information together for the Health Fair of 2017 OU Staff Week, which includes making nutrition information displays, information pamphlets, and identify a recipe that will go along with the information. I also assisted the Green Week event at South Oval on Thursday and tested my recipe on Friday.  

The Green Week Event was a success, and I enjoyed this experience very much. We had much positive feedback on the food, and the quantity of the food was almost perfect. We run out the Feijoada in the middle of the event, but we made it just to service other dishes to the rest of the students. From this event, I learned that it is important to adapt yourself to different situations and make quick decisions during an event, as well as always keep good communication with your team members.  On Friday, I had a chance to test my original recipe, Moroccan Salad, for the Health Fair. A big thank to Chef Gary, he helped me getting all of my ingredients and cookware, and gave me a quick tour of the kitchen at the beginning. I’m also grateful for everyone there on Friday, I got very constructive feedback for my recipe and I was able to make some adjustments on it. I’m excited that I will test it again in this week.

Week 1

Hello, my name is Yushan Han, I’m Dot’s new intern. I am originally from Xi’an, China where you can find the Terracotta Warriors (look it up if you never heard about it, it’s cool). I came to OU in 2011 to pursue my bachelor degree in Health and Exercise Science. During my undergrad, I figured out that I want to become a Registered Dietitian one day because I love food and helping others. And then I was fortunate enough to get into the M.A in Dietetics program at OUHSC. It is great to be back on this campus! I have deep feelings for this campus because this is where I lived and met many amazing people when I first came to the US. Many people helped me when I first moved into Couch and a lot of them are H&F staff. Today, I am so glad that I can be part of the H&F and serve others.

In this first week, I have already learned so much. On the first day, I helped with the Presidential catering in the Union. It was fully staffed (the whole department was there, I guess) and very organized from my point of view. I would like to learn more about catering running and planning in the future. Then I spend the rest of the afternoon with Fran. Fran taught me how to calculate the quantity of a recipe. The next couple days I worked on making display boards for “Meatless Monday”, which will be put on display in Cate and Couch on Monday, April 9. Thursday was the BEST day of the week, I am grateful for the opportunity to attend the manager’s meeting. And thank you all for introducing yourself one by one, I felt very welcomed to this team. I’m very excited that I will be working on recipe development for Health Fair (Staff Week) this week, and I am thinking something refreshing for people to try! And I’m open to any suggestions and ideas, you can leave a comment or come find me in the office next to Dot’s. 

Week 9

Hello all, one last time.  It's that time. It is my last week here at OU.  It was another busy week.  I got to spend a day at Wagner dining and a day with the sports dietitian Tiffany.  Everyone at Wagner was super nice and seem to have a good connection with their students that dine there.  Tiffany and her GA's were amazing, they let me follow them around for the day and help with their daily duties.  This will be especially helpful in my next rotation that I have with the Philadelphia Eagles.  I wasn't able to make it around everywhere to say goodbye to everyone.  I want to thank everyone for their time and putting up with me and my questions.  This has been a great experience and I have learned so much.  I don't really want to leave because I know there is still more that I could learn here because there is so much knowledge and experience in the staff at OU H&F.  Again, I appreciate everyone and what they have done for me during my time here.  I hope to be able to come back sometime to visit one day.  Goodbye to all.

Week 8

Hello all, 8 weeks down and only 1 more to go.  I'm kinda excited for what's next for me after OU but also sad that I only have one more week here.  I learned this week exactly how important it is to be prepared and flexible.  Due to a presidential dinner, my in service presentation was rescheduled to an earlier date at the last minute.  I know it was short notice and a busy day so thank you to everyone who was able to attend.  For everyone else, I'm sorry that you couldn't make it but if you would like a copy of the presentation or any of the information just let me know and I will gladly share.  Another great week in the books, see ya next week.

Week 7

Hello all, I hope everyone had a good spring break.  It sure was quite on campus this week, but that didn't stop us from staying busy.  I got to work this week with Mrs. Fran Olsen Sharp, the OU H&F dietitian.  She had me working on menus and nutritional analysis.  This was fun because it was a lot of research and problem solving, plus I got to learn more about CBORD and all of its functions.  Hopefully my work will be put to good use (supposing it's correct. lol) and will help bring some nutrition education to the consumers of OU food service restaurants.  Only 2 more weeks to go!!

