Category: Project Weekly

Celebrate Catering – Week 6

2/16

This week was full of events, office work and aesthetically pleasing food. Wednesday turned from a 7 hour day into a 5 hour day which is always awesome. While we were waiting for an event to end at 6 so we could set up for a big event Thursday, I did some office work involving quote making for clients and had done a food drop to George Fox University. A food drop is when we transport food made in house and cater events elsewhere, GFU is a constant client so the drops are easy and I get to create my own food set up. When I got back, the event that was supposed to end at 6 left early so we did what we needed for set up and got out!

Thursday was an 8 to 5 kind of day, we had a big event for OHSU nurses and patients involved with Parkinson’s disease. They had over 90 guests, massage tables, two buffet lines and a particular set up that you can see on my instagram and linked photo on here. Mid-event, I was sent to do a food drop at GFU, once I got back we served food including salad, dinner rolls, apricot chicken, couscous and brownies. We made special plates for vegans/vegetarians/gluten free. My boss headed out early for an open house at our bistro so it was up to me to direct the entire clean up of the event, pretty cool being in charge and being trusted like that!

Friday was an easier day but filled with a lot of useful information. My compost meeting is finally confirmed for the 23rd which I am looking forward to. As I was learning the ropes working with client requests our chef, Jim, came in and surprised us with a meal he was practicing on. It was asparagus and prawns over rainbow couscous (I couldn’t have the prawns because pregnant, boo). A ver blanc was drizzled over the top and let me tell you, I have never tasted a more delicious sauce! I wanted to lick the bowl clean of that ver blanc. On top were microgreens of radishes. The perk of working for an upscale catering company is the amazing food.

Something I found interesting this week is when my boss and I were going over menu’s, she asked me why she wouldn’t offer a client caprese right now. I honestly had no idea because caprese is bomb all of the time! She said because tomatoes are not in season. May-October are usually decent times to get tomatoes because they are softer, taste better and fresher from California than when they are shipped now from Mexico. She always aims for menus that are seasonal.

Another aspect that stuck out to me in forming menus for clients is something called bites per hour. Our boss has an engineering degree so she calculates literally everything precisely. We were forming an event for 200 people and the way she can offer them the right amount of food without them running out or having too much is calculating bites. The first hour of served food, clients will eat around 5 “bites” (an example would would be a prawn or a cracker and cheese). The second hour I think it went down to 3 and the third hour it was 2. She calculates this into dozens, I honestly got a little lost but there is an event I have yet to see where there isn’t enough food served. Food aesthetics are just as important to running this company as food math is, who would have thought!

Growing Gardens – Week 6

2/13

This week was insect week! I started my day at 12 pm with my field supervisor to do a mid-quarter check in, kind of like what we do at Evergreen. We discussed what was going well, what wasn’t, if there were any surprises so far and we chit chatted around these topics for a while. I came into the internship with little expectation, just to expand my knowledge on gardening and hang with the kids and that is exactly what I have gotten and more, so I’m very pleased. She gave me nice feedback, thanking me for my consistency. I guess interns in the past had a habit of not showing up which is beyond me but everyone has their own situations going on in their life.

After our meeting, I was put on the task of forming fruit/vegetable insect snacks! They’re not really insects but rather food formed into looking like bugs, such as ants on a log, you can find more examples I made in my image gallery and above this post. I made several examples as a way to show the kids later in class for the activity we would be doing, I honestly had a blast.

The schedule at Glenfair will be different now because they changed their dismissal format. Kids have to stay in class longer until their bus number or pick up announcement is made, so we have a little less time with the kids but thats okay, not by too much.

  • 3:20 to 3:35 – Second lunch
  • 3:35 to 3:50 – Circle time
  • 3:50 to 4:10 – Recess
  • 4:10 to 4:25 – Garden time
  • 4:25 to 4:45 – Ladybugs and aphids game
  • 4:45 to 5:15 – Food art

We only had 9 students present so it was a fairly easy day energy wise. Circle time involved asking students what they knew about bugs and the garden, we then did another mystery box challenge with a fake bug. We showed them the life cycle of several bugs with little figurines such as bees, ladybugs and butterflies. They LOVED the little toys to the point where they were fighting over who can hold the most. After circle time was recess, then we moved straight into garden time where we asked students why ladybugs are so important for fighting off aphids, they were mind blown! My favorite part of the day was when we showed them the ladybug and aphid costumes they would wear to play tag. Of course they fought over who could wear what but we let everyone have a turn and they were willing to share.

