Category: Project Weekly

Growing Gardens – Week 3

1/23

This weeks work started in the office of course. I attended a 1 o clock mini presentation on mason bees, which I never actually heard of until this week! The speaker was a bee enthusiast who emphasized the importance in bees and educated groups in the PNW on native bees. I’ve always been familiar with honey bees or wasps, but she described mason bees as “the kind that won’t ruin your picnic”. They are small, black, do not sting unless absolutely necessary and my favorite fact was that they do not have just 1 queen bee, all females are queens and all males are worker bees! What a life. We also looked at other native bees and some are quite literally green which blew my mind. The picture below is a chart that explains the mason bee life cycle. You can quite literally keep the larva in your fridge (Growing Gardens already had some in theirs I got to look at) until it’s time for them to “blossom”.

After, I visited Glenfair where the focus was seeds! While we had a set schedule in mind, every.single.kid had the most energy I’ve seen in weeks so to explain seeds to them was nearly impossible (to be fair it was movie night at the school, they were pumped) so we ran them outside until their energy went down:

  • 3 – 3:30 – Second lunch
  • 3:30 – 3:45 – Circle time
  • 3:45 – 4:15 – Recess/games
  • 4:15 – 4:30 – Seed matching activity
  • 4:30 – 5:15 – Popcorn!

The seed matching activity involved the students matching packets of seeds to a seed board while they guess which each seed is, they surprisingly did well! Very familiar with seeds, except the corn seeds which was funny because they looked like corn too. Once I asked them what the seed looked like they knew exactly what it was. We took so long on the popcorn because we had several groups of students actually take the kernels off cobs we collected and then popped the seeds that came off so they could actually see where popcorn comes from. They loved popping the popcorn and when they got their little bowls we asked them what seasonings they wanted on theirs. The options were: Chili, thyme and nutritional yeast. Almost all the students refused to try the chili until I put a little pile in their bowl to dip in, after that they were begging for chili, it was so cute.

 

Farm to Fit – Week 2

1/21/18

This week was another one spent packing the food. For my 5 hours there, we were able to pack about 5-6 meals. Now, this company emphasizes in making delicious food, the owner even said this when I got hired on, and they definitely deliver. As we packed the food I was able to sample things here and there and every. last. product was so good! Meals were organized by; boost, paleo, 1200 cal, 1600 cal, 2000 cal, and vegetarian. Customers have the ability to substitute parts of their meals such as no nuts, switch seafood for chicken, no mushroom, ect. The meals were:

  • Glazed pork, barley, and chard
  • Sole with a hazelnut cream sauce, garlic squash , pumpkin seeds and greens
  • Chicken with a type of gravy, greens and rice mix (vegetarians subbed eggplant for chicken)
  • Chicken stew type mix with oranges and a bacon orange saute salad
  • Chicken on salad greens with red peppers, black beans, cheese and carrots
  • Omelets with hash potato side

To pack these meals the process went as so (about 6-10 people working on it together):

  1. Sanitize tables and trays – lay trays out
  2. Place food bowls on trays by category
  3. Fill each bowl accordingly by weight
  4. Lid each bowl and place nutrition sticker on top
  5. Mark the bowls with differing color sharpies for an easy way to decipher
  6. Place trays in walk-in
  7. Sanitize each table and repeat

I got to know the workers a lot better this week so I asked loads of questions. I was very pleased on Farm to Fit’s initiatives to be sustainable. They recently set their goal of food waste to be 6% or below. They have two composting bins for leftover foods (not sure what’s done with it). The food that is extra after we plate the food is either: distributed as extra on the plate if there is a smaller amount, if there is a larger quantity left, they save it for workers to take home, they compost or donate their food. They also just recently switched supervision of their food health to a new organization (ODA) and are super adamant on no cross-contaminating since so much food is being distributed. They sanitize after quite literally everything they do.

Another fun fact is that they have monthly meetings on new menu ideas where chefs can do presentations on a new recipe. If the owners like it they will buy it off their employee!

On another note!

After I finished up my hours at Farm to Fit I decided to make my own little research excursion to a grocery store I drive by everytime I go home called Natural Grocers. It may be a chain but I was unfamiliar with it and because my interest this quarter is in the marketing aspect of “natural” food for a growing business, I stopped in! It reminded me a lot of a co-op with only natural-esc type products. Not per se too local because there were products from South America, Mexico or Ireland, but all were fair-trade or from non-profit organizations. BUT, everything that was local was clearly labeled as you will see in the pictures down below, usually in bright letters saying “from Oregon”. They also carried only organic produce and free nutrition classes.


