The Super Bowl is today and the sun is nice and bright, and yet I feel a bit of the winter blahs, since my favorite teams are not playing and it’s really pretty chilly outside. This is February, the shortest month of the year and yet seems to be the longest and some call it the cruelest time of the year. It’s a time that’s all about the cold weather and lack of day light. It’s always hard to get out of bed when it’s dark and cold outside. I never was a winter person, after living in Canada for 15 plus year, I should have nothing to complain about. My wife reminds me daily to just bundle up and enjoy the outdoors. I really don’t mind the cold weather, but the wind-chill does get to me; now I wear a hat and a scarf to keep me warm, and I am not complaining as much.

There are many other ways to keep warm, including the use the food and beverages. Last week, when we were in Toronto, Ontario, I noticed just about every other person had a cup of Tim Horton’s coffee in their hand, on their way to work; something just to keep their hands warm perhaps, and believe me, I had three cups in the morning while I was there and I usually drink just one cup of coffee before I go to work.

For UMass Dining, we have several ways to help you beat the weather the winter blahs. Our special event manager Martha has cooked up several events just for you. Hopefully, these events give us all something to look forward to and provide a means to socialize with others and invigorate ourselves.

We just ended Black History Month with a special that featured great dishes such as Peanut Soup, Dora Watt, Carthaginian Flank Steak to Sweet Potato Pies; I tried a little of each and every one of them and they were delicious! – we will try to roll out more Soul Food and African dishes next year.

1. This week we will have a New England Harvest Dinner on Wednesday night, featuring many comfort foods from local free-range turkey, cod and squash, etc. My favorite will be the Strawberry Short Cake made with local frozen strawberries. Don’t miss it.
2. Be Mine Valentine Special will be on Sunday, February 14, 2010. You will enjoy the chocolate fondue, red velvet cake and more chocolate cake, plus a chance to win a gift basket for your loved one.
3. Chinese New Year Special will be on Feb 16, just two days after the Valentine’s Special. We will celebrate the Year of Tiger with an array of 12 gourmet dishes from Peking Duck, Suckling Pig, Shrimp with Cashew, Spicy Orange Chicken, Longevity Noodles, etc. You will all be able to eat like a “King”, not to mention, to enjoy the Lion Dance and some Lucky Money.
4. Frost Your Own Cupcake will be back on February 24, with Dede Wilson as the guest chef. This is always one of the most popular specials.
5. The Dine and Win Contest will start on February 15; with a chance to win a flight for you and your guest to fly anywhere in the Continental North America, plus, $500 spending money. The winners will be announced on March 5, just in time to enjoy the Spring Break. This promotion is a partnership with Coke and UMass Dining; all UMass students are eligible to enter.
6. The Visiting College Chef Series will resume at Berkshire with 4 schools. This time it will be more of an Iron Chef-like competition and the students will decide the winners. You will be able to sample cuisines from four regions of the country and each school’s favorite.

Watch for more information through facebook, website, fliers and ads. It is going to be an exciting time, with super weeks ahead, and before you know it, it will be spring time. We look forward to celebrating the arrival of spring, and then I can finally pack up my complaints, about the cold winter weather.

This is Ken Toong and thank you for keeping UMass Dining at the top.

Ken Toong
Director

Contact Ken at ktoong@mail.aux.umass.edu

You can follow Ken Toong on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/KenToong

I was in Toronto this past weekend to visit my mother in the hospital; she had a major surgery and is on the road to recovery.
Between the hospital visits, I was able to sneak into the Pacific Mall, billed as the largest indoor Asian mall in North America. It is a shopping attraction that incorporates a traditional Pacific-style market with 400 stores, selling a large variety of retail goods as well as herbs, prepared Chinese foods and entertainment.

In case you have never been to Toronto, it is the largest city in Canada and one of the most multicultural cities in the world. There are 6 Chinese districts alone in the metro Toronto area, with a population of close to 6 million.

While at the mall with my nephew, Tim, he was interested in getting ice cream; I was more interested in getting to the food court to see the latest food trends and to have something to eat, as it was almost noon. There were 40 plus eateries in the mall and I was looking for a quick bite and something different than the usual fare. We walked around several times and found several juice bars featuring iced tea, bubble tea, and blended fruits but we are not in mood for juice. Finally we came across some stations with everything from BBQ duck, noodles, and dumplings, to stir fry. It was so busy, people were everywhere and we tried to find a table first before we ordered.

We finally settled for a place called Shark’s Fin City and ordered beef brisket with steamed rice, and Tim ordered BBQ duck with steamed rice too. I simply love beef brisket with noodles – it makes a great snack. It took less than 5 minutes before my order arrived and it also came with a Coke for $5.50 plus tax. The food was good and hot, in a small 6” container, just right for lunch. We finished our food in very tight quarters and ate fast. We also had to share the table with two other people; we did not mind because as we were just glad to have somewhere to sit.

While we were eating we heard a big bang from a one of the noodle shops near us. We walked over and saw the owner Ken, using martial (as much as culinary) arts, in his made-to-order hand-pulled noodle demonstration at the front of the store. He slapped the dough, and pulled it along, yielding many delicate noodles. It was a unique form of art as much as an experience for the customers. I thought about inviting him to UMass for a demonstration. Sure, I wanted to try his fresh noodles but there was too long a line up to wait.

At last, at the insistence of Tim, we stopped by his favorite ice cream shop, Yutopia; it turned out to be a build-it-yourself, non-fat frozen yogurt, with fresh toppings. My nephew finally got what he craved and was very happy. I told him that he can come to UMass and have something like this daily.

The whole dining experience reminded me of my childhood, eating at a busy street corner in Hong Kong; only now the food is in smaller portions, much healthier. . . and only as far away as Canada.

