Week 5

Monday I spent the day at Union Market. I love their salad bar! (Pretty much all the salad bars on campus are pretty great.)

Tuesday was an interesting day - I started off at Starbucks where Chris showed me how to make French press coffee (delicious!) and really took time to talk with me about management. It was really helpful, especially seeing how you have to balance and delegate well if you're going to manage well. I enjoyed my half day there until the campus closed for inclement weather at 12:45! So I helped Starbucks close up shop and headed back over to Walker to prep for my business plan on Thursday. It was a bummer that my Starbucks day got cut short but I learned a lot during the time I was there!

(delicious French press coffee...may have to invest in one of these!)

Wednesday and Thursday we were out due to freezing rain. Eeeek!

Friday I got to work with Jen from the Flying Cow. We were testing out some Blue Apron recipes, as they are contemplating a meal service similar to Blue Apron/Hello Fresh for the new Cross buildings. I made a Greek Burger with roasted carrots. Yumm! I also got to learn about the plans for Cross from Bobbie and all the new concepts they will be incorporating. Some new concepts include the meal service just mentioned, a marketplace, a flex station featuring a local vendor, an area for top 8 allergen free foods, and even a station with homemade pasta! It's going to be different than anywhere on campus and will be a creative new addition to Housing and Food Services!

It is crazy to think I only have 3 more weeks here!

Week 4

Monday I printed materials for my business plan display and continued gathering ideas for my in-service presentation. I also made recipe cards for Dot's recipes that she will be using for her Food Allergy Awareness event on Thursday.

Tuesday I was over at the Res Colleges. I got to talk with Chase and ask him all kinds of management questions. He had a lot of great advice and said that the biggest part of management is how you handle your employees. During lunch they were short-handed on the salad station, and so I filled in there. They have a really neat Cool Greens concept for their salad line. I also learned how to roll out pizza dough from Russel. Rolling dough is a good workout and somewhat tricky. I only mastered one round pizza crust - the rest were not so round! Thankfully they like them to look homemade instead of store-bought:)

(salad line)

(note the misshapen crusts...those were mine!)

Wednesday I put together my display for my Food Allergy Awareness Event, which is next week! I am glad Dot's is tomorrow so I can see how she does things. I then continued to work on my in-service presentation.

Thursday was a big day! Dot, Sam, and I transported wagons, carts, and a warmer to the union to hold a Food Allergy Awareness event. We served Pho, Malaysian Dahl, and Nian Gao (a Chinese New Year cake). From the moment we started until we packed up we were busy! The students seemed to really enjoy it, and several mentioned that they were vegan or gluten free (all of our dishes were vegan, GF, and top 8 free). It was a success, but Dot and I were definitely relieved to sit down at our desks and enjoy our lunch at 3pm:) Onto my recipes next week!

(Sam and I serving up some Malaysian Dahl)

Friday was an exciting day at Couch. I got to help with their Lunar New Year special - Bibimbap. It has mushrooms, bean sprouts, spinach, meat, carrots, sauce, and a fried egg on top. I helped on the stir fry line and had a great time! That afternoon I watched Dot teach a food allergy class to student employees.

After today, I am half-way through my management rotation.  It is going so fast!

Week 3

Week 3 already!

Monday I shadowed Kevin and learned from him as he performed a sanitation and safety inspection at Couch. It was great to see the high standards that are implemented during these inspections. He was very thorough and explained to me each step of the way what he was doing and why he was doing it. He also pointed out critical and non-critical points. Some issues may increase the risk of people getting sick, but some may not. Regardless of the issue, he was sure to provide correctional instruction and let the managers know. The fact that even the small issues were addressed again pointed to the high standards to which OU's operations are held.

On Tuesday I visited with Fran to see how she performs nutrient analyses on the dining hall recipes. Currently nutritionals are not available in the dining halls, and she is working to make these available. I had never used Food Processor before and so wanted to see how it worked. It can be very difficult to do these analyses because ingredient information is not always given or clear. There are a lot of recipes to work through, and it takes time! That evening I headed over to the stadium building with Fran to talk to student athletes about our profession at a career fair.

Wednesday I worked on my business plan. I needed to calculate the cost of all my materials and recipes to come up with an operating budget. I also created recipe cards for the recipes I will be serving. The nutritional information for some of the ingredients were not in CBORD, so yesterday I had to fix the cost analysis and nutrition information for one of the recipes. Today I had to figure out new Daily Values based on the new nutrition information. I discovered through Rachel and Fran what guidelines CBORD uses to generate Daily Values. I also spent some time looking through the materials Lauren (TOD) sent me to better understand Housing and Food Services as well as the inventory numbers Marcia gave me in order to make sure I knew how to read them. Frank took me on a tour of about half the campus in the afternoon - it was awesome! So much history to this campus...and not to mention how beautiful it is! Here are a few spots I especially liked:

 Memorial Union courtyard

Residential Colleges (great architectural features...almost identical but slightly different in the two colleges)

Thursday I continued working through inventory numbers and finalized my business plan materials and recipes for Dot to look over. I also began thinking through my in-service presentation to the managers. It will cover how to keep up with their employees on food allergy training. Later that day I attended the managers meeting and got to try several different kinds of veggie burgers (pea, carrot, beet, and an everything one...yummy!!) and hear about some positive press for Housing and Food Services. Afterward I met with Marcia and Sam to talk about Couch's inventory. I still have more to learn, as I did not interpret the numbers correctly as I was doing calculations on my own, which brings me to Friday....