Celebrate Catering – Week 2

1/20/18

The past three days have been spent specifically in at the catering event center setting up banquets and helping clients. Wednesday was a packed day with event after event after event, I worked a 10 hour shift! My field supervisor who has been out of town finally came in, so there was a lot to learn. In terms of sustainability, when this catering company has so many back to back events, reuse is very important in terms of saving time and reducing waste. For example, when planning such close events, we tried to keep meals for each event similar to each other so the same products are being utilized completely (salads, steaks, charcuterie). Ways to go about this is presenting certain menu items to clients and swaying their mind towards it. Another benefit of similar menus is when one food product isn’t brought out for the client because their party ate enough, that food can be put towards the next event.

Thursday was an easier day, much of what I did was setting up for events and spending time in the office working on putting my own events together, then having my supervisor review it for adjustments. For example, catered events not at our event center needs food that is easy to transfer and produces the least amount of waste all while fitting the clients needs. They have such an extensive menu that the options are endless.

Friday didn’t have any events, rather we spent part of the day preparing rooms for a wedding reception Saturday. The other half of the day was again spent in the office putting together my own events for clients to be reviewed. I discussed with my supervisor the recent meeting that I will be attending with her on implementing new composting plans to reduce food waste which I am excited for! If we don’t take the leftover food from events, it is quite a bit of food waste that piles up for landfills which kills me. I also overheard a meeting with the chefs on a recent event menu they are preparing for, my supervisor was really pushing for local and sustainable food to be bought, such as locally caught salmon.

Saturday was basically catering to the wedding reception, which was beautiful! We emphasized on food presentation, I’m learning that the way you set up food and the order actually influences how the clients will eat the food. This is important in a sense that it can reduce food that the client doesn’t eat. The bride’s father is affiliated with our company, so the mass amount of food leftover was basically given to us. My supervisor said we either toss what’s not eaten or you take it. I packed several bags of food and a whole entire carafe of hot chocolate for home. The best part about reducing waste in my new job is I am basically the new garbage can for the food.

Growing Gardens – Week 2

1/16/18

This week started out at 12:30 pm in the Growing Gardens office beginning with a check in meeting. This meeting included weekly updates, highlights and ideas to be shared. Another intern and I were just sitting in listening while 3 garden instructors had a discussion, it was similar to an Evergreen-esc format of a seminar. After the meeting, until about 2:45 pm, I went over curriculum for the day with my garden instructor and laminated cards for a plant activity later. Hitting 3 pm, we were at Glenfair with a schedule as such:

  • Second lunch – 3 to 3:30 pm
  • Circle time – 3:30 to 3:45
  • Recess – 3:45 to 4:05
  • Garden time – 4:05 to 4:30
  • Art/crafts and tasting lab – 4:30 to 5:00

The focus today was how plants grow and anatomy. Circle time was fun because we had the kids act out how a plant grows. They started as seeds on the ground with the lights off, we put fake soil on them (a brown blanket), spritzed them with water, had them slowly stand up as we turned on the light (sunlight) and had them spring up like a plant, it was adorable. After recess we went into the garden to use the mystery box. This included and covered box with a hole for the kids to put their hands in. They would feel for what was inside the box without seeing it and have the classmates guess what they were touching. Our mystery items were a root, a flower and a leaf. They thought it was funny to guess if there was a chicken inside of the box… oh boy.

To round out the day, we went inside to start arts/crafts which included using cards to organize the stages of a plant, seed to flower. They were really good at it! The next activity was to take cut up vegetables we brought (cauliflower, broccoli, red pepper, carrots, celery and sunflower seeds) and match them up on a piece of paper that resembled a flower. For example, broccoli and cauliflower would be the petals, celery the stem, carrots as roots and etc. You can see what I mean in my picture in this post or my instagram! After, kids got to eat their veggies with a yogurt dip we made. All in all, they surprisingly loved the veggies (a little scared of the peppers until they tried them), it was funny, some kids called them gross before they tried them and when I had them just try a little, some loved it!

Farm to Fit – Week 1

1/14/18

To finish off my first week, I spent my day at Farm to Fit to do the packaging component of the products (my 10 weeks will be split doing several packaging weekings, several delivery, some in the kitchen and ending on nutrition data). Getting there at 7 am, I was put to work doing data entries for the first four hours. These entries included every customers delivery information and whether or not they returned their last orders bag. From what I understood from asking questions, each order is placed in a bag, when Farm to Fit delivers a new meal, the customer is supposed to have their previous order’s bag sitting out. This way Farm to Fit can re-use rather than waste. The data I was inputting recorded if they returned the bag, and if they did not, how many bags have they kept since they began ordering, these entries are done for every week. I recorded one entry that had up to 17 bags they have not returned! I was not able to ask, but what type of bags are these? What does Farm to Fit do if somebody never returns their bags?