To play the game, the ladybugs had to tag the aphids before the aphids tagged the “plant” (a student wearing screen costume sleeves). They went nuts over it. When we were all finished up we went into the classroom to recreate the bug snacks I showed them, that I made. They got to use strawberries, celery, dried blueberries, apples, grapes and sunflower seeds. With toothpicks, some kids recreated a caterpillar with the grapes while the majority just made random fruit monsters. They got to eat the fruit along the way and all in all had a fun time doing it.

Farm to Fit – Week 6

2/12

ITS MY BIRTHDAY!!!!

But I still had to wake up at 6 am 🙂 Another week of food preparation of course. So I’ve decided I’ll finish with 4 weeks of food prep (this being my third), 1 week of delivery and 2 of nutrition. I originally was going to only do 3 weeks of food prep but my field supervisor doesn’t feel I’ll get much out of delivery so I’d rather spend more time learning about the facility, although the delivery part is important as well.

This week was pretty simple. I started off with organic potatoes, my favorite vegetable of all time. I believe that they were being used in several different hashes, so I spent 4 hours peeling lb after lb after lb. Then I moved onto chopping them, thank god I do this at home on a regular basis so it went quickly. The next 2 hours was spent dicing herbs such as basil, parsley and chives. Of course we were spoiled with a lunch breakfast scramble from Juan, a mix of eggs, sausage and potatoes. He never fails to impress!

I got to see where the compost goes, just outside in a large bin that gets taken out weekly I believe. Still not sure where they take it, I always forget to ask! I wonder if there are any organizations that accept compost? I don’t compost but wish I did, I just have nowhere to put it because my house isn’t suitable for planting. And even if there were compost accepting organizations, I can imagine the health codes behind it.

Anyways, another fun, simple week working with my favorite thing of all time, food! I left my phone at home so I got no photos but I’ll improvise with something I’ve taken before.

 

Celebrate Catering – Week 5

2/9

This week as a mix of working events and office work with clients. Wednesday I got to deliver food to George Fox University and do my own set up! It was a taco bar, not too much to say on that other than my presentation skills are getting SO much better. Thursday was a long day of event working, emailing and folding over 100 napkins envelope style. Friday was an even longer day where I set up a room for 200 people (for an awards ceremony), I put together events myself and worked the event. I work Sunday night too but I’d rather finish my work now then potentially be late so I can mention that work next week in my post.

In relation to my studies this quarter, I got to put together an inquiry for a wedding and the bride requested a “northwest” themed meal. I had to do a little research to refresh my mind on what constitutes as northwest, so I based my meal around berries, seafood, hearty meats and rustic type foods. I chose a huge array of salmon, berry compotes, nuts, meat and cheeses, hearty beef meals such as tri-tip and for dessert chose berry/chocolate mousse’. I’ll have to go through the selection with my boss before I send the quote because she is an EXPERT at food let me tell you. She’s very good at her job and I trust her judgement.

I did want to touch on some sustainability aspects to be worked on at my job because I speak so much about them working towards a goal but not what they are working on:

  • Food waste – composting
  • Recycling left over items from events (cans, cardboard, plastic)
  • Re-using products for several events (linens, room set up styles)
  • Creating similar meals for same day events to utilize the most of out food products
  • Sourcing more local food

Those are just several examples, if all of these are harnessed, it creates less work to put on our plates on busy days and reduces any amount of unnecessary waste.

Growing Gardens – Week 5

2/6

My work this week began at the Growing Gardens office. To prepare for the days activities I had to hole punch 15 little baggies, cut up paper towels to fit in the baggies and then cut string long enough to hang around a students necks. Usually a project for kindergarteners, we decided to let the kids made bean buddies because it is a way for students to watch their own plant sprout and have the opportunity to take a project home, which is always fun. Bean buddies are when you put a unsoaked lima bean into a baggie with a wet paper towel, we encourage the students to place it somewhere where this is sunlight or heat. A string is attached to a hole in the baggie as a fun way for the students to wear it as a necklace. The lima bean will sprout and the students can watch it grow. After prepping the buddies for the students I threw together more booklets as I did last week and we headed out the door for Glenfair.

**I feel it’s important to add that an angel in the office did an ice cream run to a local and organic shop, we all get to enjoy some sweets. I wish I caught the name of the shop, it was so good! The dairy free coconut lemon was my favorite.

