WEEK 3: Short, Simple, & Sweet ;-)

Hey, Hey, Hey...you're back!

This is my third week in good ol' Georgia, which makes it week numero 3 of the NACUFS internship! As you can probably tell by the title of this post, this week was a very active, yet relaxing week. I had to go back to my hometown Friday-Sunday, so this week I'll only be blogging about Monday through Thursday.

Monday and Tuesday we worked on the farm for the first half of the day and worked on the herb garden and our composting projects the second half (after lunch).

Baby goat #24

All farm fresh eggs! :-)

On Monday, we got the chance to pick freshly laid chicken eggs from the chicken pen! One of the workers told us how to look for bad eggs, which we learned are essentially any eggs that are cracked. We also got a chance to feed the baby farm goats their milk through a bottle. I was so shocked to see how fast and frantically the goats grabbed and sucked the formula from the bottles. In less than 2 minutes they completely guzzled about 10oz of fluid. After working at the farm, in the afternoon, we worked a little more on the herb garden and brainstormed alternate ideas of how we could re-create the herb garden and finalized our vision for the herb garden. Monday night Syd and I checked out some local tennis courts not too far down the road from KSU and played for a little over an hour ...until we started getting bit by the infamous mosquitos. -_-


Tuesday morning on Hickory Grove Farm consisted of shoveling holes and planting tomatoes in the field! Since the the farm was purchased by KSU less than a year ago, they're running a couple months behind schedule with planting produce. It may have been a really really hot and humid day, but we had no time to waste - "Zee tomatoes must be planted!" After working on the farm all morning, we finished painting the rocks we collected for the KSU sign and colored one of our raised bed pallets. Out of the paint color options we had, we chose red, purple, and green as the colors for our sign and a pale yellow for the color of our flat, raised bed pallets. After the paint dried on the pallet, We finished planting the dill, parsley, purple basil and some flowers into the flatbed!

The baby Roma tomato plants
 we planted at Hickory Grove Farm

Wednesday was the most lax work day we've had thus far (physically speaking). Aside from the usual assisting at orientation, we spent a majority of our day on the quiet floor of the campus library working on gathering ideas and designing our Plow to Chow blog. The Plow to Chow blog is a weekly blog Sydney and I are required to create and maintain throughout the duration of the summer. Plow to Chow focuses on KSU's sustainable farm-to-campus initiatives, including the 3 campus farms, the KSU farmer's market, and the herb garden! Check our awesome blog out for yourself at: http://ksuplowtochow.blogspot.com/

Thursday was my last day of work for the week since I left to go home from Friday to Sunday. Thursday evening we took our place on our usual corner at Frey Road and were our goofy selves promoting the KSU Farmer's Market. However, our Thursday morning was a little change of pace from our usual outdoor duties. From 8am-11am, we worked within the kitchen with one of the main Kitchen Assistant's Justin in inventory. The duty of "inventory" consists of counting all unopened items that are in stock on the shelves in the various parts of the kitchen. Once each item is counted for, the quantity of the item is recorded on a sheet of paper to be used for determining how many products need to be ordered from week to week. We took inventory counts in the dry storage room, the bakery, the coffee shop in The Commons, and to the DREADED cooler/freezer. Yes, I said dreaded lol. I could not believe how cold it really was in there! Sydney and I went in with freezer jackets and were still shivering to the bone! One thing is for sure...counting inventory can be very time-consuming and at times can be confusing. If food or food items are misplaced, unorganized, or not in their designated spots, they can be mistakenly over or underestimated. Spending all morning doing inventory taught me that though it's a very tedious task, it's a very necessary and important part of a foodservice operation.

Sorry this week's blog is shorter than usual, I promise I'll come back next week with more meat to fill
 ;-) (meat as in content, that is >_<)

Later,
Natalie

WEEK 2: Gardens, Greetings & Retail, Oh My!

Hey everyone, welcome back to my adventure at KSU…I just finished week 2 and boy, do I have stuff to tell you, so let’s get to it!

