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