Journal for Food Service Rotation
Date: 9/18/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Introduction to School Food from Billy Doherty. Covered mission statement, the different types of menus, menu cycle feature, number of meals served per day, and update school lunch standards. Looked at USDA Food Buying Guide. Participated in product assessments for two new types of products: bagels and rice. New types of bagels were assessed and a new type of brown rice was compared to the current product being used.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
The introduction to SchoolFood provided by Billy was very informative. He offered a great explanation of the work his office engages in which will be helpful in understanding my role as an intern. It was interesting to learn about the 20+ different types of menus offered by the SchoolFood covering different grade levels, dinner, weekends, snacks, and more. All staff were involved in the product assessment process from the new interns to upper management of the department. This was refreshing to see and I think provides much more useful information by having more people involved.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.5, 2.11
Hours: 7.5 (8AM-3:30PM) – 7.5
Date: 9/19/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Developed template with everyday food items and created November menu templates. Learned how to do “counts” which are an estimate of the percentage of students that will take a particular food item. This process is done in order to determine the amount of nutrients on average that the menus will provide during the course of a week.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
I found the process of assigning counts to be very interesting. In order to ensure that the proposed menu will offer the right amounts of calories, fat, sodium, and fruits and vegetables each menu item is assigned a percentage. This information is then used to calculate the nutritional information for a one week period to determine if the requirements in the categories mentioned previously are being met.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:30AM-3:30PM) – 15.5
Date: 9/20/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Correcting counts to meet the nutrition standards. Standardized Recipe Numbers in MCS to match SchoolFood Field Guides and Recipes 2013-2014 book. Second product assessment: 2 oz. versus 3 oz. bagels.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
Standardizing the recipe numbers across each resource will make it easier for everyone to find what they are looking for in the MCS system. Changing the numbers in the system was the easiest way to have everything match up since the field guides had already been printed and distributed among the schools. This product assessment was more open than the previous one with more conversation of the products as opposed to each person just writing their thoughts down. Everyone still recorded their own opinions on the assessments sheet only after the discussion had taken place. This could have had an influence on what everyone’s thoughts on the product were.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.5, 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:30AM-3:30PM) – 23.5
Date: 9/23/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Entered counts. Was shown the new menu style developed to offer more choices which is similar to what has been done in the past. This menu type had been taken away temporarily due to lack of adherence to the NSLP Guidelines.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
I think that the new, actually the return of the old, menu style is a great change to make. It allows staff to make small changes at the school level as long as they maintain the amount of each major food group. This gives them the ability to replace a sauce with another that needs to be used first before its expiration date is reached, one kind of fruit for another, and any other similar type of change. Not only does this help to reduce waste from expired products it also provides more variety in the menu which will result in greater customer satisfaction on the students part.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:30AM-3:30PM) – 31.5
Date: 9/24/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Entered counts and ran nutritionals report for each week of the October menus.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
I found it very challenging to meet the minimum calorie requirement for a menu week while also staying below the maximum sodium limit. This is an indication that the food items being served contain too much sodium for the amount of calories that they provide. This issue is being addressed by the NSLP Guidelines which call for the reduction of sodium to around half of what is now being consumed over the next eight years.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.11
Hours: 8.5 (7:30AM-4:00PM) – 40
Date: 9/25/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Ran nutritionals report for remainder of October menus. Updated October menus with the current naming convention. Uploaded menus to SchoolFood website.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
I now have a good grasp on the full scale of menus and food items offered now that I have run the nutritional reports on an entire month’s worth of the menus. It is apparent that a great effort has been to offer a large variety of items while continuing to meet the NSLP Guidelines.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:30AM-3:30PM) – 48
Date: 9/26/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Created menu templates, the first step in the menu development process, for the November menus. Started to enter counts for the menus and ran some nutritional reports.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
There is a very good system in place here at SchoolFood in the menu development process for an upcoming month is started as necessary while the preceding month’s menus are in their various stages. Each stage including building templates, adding new menu items, assigning counts, nutritional reports, corrections, proofing, corrections, naming, posting to the website, and any final adjustments occurs well before the actual time period that the menu being produced covers. This is done in order for the managers at the school level to check their inventory and order the food that can be delivered in advance.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:30AM-3:30PM) – 56
Date: 9/27/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Proofing menus for typos and duplicates of a menu item offered in the same week between different menus. Continued entering counts for the November menus.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