BEFORE / AFTER

We started our week planning our ideas for the herb garden, which is located next to The Commons. They have tons of fresh herbs that they use in everyday recipes that they provide for the student cafeteria, such as dill, mint, spearmint, and especially oregano. After brainstorming various composting ideas (with the inevitable help of Pinterest), we decided to make 2 types of composting beds, a vertical bed and a flat bed, that we would create from scratch.  We decided that we would section out an area in the garden to place these two different herb garden ideas so people can learn different ways of .  After scoping the landscape of the garden, we took a few trips to gather our supplies for our exciting new projects! We stopped at the KSU Hickory Grove Farm to gather gloves, hoes, and shovels and then we stopped by Home Depot to look at the various herbs and flowers they offered so we could get an idea for which types of plants we wanted. After arriving back at the garden, we got right to work. Before we could get to the fun, creative stuff though, we had to weed all the unwanted visitors and level out the dirt that was previously just lying there in a huge mound. I learned that aside from the obvious fact that gardening in the peak sunshine hours is a bad idea; I learned that weeding is a very tedious task that involves a lot of labor and patience. All the sweating and digging was soooo worth it when we were able to see the result of our efforts at the end of the day! Below are the before and after pics of our digging escapade.

On Tuesday, we switched gears from the garden and had a chance to work in some of the retail food locations on the KSU campus. The two locations were Jazzman’s, which is a café/bakery style shop and Freshens, which serves a combination of Starbucks coffee, smoothies, salads, crepes and rice bowls…aka all you need to survive in college lol. I started my morning shift working at Freshens and the first thing I had to do was take temperatures of all the hot and cold foods to make sure they were within the mandatory requirements and that nothing was in the temperature danger zone. Afterward, some of the workers showed me the “Freshens way” of how to prepare salads, smoothies, crepes, and rice bowls. It was really fun to learn and by the end of my shift, I was taking customers’ orders and preparing their meals in no time! After lunch around noon, I swapped spots with Sydney and worked at the Jazzman’s Café. One fun fact about Jazzman’s that I really admire is that everything they sell is made fresh EVERYDAY, everything from the fruit salads to the pound cake, and breakfast sandwiches. Another unique aspect of the café is that it has its very own pastry chef, Chef Jerome, who is responsible for all the baked goods they sell. While on my shift, I helped Chef Jerome prepare sugar cookies and breakfast sandwiches. Since my shift at Jazzman’s was at the end of the day, I also helped break down the café by cleaning and sanitizing the dishes. It was a very long day, but I definitely learned a lot. By working in two different areas of retail, I was able to see different preparation methods and perspectives that worked best for each specific location.

Wednesday was a more relaxed workday. We woke up early to go into work at 8am to help out at the transfer student orientation that takes place every Wednesday. We went to sit in and listen to Rob Nolan, the Associate Director of Culinary & Hospitality Services, talk to the parents about the Culinary and Hospitality Services that KSU offers. After that, we ventured back out to check on the herb garden since we had a little time before lunch. We decided we had enough time to work on a small project before our break so we began constructing the flat composting pallet. Using a staple gun, we attached black landscaping fabric around sides and the underneath part of the pallet to mimic a container, so there would be support for the plants once we planted them. After lunch, we worked on the second floor of The Commons with Melissa and Rob to set up and staff the Culinary and Hospitality Services table at the parent resource fair in the afternoon from 11:30am-2pm. Different departments of the university had tables set up in a semi-circular formation proving information to the parents on various topics like parking, health services, ID cards, etc. Our contribution to the fair was informing parents about the meal plan options for both residential and commuter students. We explained what the different options were and what was included with each meal plan option. After work, Syd and I completed our night by jammin’ and planning our weekend adventure to Stone Mountain!