More inventory! I am determined to get these numbers straight and report to Sam and Marcia a more accurate cost of goods sold and inventory turnover rate. I think I finally got the hang of it and am understanding what the numbers mean and how they work. This afternoon I will head over to Couch to make Soy Free Soy Sauce that will be needed for our Food Allergy Awareness recipes.

I cannot believe it is already Friday of week 3!

Week 2

Week 2! This week flew by.

Monday I worked on my business plan. This mainly consisted of planning and scaling the recipes I chose to use (Sweet and Sour Cauliflower and Chocolate Avocado Mousse). I had to scale up the original recipes to make them serve 25. After that I needed to come up with an ingredient list to send over to Chef Gary to include all the ingredients I would need to make each recipe twice (the original version and the scaled-up version). Later that afternoon I headed over to Couch to watch the "premier" of the Power Knot LFC (liquid food composter), Couch's new food "digestor." This is a large machine that digests food scraps and produces gray water to be used for other things. It contains enzymes that have to be activated with a brown rice, sugar mixture (the green sludge pictured below) in order to process the food. So interesting!

Tuesday I got to see Wagner Dining Hall where only athletes are served. It is a small facility with a close-knit staff. I spoke with Curtis (the manager), John (receiving and storage), and James and Mark (supervisors). I got to jump in and help on the pizza line at lunch, and John even gave me a crash course on CBORD.

Wednesday I continued working on my business plan and attended TOD's new employee orientation. I also got to explore CBORD and its different features on my own and discovered that it can make nutrition labels!

Thursday I got good reviews from the kitchen staff after testing out my recipes for our Food Allergy Awareness event this month. I tested Sweet and Sour Cauliflower as well as Chocolate Avocado Mousse. I was pleased that both turned out really well. Dianne even gave me an "A+" on the mousse!

This morning (Friday) we had a taste-testing party in the office to try out Dot's recipes and mine for our Food Allergy Awareness events. They were delicious! I will head back over to Couch this afternoon to make the scaled-up versions of my recipes and have more people try them out. After that I can finalize my ingredients and directions for my Food Allergy Awareness event in a few weeks. I can also conduct nutrient and cost analyses for my recipe development project.

It's been another great week! I am learning a lot and enjoying this experience:)

Week 1

Hello! My name is Cady Merchant, and this is my first rotation as an OUHSC Dietetic Intern. I am originally from Pennsylvania and have lived in Oklahoma for over 4 years now. They are two different worlds and climates! I am excited to be in my final year of the CPMA program at OU and look forward to my rotation here at OU Housing and Food Services. During my undergraduate degree I gained some experience in our college's food service but never learned much about the management side of things. There are so many different opportunities and experiences here on the Norman campus, and I know Ms. Flowers will teach me a lot!

My first day included paperwork and going over upcoming projects with Ms. Flowers. Not surprisingly, I went the complete wrong way when trying to get to Cate. It might take me a few days to get acquainted with the campus! I then began to work on my Business Plan.

Tuesday I continued to work on my Business Plan, which will involve running a Food Allergy Awareness booth at Cate in February.  I began planning the educational content and the recipes that I will use. I am looking at a chocolate avocado mousse and sweet and sour cauliflower - all top 8 allergen free! I then met with Lauren in TOD, and she talked with me about new employee processes. She was very helpful and sent me policy guidelines and an organizational chart.

On Wednesday I headed over to Couch to meet with Sam. He answered many of my management questions, and I got to shadow him as he made rounds in the dining hall. I also met a lot of the employees and enjoyed getting to know them and their backgrounds. Paula, at the Vegetation Station, let me help her prepare food for her station. That day she was making spoon bread, vegetarian meatloaf, collard greens, rice, roasted sweet potatoes, and grits. I even tried plantains for the first time at the Fitter line during lunch. I liked them so much that I made some at home!

On Thursday at Couch I got to help Gary make lunch for the Fitter line. This is a line that features healthier options. We made roasted zucchini, beef stew, cornbread, and kale. I assisted Paula in chopping up vegetables for her ratatouille and cutting up artisan bread. It was a French theme for her line that day. I met more employees from different operations on campus during a management meeting as well.

On Friday I was in the Couch storeroom with Ronnie and Mike learning how purchasing, receiving, inventory, and storage works. We started off by stocking the items that were delivered that morning. Afterwards we used an invoice receiving method to check the orders we received. Next came counts. Each week the staff goes through and takes counts of the most popular items used at Couch, and once a month the whole inventory is counted. Counting takes awhile, and it helps to be familiar with where all the items are located. Thankfully, next to each item on the list there is a shelf number listed to tell you where to find that item. I got a tour of each storage room (dry storage, walk-in refrigerators, and walk-in freezer) and saw how each one was organized. That afternoon I talked with Marcia, and she showed me some of the reports they run to track sales and items. It was a great week, and I am looking forward to learning more!

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!