Anyways, the Glenfair schedule was:

  • 3:00 to 3:30 – Second lunch
  • 3:30 to 3:50 – Circle time with lima beans
  • 3:50 to 4:20 – Recess and garden time
  • 4:20 to 4:50 – Bean buddies
  • 4:50 to 5:15 – Pickle tasting

Today we had a lot more students absent than normal, which was fine because the class was a lot calmer. At circle time, we started with a mystery box activity where one student felt the lima bean without seeing it, and the other students guessed what was in the box, they also couldn’t see. We then showed the kids the anatomy of a lima beans from its coat to its nutrients inside to its sprout and leaf. They enjoyed it a lot because the bean was easy to dissect. After circle time we went to recess and to my surprise the kids got bored very quickly and wanted to jump to garden time! We went into the garden and explained to them what weeds were, they then went and picked some weeds which they not only had fun playing in dirt but it saves us some time when we begin harvesting the garden in the upcoming weeks.

When we went inside and showed them the bean buddies some of them had actually already made them in a previous Growing Gardens course, so they didn’t want to do it again. It was funny because when the other students who hadn’t made bean buddies before started making them, the students who acted too cool to make them again asked me and the garden instructor for some supplies to make their own, I loved it, they saw how fun it was again. Moving onto the pickle tasting was great because many of the kiddos were astonished that you can pickle more than just cucumbers. We let them try red cabbage, red and yellow peppers. They LOVED the red cabbage but didn’t really like the peppers, some of them were so drama about it. The students were sitting at two tables so when I went to give the second table cabbage they said “eww no!” but the second I told them the other table liked the cabbage, they got interested and wanted some. They are so influential on each other and their reactions I’m coming to find out. The best we can do every week is to push the students to try something they haven’t had before they judge it. They usually become pretty open to trying new things when they see their friends do it. One of my favorite students, Abdi, never liked pickles and really didn’t want to try any, I told him to take a little bite of each and he did. He didn’t necessarily like all the pickles but to see him step out of his comfort zone was pretty cool and he was very sweet about it.

Farm to Fit – Week 5

2/5

Today was one of those days where I woke up and went straight back to bed.

BUT

I managed to get my butt out of bed and get to Farm to Fit by 7 am to begin the lovely process of peeling and cutting 50 lbs of carrots 🙂 Peeling quite literally took 4 hours, the cutting I did about half way for another hour until I could not feel my hands or my feet. I have said this before but I really do give appreciation to the workers who do this almost everyday from 7 am to 2 or 3 pm!

On the bright side, the carrots were beautiful and organic, delivered that day, and I was happy to help make someone’s life easier by doing it. The employees there are very supportive and helpful, we got fed another lunch by Chef Juan which seemed to be birria quesadillas with a very spicy verde. It hit the spot for my crazy spicy pregnancy cravings. All in all it was a relaxed week of food packaging and I am now an expert at peeling and cutting carrots!

 

Celebrate Catering – Week 4

1/2

This week involved 3 days of work, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. As my hours are raising I’m getting involved with a lot more of the technical office work of dealing with clients. I made my first few phone calls and started sending my own emails! How official.

In relation to my studies, this week I sat in on some meetings with the chefs and listened to them discuss their switch of food carries. I know they get some of their food from a company called DUCK and also aramark. Yet, they are having troubles with aramark because for how high-scale the company strives to be, the food is very low-scale. This is where I’m seeing the ins and outs of trying to run your own local business, because aramark is so cheap it fits their budget, the boss was discussing how she would rather spend more for quality food than what aramark gives them. When I was hired on she was in the process of working to become a more sustainable, local provider and I think this and the initiative of composting is the right path.

To keep up with societies high demand for locally sourced food, how actually possible is this when food has become so commodified and industrialized? This is what I’m doing my academic reading in so I hope to be of some help by the end of the quarter.

Another component of work I did this week was the presentation of food. I’m learning there are certain ways of setting up food so that consumers do not take more than they need which is really interesting. Salad or fruit, that has larger portions and is cheaper, goes first. Next would be the side dish, so roasted veggies, mashed potatoes, ect. Consumers tend get excited and over fill their plate (I mean hey if its company paid, free food). Next is always the main course, poultry, beef, seafood, charcuterie boards. Once they get to this course their plate is usually decently full, so they grab less. This works out because the main course is usually the most expensive so 9 times out of 10 it does not run out. Last is dessert. I find it so interesting there is a system thought out behind this.

This week, one of the clients swore up and down that there was not enough food for 150 guests. It did not look like much food but because my boss does this for a living she tried over and over to reassure the client she did not need more food. The client decided to wait it out but was willing to pay more for food if it went low. By the end of the event, there was still quite a bit left over that they requested a to go box. Food can be a funny thing when it comes to consumption limits.