Syd and me at the KSU Farmer's Market :-)

On Thursday, we had another early day, but this time we were scheduled to work on the farm. We arrived at 8am and learned the lay of the land. The farm staff showed us around the farm and where everything was located. We learned how they feed and water the chickens and also got to see the goats. The farm recently bought the 3 male and 1 female goat, so the goats were still very young. Strawberry, the female, was usually a very energetic and loving goat, but that day she looked extremely ill and had to be taken to the vet. :-( After checking on the goats, we moved potting containers from the hydroponic tomato house to the farm’s storage unit to make room and organize the hydroponic house. Right before we broke off for lunch, the farm staff workers and Sydney and I cleaned and disinfected cleaned plastic slabs that were used to separate tomato plants. These had to be cleaned to prevent any contaminants from infecting the tomato plants, because the tomato plants are extremely sensitive. After working on the farm, we had a break in the middle of the day before we returned to work later to assist with the KSU Farmer’s Market from 4-7pm. We arrived at the market around 3:30pm to help set up the stands. While at the Farmer’s Market, Sydney and I volunteered to work on the corner and hold signs for the Farmer’s Market to advertise and to direct people to the market. This was super fun! We were dancing with the signs and singing and acting crazy to try to get people’s attention to come to the Farmer’s Market. We might have looked odd (which is normal for us), but our tactic worked because we got a lot of attention from cars driving by and actually got at least 5 different cars to turn into the market to check it out! YAY us! ;-) After our sign duty was up, we ventured over to the peach stand where we bought the last bag of farm fresh Georgia peaches, which I was soooo excited to try! After work, we went out with some friends to a local bar in Kennesaw called Highlands and enjoyed some brews and listened to people sing (some people screech lolz) karaoke.

Our collection of rocks for the garden

Ted's Montana Grill

Friday’s schedule was similar to Wednesday. We woke up early to go into work at 8am to help out at the freshman student orientation that takes place on Fridays. After listening to the various speakers in the Bailey’s student auditorium, we went to the herb garden to work on one of the small projects we had planned. Syd and I had the idea to paint the rocks we gathered from weeding and leveling out the garden earlier in the week. Once painted, we would spell out the letters KSU on the ground in front of our composting examples as a fun way to show school pride. We had just enough time before our lunch break to collect and wash the dirt off the rocks so they would be ready to paint the next time we went back to the garden. Like Wednesday, after lunch we worked on the second floor of The Commons with Melissa and Rob to set up and staff the Culinary and Hospitality Services table at the parent resource fair in the afternoon from 11:30am-2pm. After work, we decided to have a chill night in since we were registered to run the Dream Dash 5K the next morning with Melissa and a couple other people from The Commons. We decided to get dinner at Ted’s Montana Grill, which is a restaurant known for its bison burgers as well as its sustainability efforts. Owned by Ted Turner, Ted’s Montana Grill uses all farm fresh ingredients for their hand-prepared American-styled dishes. They do not have any frozen foods or microwaves, which is great news for a nutrition major! The experience here was great! First and foremost, the appetizer was homemade pickles. ‘Nuff said. Just kidding, but seriously they were so crunchy and you could tell they were so fresh! I ordered a veggie burger with onion rings for dinner and HANDS DOWN it was the best veggie burger I ever had in my life. If you decided you want to check out Ted’s, I would 100% recommend trying the veggie burger! I would without a doubt go back in a heartbeat to order that again.

Saturday was a fun-filled, overall amazing, day! We started our day running the Dream Dash 5K in downtown Kennesaw. The weather was really nice and thankfully not hot or humid during the race. My time for the race was 23:54, which to my surprise landed me in 4^th place for my age group! After the race, there were stands providing bagels, fruits, sports drinks etc. to help the runners replenish after the run. After the 5K, we packed our things together for a day trip to Stone Mountain. Stone Mountain is about 45-50 minutes away from KSU and is definitely worth the drive! It’s $10 parking for all day admission into the park. Hiking up Stone Mountain was interesting because it was quite literally made of stone. It was super steep but generally a pretty easy climb – it took us only about 35 minutes to climb from the bottom to the top. Once we got to the top, we took some pictures and enjoyed the view. Then, we walked down to a small area off the main trial on the side of the mountain to lay out our towels, unpack our things and have lunch. We spent ALL afternoon tanning, listening to music, taking pictures, dancing and doing yoga poses. After laying on the mountain for 4 hours straight, you could imagine we were burnt to a crisp! (well Sydney more so than me ;-)) After jamming out to Reggae on the whole ride home, we got dinner at The Commons. After dinner and our usual nightly activities, we went out with some friends and well you know the rest ;-) … #turntdownforwhat?!