What I found interesting from doing these entries is Farm to Fit delivers as far as Hillsboro, considering they are in NorthEast Portland it can be up to an hour drive depending on traffic. They deliver in their Hybrid Electric Pruis’s.

My final hour today was helping package the actual food in little plastic bowls, similar to tupperware. Meals were organized by type, so paleo, vegetarian, 1200 cal diet, 1600 cal diet, 2000 cal diet, dairy free and gluten free. Each component that went into the bowl (we were making a breakfast scramble) was weighed out to an exact number, these numbers ranged depending on diet restriction. This way, chefs know how to make the perfect amount of food without waste. I am curious if customers re-use these tupperware, recycle them, return them, or just throw them away?

Side note: Another common theme I’m noticing is Farm to Fit as well markets very sustainable forward but in reality it has become a lot harder to stick with, especially considering the winter season and lack of producing farms. A parallel to keep in mind between Celebrate and Farm to Fit

Celebrate Catering – Week 1

1/13/18

This week was spent learning the ropes of what it takes to run a catering company, which is a lot more intricate than I anticipated. I spent time learning to set up for banquets, scheduling clients and also went to work at the company’s partner bistro on George Fox University campus. Some of my work for catering included organizing rooms to suit 50+ people, making food sit on tables in an aesthetically pleasing way and working with clients needs to find the the perfect banquet format fit. I particularly liked working on the bistro as it included making sandwiches, salads (such as the “NW mixed green salad”) and espresso drinks for stressed out Master’s students (they drink a lot of espresso).

The relevancy to this internship work to my academia is becoming more intricate than I anticipated. For a company that “markets” as sustainable as they do, it’s actually more of a work in progress than an entire truth. Some sustainable accepts I’m seeing are providing a seasonal menu for clients, so right now they have their seasonal winter menu involving roasted root vegetables and NorthWest salmon. The bistro and catering company as a whole does small practices to reduce their waste, so recycling left over materials from banquets and bringing leftover food to the homeless population downtown that my manager works with.

Some sustianable practices they’d like to work towards is composting. They struggle with how to keep the food concleaned and not smelly so customers won’t be turned off (they actually hired me to help implement ideas like this). I convinced the bistro manager to start a composting bin and she did! We felt too guilty throwing out food, she will be using the compost in her own farm. Unfortunately since it’s not growing season, the Catering company and bistro are not using as many vegetables/fruits as they used to in the summer and fall from the farm. I hope to continue ways to help them find more sustainable solutions to little fixes, so stay tuned!

A new topic I’d like to look into this quarter that I’m trying to find readings for is the idea of marketing a company as “sustainable” or “natural” to appeal to customers. In reality it can be very hard or costly for companies to stay true to that word. Why do customers feel much safer hearing/seeing those aspects although it may not be 100% true?

Growing Gardens – Week 1

1/9/18

First day of interning went well! I started off in the office at Growing Gardens at 12 pm where I went over the curriculum for the day to be used at Glenfair with Sasha, the Garden Coordinator. I also will be doing weekly office work, today that included planting Paperwhite to be used in the classroom. The students will measure each week how far the Paperwhite grows. Other office work was to tediously peel crayons used for a project later that day with the students. When office work was finished up, I read “Portland School Garden Assessment” by Anna Garwood, Pesha Wasserstrom, Scott Logan and Stephanie Steeves. This pdf was a study of local Portland school gardens on their use, funding, community involvement and importance. It was good background information for how impactful farm to school programs have become.

At 2:30 pm I headed over to Glenfair Elementary to begin working with the students. Our schedule went:

  • 3pm – Students eat “second” lunch
  • 3:30 pm – Head to the classroom to do circle time
  • 3:45 pm – Recess
  • 4:00 pm – Scavenger hunt in the garden
  • 4:30 pm – Head back to the classroom to do leaf prints of leaves the students collected outside
  • 4:45 pm – Apple and yogurt tasting lab
  • 5:00 pm – Students head home and begin clean up

We worked with 2nd graders which was exciting but their attention spans only last so long so today I learned how to keep them busy while still learning. The scavenger hunt in the garden entailed students partnering up and identifying different plants as “soft” “hard” or “dead” “alive”. We went over what they found and they compared their findings with their peers. Ending on a food lab was fun because the students looked forward to it the most and absolutely loved the apples, some begging for the recipe for the cinnamon, honey yogurt we mixed!