Week 6

Hello again, I'm back with another update.  Week 6 is now over and was a good one.  I got to start the week off at the Health Science Center campus at the Healthy Hearth.  Dani and Dillion were great and taught me a lot.  Dillion has some super fast chopping skills, I didn't dare to even try and keep up for fear of chopping off a finger or something.  Then it was back to the Norman campus.  I got to help catering with serving food at the Latino flavor event.  We did a couple more allergy awareness events. One of which I was in charge of the educational materials and running the event.  This event was fun because I got to learn some while preparing materials and the sense of accomplishment that you get when you have a successful event.  Then I got to finish off the week in the Memorial Union with TJ and Amy.  Even though this was the Friday before spring break and it was slow they still took me around and taught me about all the different eating establishments in the union.  Then I got to follow Chef Jenn and learn about central production and the OU food pantry.  It's hard to believe that I have been to so many different places here at OU and still haven't covered them all.  I have attached a photo from the allergy awareness event, enjoy!

Week 5

Well, I have failed my technology again.  Not sure what happened to my original post but I'm sure I messed it up somehow.  So, here is the new post.  Week 5 is my hump week, I am now half way through my stay here at OU.  Its been fun and moving fast.  This week was no different in that aspect.  I did spend a bit of time in the office, which was great so I could get caught up on some paperwork that I had.  I also got to assist Ms. Dot in an allergy awareness event at Cate.  This was a great experience because aside from learning more about allergies and running events, I got to interact with students answering questions and handing out free food samples.  Another great week in the books.

Week 4

Well it was another busy week.  I got to spend time learning more about OU H&F operations such as new employee training, housing work program, and food plans.  Then I got to practice my cooking skills in the kitchen at Couch.  Thanks to everyone there again for putting up with me and my questions.  With the help of Byrd and others I prepared a test run on a recipe for Ms. Dot and some upcoming allergy awareness presentations.  Overall the experiment was a success, the dish looked and tasted great.  I got to finish up the week at Crossroads with Gary Baker.  He is full of energy and very passionate about his profession.  We got to jump in and help on the lunch rush, this kitchen has a great team aspect and functioned like a well oiled machine.  Hope next week is just as good (I'm sure it will be).

Week 3

This was a busy week and it went quick.  I learned a lot through-out the week.  One thing that I learned this week was how to use this blog.  After a little research, I found that my post were not being published due to user error (oops!).  That's right, I was doing it wrong the whole time.  So, I apologize for the late post of weeks 1 & 2.  Besides that, week 3 was great.  I worked at Cate through the week with Sharon.  She was great, didn't mind all my questions and taught me a lot.  We started off each morning with her showing me her daily routine of computer/paper work.  Then came the fun part, we would make fresh brioche bread to be used for the burger buns at Ruthie's.  See pic below, you can't tell me that those don't look delicious.  The rest of my time at Cate was spent learning the various aspects of all the lines in Cate and Sharon's day to day task.  Thanks to everyone who works at Cate for having me for the week.

Week 2

Week 2

Hello again, week two was another good week.  I got to work a couple of catering events.  Everyone was very nice and worked really well together as a team, especially setting up for the extremely large presidential dinner.  I didn’t get to stick around for the dinner but seeing how organized the set up was I am sure the dinner went great.  Then on Friday I got to join Kevin Barker in a routine inspection of Wagner Dinning Hall.  This was a valuable learning experience as I learned about all the aspects of what to look for to ensure a safe and sanitary facility.  I will be in Cate next week and can’t wait, should learn a lot.

Week 1

Hello all,

My name is Steven and I am Dot’s new dietetic intern.  A little about myself, I am from McLoud, Oklahoma.  I received my bachelors’ degree in Health Exercise Science from here at the University of Oklahoma in 2008.   It’s good to be back on campus, a lot has changed over the years but at least I feel somewhat familiar with the campus.  I’m excited to be here and look forward to all the unique experiences that OU Housing and Foods has to offer.

My first week is now in the books and I have been learning a lot.  My first day was doing paperwork and getting familiar with things in the office.  The rest of the week I got to spend in Couch.  The first day there happened to be monthly inventory day and so I spent a lot of time watching and learning about their procedures.  There is a lot of stuff to count, amazing they can get it all done in a day.  This first day was also a day that they were having a special dinner for the Chinese New Year, I stayed late this day to help interact with the students and serve some unique and delicious foods.  The next couple days I spent shadowing various people and asking lots of questions to learn what they do.  The cooks have a pretty good system to keep up with the demands of the foods cooked for the day along with prepping foods that will be made the next day.  Sam and Marcia were great in allowing me to see all the aspects of the kitchen as well as showing me all the managerial things that go on.  And possibly the best part of the week was all the delicious food that I have eaten this week. 

So much to learn in so little time.  I have to give a big thanks to everyone in advance for teaching me about their jobs and for putting up with me and all my questions.  I can’t wait to see what the following weeks have in store for me.