The process of checking each menu for duplicate items was a great lesson in teamwork. Each person had a few menus and would take their turn reading off the items listed while others checked their menus for a similar item on the same day. The purpose of this was to eliminate any repetition between the breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner menus.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.5, 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:30AM-3:30PM) – 64
Date: 9/30/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Trained fellow intern, Aly, on how to create the menu templates in MCS. Finished proofing menus. Checked menus against Production Records.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
It was a good learning experience to train and work with another intern on a task. I explained the purpose of the task to Aly and showed her the process to create the menu templates. I then divided the workload between the two of us and answered any follow-up questions she had once we started on our own parts of the task. I found the process of working with another intern to be very easy and we were able to successfully accomplish the task assigned to us after the short training session I conducted.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:30AM-3:30PM) – 72
Date: 10/1/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Today was the first day out of the office and into the “field” as the staff call it. I worked with Chef Nick at P.S. 107 in Brooklyn preparing samples of a kale salad to be handed out tomorrow at a Greenmarket in Prospect Park. We observed breakfast service and handed out milks to the students. We received a food order at the school and proceeded to prep the ingredients for the salad. I also took delivery of educational materials from Executive Chef Jorge Collazo.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
Chef Nick was very helpful in my first experience out of the office. He took time to explain to me the process of a typical school kitchen. He described the different positions in the kitchen and gave me a quick overview of the inventory and ordering processes. He also explained the breakdown of the public school system and the different chefs that manage each region. It was a great experience to actually get into a school and see first-hand what we had been working on in the office for two weeks. It gave the office work much more meaning.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.11
Hours: 7.5 (7:30AM-3:00PM) – 79.5
Date: 10/2/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
I was reassigned this morning to work with Chef Chris at the Brooklyn High School for the Arts along with Chef Ellen from WITS. We prepared the remainder of ingredients for the kale salad and bagged it in several large bags to be portioned out at the Greenmarket. We served around 300 samples at the Barclays Center Greenmarket from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM. I spoke with the public about kale and it’s health benefits, National Kale Day, SchoolFood as an organization, and handed out information on SchoolFood and the positive changes they are making.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
It was a good experience being reassigned at the last minute to work at a different site than the one that I was originally assigned to. I enjoyed the opportunity to work with another chef and was glad to help out where I was needed more. Interacting with the public was a great experience as well. I have worked at similar events in the past but never at such a high volume. Our location in front of the Barclays Center near the Atlantic Avenue subway station afforded us the opportunity to engage a large number of people. We set up signage, brought samples out to the sidewalk, and asked people passing by if they would like to sample the kale salad while explaining to them the purpose of the event.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.9, 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:00AM-3:00PM) – 87.5
Date: 10/3/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Billy, Peter, Aly, and I worked at the Information Technology High School in Long Island City preparing three new menu days for photographs to be used in field guides. We prepared recipes for these three days including the following menu items: mac and cheese, BBQ roasted chicken, braised collard greens, roasted sweet potato wedges, chicken teriyaki, lo mein, egg rolls, penne pasta with pesto, grilled chicken strips, spaghetti and meat sauce, and roasted zucchini. This food was then set up on a serving line to be photographed. We tasted all of the different menu items at the end of the day and discussed our thoughts on them and how well the menu days were set up.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
This was the most physically demanding day I have had so far. Preparing the multitude of different menu items that we did and the effort it took to stage them for photographs and then to complete the clean up afterwards required a lot of energy. It was challenging to be working around so much food while at the same time not being able to stop for a lunch break until near the end of the day. The amount of work to be done and the pace at which it must be completed in these school kitchens is impressive. The process of setting up the menu days on the serving line was very interesting. We went through several different arrangements for each day to determine the most efficient way for the line to be set up for faster service.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.5, 2.11
Hours: 7.75 (7:30AM-3:15PM) – 95.25
Date: 10/4/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Back in the office. Proofed productions records. Proofed training documentation containing the photographs taken yesterday of the three new menu days to be emailed to the schools. Renamed menu templates with new naming convention which included the month and day.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
It was gratifying to be able to follow up with the work done yesterday by proofing the training documentation that the photographs taken were included in. Helping to prepare this documentation that was emailed to schools as a guide on how to prepare and serve the new menu days was fulfilling after the effort we all put in yesterday.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.2, 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:30AM-3:30PM) – 103.25
Date: 10/7/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Today I worked at P.S. 41 in Manhattan preparing for a Garden-to-Café event with the coordinator of the program, George, and Chef Deb from WITS. We prepared two types of kale and tomatoes for kale salad to be handed out tomorrow. We also helped the cook with lunch service due to understaffing at the school today. I prepared the salad bar items and set the salad bar up for service. We were also able to take a tour of the rooftop garden the school built and maintains. They are currently growing chives, rosemary, sage, basil, and cherry tomatoes.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