Growing Gardens – Week 4

1/30

To kick off this week, I started in the office at Growing Gardens as always. I spent 2 hours creating 30 little booklets from construction paper and staples for the kiddos. With these booklets they would make an alphabet book, each page pertains to a letter. They would be given seed catalogs, glue and scissors to cut out collages of pictures or words relevant to a letter in the alphabet and paste it onto the according page. These books were a lot harder to put together than you think….

We then loaded up and headed to Glenfair, the schedule was:

  • 3:00 – Arrive to set up and meet the kids at second lunch
  • 3:30 – Circle time
  • 3:45 – Recess and garden time
  • 4:15 – Art with the booklets and seed catalogs
  • 5:00 – Food tasting
  • 5:15 – Kids head out and clean up

This week focused on seeds, again! Garden time was actually a lot of fun because garlic started sprouting and the broccoli and cabbage was flourishing. We let the kids taste the broccoli and then noticed somebody had pulled some garlic with the roots out 🙁 so we let the kids replant them and some of them were so excited to do it. Art took some time because we worked on the booklets I made, the kids were super creative and asked for a lot of help when it came to finding plants that matched with the alphabet. The most questions I got was if cabbage, corn and cauliflower started with a C or a K… ha! We got a “new” student this week, he is registered in the class but has always been absent, I thought maybe he would be disconnected or not care much but he was super into everything we did! His collage was very creative, he was into replanting the garlic and in the garden he pulled me aside and politely asked to have some more broccoli. It made my day. We ended on the tasting lab that involved seed energy balls. We mixed oats, honey, sunflower butter and dried cranberries then had the kids dip their mix in chia seeds, many of them loved it. All in all a successful week.

Farm to Fit – Week 3

1/28

This week finalizes my last day doing the packaging portion of Farm to fit. This week was very similar to last week in terms of process. We sanitize tables, lay out trays, place food bowls, measure everything, lid, nutrition sticker,  put in the fridge and do it all over again. It was nice to feel comfortable and know what I was doing, some new people started today and they came to me with questions I could actually answer on my own!

There was quite a bit of food left over today so what we didn’t spread out in the bowls was put aside for the workers to take home which was awesome they were getting fed.  One conversation that sparked my interest was when a new employee asked, “these plastic bowls seem wasteful because I asked and customers are not allowed to return them”. I agreed, but to be fair they were nice plastic bowls that were microwave safe. If I was subscribing to meals I would keep every bowl as tubberware, but you can only hope that is what customers are doing if they are environmentally conscious. I wish there was a way to return the bowls for reuse but that intersects with health code violations. I wonder if there are biodegradable bowls and how those would withstand not only holding food but travelling, and cost?

The food we dished up today included:

  • Prosciutto wrapped chicken, a rice blend and brussel sprouts (unchicken for vegetarians)
  • Salmon, zucchini veg mix and mashed potatoes with a sweet butter on the side (an eggplant version of the salmon for vegetarians)
  • Roast beef in gravy with cauliflower carrot blend and some kind of grain (DELICIOUS mushroom replacement for the beef)
  • A chicken chili (veggie pepper chili to replace)

Next week I move onto food prep for the meals so it will be an interesting step backwards to see how these meals are created.

Celebrate Catering – Week 3

1/25

This week was a slow one, within the three days I worked we really only had one prominent event so I spent a lot more time in the office. I did get to bartend though so that was fun! Due to us having  a lot of upcoming events next week and the week after, the chefs spent quite a bit of time doing trial and error food for us to taste and discuss. It is interesting how food can entice someone depending on its density, sweetness, dryness, bitterness, etc. My boss has grown keen on perfecting food for clients, for example the chefs made beignets and when I tried the practice batch they tasted amazing but my boss felt they were too similar to donuts, a beignet is light and fluffy. He tried again and when she tasted them they were perfect. Other dishes we tested were a blueberry scone, brownies and a blue cheese scalloped potato medley. With each and every tiny change to the dish, it made it a world different. Crazy how food can do that!

Another exciting component was the discussion of a new seasonal menu, right now the winter menu is in place but as spring approaches, celebrate offers new food that not only aesthetically fits with the season but is currently growing or available. It also a marketing component too, with the rise of interest in “local” and “natural” foods, especially in the portland area, customers really like the idea of the sound of something “seasonal”.

Coming the next couple weeks I will be able to work 1 on 1 with clients so what it seems is I’ll be a sales person for food almost. To market food is a growing interest of mine this quarter, stay tuned!