After the Dream Dash 5K

Me doing some yoga ;-)

Me on the top of Stone Mountain

Some spices at the Spice Mill in Marietta

Homemade Insect Repellent

Since we had a super busy day Saturday, we 
just took it easy on Sunday, slept in a little and then visited Marietta Square to check out the weekly farmer’s market, which is only about 15-20 minutes away from campus. It was a quaint little area that had little cafes, antique shops, unique stores, and, of course, the farmer’s market. Parking was relatively easy to find and there wasn’t much traffic at all, which is always a plus! On our way to the market, we spotted an awesome Herb & Spices shop called Marietta Spice Mill. From the outside it doesn’t look like there’s much inside, but when you go in you smell the aroma of what we later found out was over 200 different assortments of organic and non-organic herbs, spices, salts, peppercorns, and various blends. You could weigh out the amount of spice that you wanted and pay accordingly, which was nice. I got the Cajun seasoning, ground rosemary, a garlic popcorn seasoning, and a smoked salt made from alderwood. Since the business has only been open for a month, the man provided us with a free sample of the allspice seasoning as well, as thanks for supporting his business. After visiting Marietta, we relaxed in our room listening to music, made a homemade insect repellent spray from mint leaves, orange peels, and alcohol to use on the farm, and ordered Chinese for dinner from Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant, which was cheap in price, but tasty on the tongue :-).

So far my time here at KSU, and Georgia in general, has been really awesome and I know it's only gonna keep getting better! So stay tuned for the many adventures that are bound to happen in week 3 of my time here at KSU!

Later, 

Natalie

WEEK 1: Yee-haw, ya'll

Hiya Folks!

My name is Natalie and I am one of the NACUFS summer interns at KSU! I'm from Philly (215 Represent- what, what) and I'm excited to get my 8 week internship started here at KSU. I'm a recent grad from West Chester University with my diploma in nutrition/dietetics and a Spanish minor. I drove from Philly to Georgia which took about 13 hours give or take. It was a pretty nice drive and I got the chance to see some awesome southern landscaping, which was new to me since I've never really travelled down south. So, throughout my time here in Georgia I'm going to blog about my experience in KSU's NACUFS internship program as well as my explorations outside of the university's campus! I'm excited to get started so let's goooooooooo ;-)

Ok, so I'll start off by first describing my arrival to KSU. After driving 13 hours straight, I finally reached my destination...KSU - Home of the Owls. The living arrangements they provide are pretty sweet! As an intern, you get an apartment-styled dorm with your own kitchen, washer, dryer, bathroom and bedroom. Since there are two interns accepted into this particular program, you share the same apt, which is really cool, especially if you're fortunate to get an awesome roommate like I was :-).

Ok enough intro, let's get to the nitty gritty ;-)...

Berlin Wall

Day 1 was a pretty laid back day where our boss Melissa gave us a campus tour. We rode with her in a golf cart all around campus as she showed us where each of the buildings were, academics, cafeteria, student services, etc. KSU for a long time was just a commuter college, so all of the housing units are all new (within the last 6 years). KSU itself is a huge and beautiful campus. There's a lot of landscape, pretty scenery, and cool artistic sculptures. They even have a portion of the Berlin Wall, which is pretty bizarre! We also got a tour of the award-winning cafeteria known as The Commons. It was so awesome learning about all of the sustainable efforts Kennesaw has already implemented and the projects they're currently working on to further improve their campus and cafeteria!