The Garden-to-Café program is a great way to get students more involved with their food. They grow vegetables in gardens at their school and then chefs associated with the program come in and prepare the food and serve it during the lunch period. It provides the students with a valuable lesson of being able to realize the benefit of growing their own food and reinforces the idea of knowing where your food comes from.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.5, 2.11
Hours: 7.5 (7:30AM-3:00PM) – 110.75
Date: 10/8/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Today was the actual Garden-to-Café event at P.S. 41. In addition to the staff we had yesterday, Aly and Lena joined us to finish prepping the salads as well as to help pass them out to the students. We encouraged the students to take a sample of the kale salad along with their regular lunch and most students did try the salad. We also provided samples of sweet potato fries with ketchup made with the cherry tomatoes from the school’s garden. The feedback was mostly positive and the students were excited over the concept that the food they were eating came in part from the own school’s garden. We also gave samples of the salads to the school’s administrative staff.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
I was expecting it to be much harder to have the students try the kale salad and homemade ketchup than it turned out to be. It was very reassuring to see that a majority of the students offered the samples tried and like them. It worked well to tell the students that it the samples included food from their own school that they had a part in growing.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.5, 2.11
Hours: 6.5 (7:30AM-2:00PM) – 117.25
Date: 10/9/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Finished formatting December menus in MCS. Entered counts and ran nutritionals for several of the December menus.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
The process of entering counts has to be done for each warehouse in the MCS system and requires a lot of repetitive manual data entry. I had a discussion in the office with Liz about the possibility of this task being automated or at least having the information entered for one warehouse copied to the others. She agreed that the process could be more streamlined but as of right now the problem is a limitation in the MCS software system.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:30AM-3:30PM) – 125.25
Date: 10/10/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Today was another prep day for a Garden-to-Café event at P.S. 20 in Brooklyn. I worked with Liz and we took delivery of a food order that came much later than it was scheduled for. In the meantime we helped the cooks with lunch service. We also received a delivery of frozen foods and dry goods for the cooks while they were serving lunch. Based on the foods we had: kale, beets, carrots, and collard greens, Liz and I developed three recipes to serve to the students. They were a Kale Caesar Salad with carrots, Roasted Beets with Orange Juice, and Braised Collard Greens with Onion.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
It was a good learning experience to work with the ingredients available to us and to come up with recipes that was be appealing to the students. I think Liz and I made good use of our time while waiting for our food order by helping the cooks with lunch service, receiving their food order, and coming up with recipe ideas. Once our order was delivered and checked over we were able to complete all of the preparation for the day that we needed to.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.5, 2.11, 3.5, 3.6
Hours: 6.5 (7:30AM-2:00PM) – 131.75
Date: 10/11/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Liz and I finished preparing our recipes for the Garden-to-Café event in the morning and served the food to the students in the lunch room. There were parents at the event as well who had been involved with the school’s garden and wanted to be a part of serving the food as well.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
The students were fairly receptive to the three different recipes and the ones that did try them liked them very much. We actually had students come back for a second serving and some brought a friend or two with them. It was really great seeing how involved some of the parents are with their children’s school and their nutrition. The parents as well as the students that tried the food were interested in the foods offered and Liz and I were able to explain to them the benefits of the foods served.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.5, 2.11
Hours: 7 (7:00AM-2:00PM) – 138.75
Date: 10/15/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
In the office today and worked on entering counts in MCS.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
Today was spent solely entering counts in MCS. This process will continue for the next day or two as some of the other staff in the office that would normally contribute to this task are off.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.11
Hours: 4 (7:30AM-11:30PM) – 142.75
Date: 10/16/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Continued entering counts in MCS.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
The workload for entering counts when shared between two people is very demanding and consumes entire work days with data entry.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:30AM-3:30PM) – 150.75
Date: 10/17/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Continued entering counts in MCS. Spoke with Liz and Billy about working on other tasks tomorrow for my last day in the office.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
Another day of entering counts is complete and the amount remaining has been reduced to a manageable level especially considering that the office is fully staffed again. These past three days have made me appreciate the idea of teamwork and how efficiently work can be completed with the right staffing.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.11
Date: 10/18/13 Rotation: Food Service Location: School Food, Queens
Activities / Assignments for the day:
Billy, Liz, and I brainstormed ideas for new methods of creating menu templates in MCS. We addressed the issue of small changes that are made to menus to create variety that also have the unintended consequence of defeating the cycle menu framework in the MCS system.
Comments / Thoughts / What You Learned / Challenges:
It was a nice change of pace from the previous three days to work on a task that required some thought and collaboration. I was glad to be able to contribute to the conversation everything that I had observed during my rotation at SchoolFood in order to help improve processes in the office.
Learning Objectives Met: 2.5, 2.11
Hours: 8 (7:30AM-3:30PM) – 166.75