howzit?

today was my last official day of my primary food service rotation! it's bittersweet as i really enjoyed working with every single person at the dining hall. it was a great group and being able to jump in and try everything from making omelettes (i was known as omelette girl for awhile, and only b/c i had a fallen flip), eggs to order, inventory in -10 F, and food prepping in bulk. but it's been great talking to and meeting all the employees. i would go just for fun (if i can pass on all the cleaning part. haha). definitely some challenges learning to speak up for myself, asking questions, and a huge learning curve (still not sure i quite get anything). and of course, getting some amazing food.

and nothing like ending good food on my meal project day with Global Chef South Africa. all week i've been helping with food prep and preparation for the big meal tonight, but a lot of other South African dishes were sampled over the week so those had to be created too.

technically, the only part of the menu i created was finding the recipe for the iced tea (which i got two thumbs up from the south african chef! whoohoo). but got to help make pretty much everything else.

got to spend part of the morning spiking pieces of fruit into a pineapple tree display. it was a pretty awesome looking thing- pineapples stacked on a dowel, then spiked with strawberries, cantaloupe and honeydew that people could then take to eat. i liked it better when some of the pineapple was showing, but we had to cover the whole thing. and of course during the chaos of the evening and trying to get some food i end up eating a cantaloupe from the tree and forget it has pineapple juice (my tongue is still itchy...).

one display i set up

i'm pretty proud of this idea i came up with. i got a lot of animals printed at the school campus print shop and then cut them out. they were then spray glued to a light canvas drop cloth on a homemade frame and lit (there's three sides of images) with a construction lamp with three different colors.

i think i got most of the food pictures for you guys during training, so i grabbed a couple of ones i helped prep. mandolin-ing (spelling? can you even make it a verb? haha) 4 cases of taro roots with one other person yesterday was uber fun, but these taro chips came out amazing! so yummy! not that i would do that again.

two great things about these butternut squash and avocado wraps, not only did i get a chance to talk to someone i never really had before, but they were close enough to the iced tea stand i was manning that i could nibble on 50 million (good thing we rolled like 200 of these things, so freaking delicious, but i wanted some feta in it). they were displayed on tiered marble squares on the V-top in the center of the dining hall (off to the side of the shadow box display thingy.

we got african animals in the front area of the dining hall! this little hedgehog was so petrified of all the kids who wanted to hold and touch him. cutest little thing ever! there was also a scorpion, cockroach (not sure why you need to display one of those...), turtle, tortoise, and a fox.

so happy it's all over! but now at least i know how to prep for 1000+ people...haha, yeah right! i'll stick to planning and executing thanksgiving for the fam :)


*howzit= South African informal greeting