Our typical work schedule is from 9am-5pm, but depending on what we have planned for a specific day, the time can vary. For instance, Tuesday and Wednesday we were scheduled for catering, which required us to work 5am-1pm. It may sound scary, but the time flies when you're having fun, right?! ;-) Plus, since we got out early, we were able to spend our whole afternoon soakin' up the Georgia sunshine! We spent our time in catering working in the back-of-the-house, aka the good ol' kitchen. We were introduced to the head Executive Chef Billy Skiber, who gave us a detailed tour of the kitchen, introduced us to the kitchen staff, and described our assignment for the day. On both days, we helped the chefs and other kitchen staff prepare and assemble boxed lunches for the new students who were attending their orientation on Friday. This was a really cool experience because it really required a lot of teamwork and organizational skills. Each boxed lunch consisted of a sandwich (turkey, pesto chicken, grilled veggie, or roast beef), pasta salad, mixed fruit, bag of chips, and a cookie. Each worker was responsible for completing a different task that was necessary to help reach the goal of completing 160 boxes in a limited time frame. For instance, someone had to scoop mixed fruit, another person was responsible for making the sandwiches, another for cutting the sandwiches, and so on and so forth... It was an awesome feeling seeing the lunches being made from the basic materials to the finished product. After work, I pretty much finished unpacking, and went for a bike ride to explore some more of the campus.

On Thursday, Melissa introduced us to the KSU Farmer's Market, which is hosted by the KSU culinary department and the Students for Economic Sustainability (SES). They work to promote and sell organic and locally grown products from local businesses in Kennesaw. During the summer, the market is open to the public on Thursdays from 4-7pm. We arrived an hour earlier to help the local vendors set up their products. Since one of our projects is to write a blog on the Farmer's Market, we decided that we wanted to include interviews from the local vendors to explain the story and history behind their products. So we spent some time talking with some of the vendors and learned some pretty neat stuff. There were vendors selling homemade popcorns, fresh fruits and veggies, juicy homemade Georgia peaches, homemade honey, and homemade baked goods. Another local vender was named King of Pops, which was a cart that sold homemade popsicles of unique flavor combinations. I tried the grapefruit mint pop and it was soooo delicious, and not to mention super refreshing! After meeting the SES crew and the vendors, Sydney and I set out to be walking and dancing marketers....literally. We, along with other volunteers, took turns holding signs and acting like fools at the intersection. Our main goal was to try to get people to come visit the farmer's market, so we had to be silly and creative to get the drivers' attentions...gotta do what cha gotta do, naa mean?! ;-)

YAYYY, It's Friday! Luckily we had off because we were offered the opportunity to work at a catering event that was taking place at KSU on Saturday night; so, we swapped our usual Friday work day for Saturday. Since me and Syd were off duty, we decided to spend the whole day in downtown Atlanta! Our day started around 11am and we drove to Atlanta in only 20 minutes, which was awesome because locals told us that driving to Atlanta can take up to 2 HOURS if you hit traffic, or 20 minutes if the roads are clear and smooth sailing! After finding some side-street free parking, we hit up Midtown (and by "hit up" I mean walked up and down every hilly block for about 30 minutes in the humidity and blazing Georgia sun lol). We eventually landed at a Mexican Cantina Restaurant for lunch and I ordered a quinoa salad, a side of veggies and of course the inevitable 12pm pina coladas. After lunch, we walked to Atlantic Station which WAS A HIKE, but was well worth it! There were so many little shops, restaurants, bars, and kiosk stands with local vendors selling their homemade products. We stopped at an herbalist's stand and scoped out all the amazzzzzzing scents of lotions, oils, and soaps...and of course I had to purchase a few :-) After Atlantic Station, we drove to a little hipster section of ATL called Little Five Points. If you're into fun, quirky shops 5 points is definitely for you! Two of my favorite stores were Rag-O-Rama, which is essentially a thrift store and Junkman's Daughter, which is an awesome store crammed full with far-out fashions, groovy accessories for men and women, unique and unusual gifts, housewares from around the world, cool collectibles, retro knick-knacks, toys, and costumes...So in other words, IT IS A MUST VISIT! After visiting 5 Points, Syd and I decided to end the perfect day off with some Mellow Mushroom Pizza...which is most def the best place to get pizza in Kennesaw...sooooo delish!

Junkman's Daughter

Rag-O-Rama

Me & Syd @ lunch enjoying our pina coladas ;-)

  

Sydney perfecting the salads

Close up of the caprese salad

Saturday was the catering event. Since it started later in the day, we had the whole morning and afternoon to chill and just do whatever, which was nice. When we arrived to The Commons, we along with other chefs and kitchen staff, headed over to the venue where the catering event was being held later that night. Upon arrival, Chef Trey (Executive Chef of Catering) told us that the goal of the evening was to prepare, plate, and serve a 3-course meal to the guests attending the event. The appetizer was a caprese salad, the entree was either a vegetarian dish made of risotto and a variety of veggies and the meat dish consisted of chicken, risotto, and green beans, and the dessert was a duel dessert with two different kinds of cakes. Luckily, the pastry chef already prepared the desserts and was in charge of plating them, so the only dishes that had to be plated were the caprese salad and both the entrees. Chef Trey instructed us on how to make the caprese salad as well as how to plate it so it looked visually appealing. After working together to finish making 160 salads, we got right to work on the entrees. In order to complete the dishes in a timely matter, we formed an assembly line and each person was assigned a different duty to get each dish completed. For example, one person was assigned to each of the following plate duties: scooping risotto, placing chicken, placing green beans, wiping the plate's rim, putting the container top on and placing it in the portable warmer. It was a lot of fun because it felt like we were a show on Food Network racing against the clock to complete a certain amount of dishes in an allotted time frame. After all the food was served and eaten, we were sent to help the back-of-the-house with the breakdown process. This included separating the silverware from the big and small dishes into crates to be brought back to the dish room. After collecting and organizing the dirty dishes, we helped clean the dishes and the kitchen. It was definitely a long process, but it was totally worth it because we got to see and be apart of a foodservice operation from start to finish. From preparing the food, to serving it, to breaking it down, and then to cleaning up the kitchen, we were able to get the full experience of the depth that goes into JUST ONE event. Needless to say, when I got home, I was ready to kick off of the work shoes and call it a night.

Mr. Gecko himself

Awesome view from the mountain                

Sunday was the last day of our first week at KSU and I'd say it was pretty successful! Syd and I decided to go hiking at Kennesaw State Mountain, which is only 10-15 minutes away --such a sweet gig! We left around noon and hiked the mountain for about 3 or so hours. The weather was hot, but the scenery was gorgeous! There was so many different types of wildlife, plants, flowers, and trees. Some of the highlights were finding cacti (I had no idea cacti grew in GA), chasing geckos, and collecting some awesome nuts (which we later found out were nutmeg! How cool!) Being that we hiked up the mountain all afternoon in the blazing sun to reach the top, we were NOT looking forward to walking another 3 hours back to our car...sooooo what did we do?...We improvised ;-) We decided that we would try to hitchhike. We asked a woman and her son who looked like they were leaving the Visitor Center's parking lot and discovered that she actually had to do the same thing we were trying to avoid --walking 2-3 hours to our car (which was on the other side of the mountain), which is only a 10 minute car ride. We decided to team up and ask a kid we saw loading stuff into his 4x4 truck, getting ready to leave. Thankfully he said he'd give us all a ride and we all jumped in the bed of his truck and got a free ride! After arriving back to our place, we ate dinner and then decided to tackle the one task we've been putting off all week --decorating our house with Christmas lights! After planning our method of attack, we went to work for about 2 hours hanging lights on the front porch, kitchen bar, and living room walls. Check out the pictures below! After a long day of hiking and housework, its safe to say we had a pretty successful weekend full of sightseeing, nature, and relaxation. B-)

Our Home Decor ;-)

So here lies the end of the road to Week 1! I can't wait to start my second week and look forward to all the projects and adventures that are in store! Yahoooo!

Later,
Natalie