This is Ken Toong and thank you for keeping UMass Dining at the top.

Ken Toong
Director

Contact Ken at ktoong@mail.aux.umass.edu

You can follow Ken Toong on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/KenToong

Last week, I was at the Culinary Institute of America’s St. Helena campus, in Napa, California, for the 6th annual “Worlds of Flavors” invitational conference, co-sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health. There were five university representatives (Stanford, Iowa, Harvard, Texas A&M and UMass) in attendance, along with around 100 foodservice operators, chefs, nutritionists, dieticians, and foodservice suppliers, from MacDonalds, and the US Air Force, to the Whole Fruit Market. This is always one of my favorite conferences because of the content, the location, and the chance get into the kitchen to work with famed chefs. This time we had far from perfect weather, in fact it rained the whole time we were there. But our job was to learn from the experts and share knowledge, so there was nothing to complain about.

Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition, and chairman of the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health; set the tone of the conference by his opening remarks, that Americans face an epidemic of diet-linked adverse health conditions and chronic diseases, from obesity and type 2 diabetes, to heart disease and various cancers. It is vital to our nation’s public health that the foodservice industry accelerate current efforts to expand healthy menu choices. Although progress has been made especially in getting rid of transfat, we still have a long way to go in other areas. During the last several years, the conference focused on reducing portion sizes, promoting the consumption of the good carbohydrate such as whole grains, made the vegetables the center of the plate, encouraged sodium reduction and staying away from sugary beverages.

It was an action-packed conference that began in the morning and ran until the early evening. There were chef demonstrations, and workshop topics, that included inspiration for healthy menu development, panel discussions and presentations, from research scientists, on calories reduction, nutrition labeling, carbohydrate quality, and sodium and health. Since science is constantly evolving, each year we pick up new information and ideas from attending the conference.

Some of the take-home messages from this year’s conference:
1. Percentage of calories from fat is not important; diets high in fat do not appear to be the primary cause of the high prevalence of excess body fat in our society
2. When aiming to reduce calories, focus mainly on reducing refined starch and sugar
3. Importance of saturated fat has been overstated; reducing red meat is beneficial
4. Consume no more than 1500 mg of sodium ( 1 teaspoon) per day
5. Obtain sugar from natural sources (ie. fruit) and limit usage of concentrated sugar
6. New science study links sugary drinks to a higher rate of heart disease
7. Exercising one half an hour a day is important

On the last day of the conference, we all went into kitchen to prepare meals with 2 oz of protein per person. Let me tell you, the food was delicious and it was fun to use more vegetables and fruit-based recipes.

I encourage you to get onboard the train of healthy eating. It has already left the station; are you ready to come along?

This is Ken Toong and thank you for keeping UMass Dining at the top.

Ken Toong
Director

Contact Ken at ktoong@mail.aux.umass.edu

You can follow Ken Toong on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/KenToong

Welcome back – we’ve been waiting for you. This week, Chancellor Holub presented a Climate Action Plan (CAP) to the university community on efforts already taken to combat global climate change and how the campus community will work as a unit to fulfill the goal of the carbon neutrality, as we move toward a more sustainable future. UMass Dining is taking an active role and has been involved from the beginning, as a member of the Environmental Performance Advisory Committee (EPAC) that compiled the CAP. Our EPAC food committee is probably one of the most active subcommittees on campus, with half of its members being students. Perhaps the interest in being part of the committee has something to do with their interest in food, as food does affect everyone’s lives. We had a tight deadline to meet and were given 6 weeks to come up a plan. Our goal is to achieve carbon neutrality for UMA in all food-related areas while feeding and educating our community about sustainable food issues. The committee shared UMass Dining’s mission of serving food in the most sustainable manner and also included in the report what UMass Dining is doing now, as a starting point to improve upon.

With over 14,000 students on the meal plan and being the third largest dining program in the country, we feel that food can play a vital role of supporting this lofty goal of climate neutrality on campus and we also want to take a national leadership role in doing so. We have a good baseline to work from but feel that there are so many opportunities for us to enhance our performance. We talked about growing organic food on campus, not just in the spring and summer, but throughout the year in a greenhouse, purchasing more food from student-run farms and increasing the percentage of local food purchases from 25% to 28% in the next two years. There were discussions about reducing and eliminating the use of water bottles on campus within 5 years or sooner. As the chair of the committee, I was most impressed with the passion and energy of the members. We know what we are doing now is just a beginning; to attain carbon neutrality is a mammoth task and will require everyone on campus to become involved.

One of the shining examples of efforts in sustainability for UMass Dining, was going trayless last September; it was a smooth transition and the majority of students overwhelmingly embraced the idea and were eager to take part. We had little opposition; every though students enjoy the convenience of using the trays, they were smart enough to know it was part of efforts to reduce food waste and to save water and reduce the use of chemical by not having to wash trays. Although we are still waiting for the outcome from the Waste Management Office, our preliminary results indicate food waste has decreased by 20%; this is significant considering we have close to 4 million visits at the DCs annually.

Another great example is what UMass Dining did last semester to reduce the greenhouse emissions, was to switch to using a prime vendor located in Springfield, which is only 25 minutes away, instead of using one that was an hour and half away in Connecticut – not to mention creating jobs locally, since we are the largest single customer in the Northeast for this company.

This semester we will be switching to compostable cutlery at all retail locations and promoting the use of reusable bags for the grab-and-go operations.

We know there is so much we can do to support the environment and with your help, we can accomplish some of the goals of achieving a greener UMass even faster. Please share your ideas with us on going green at UMass Dining.

This is Ken Toong and thank you for keeping UMass Dining at the top.

Ken Toong
Director

Contact Ken at ktoong@mail.aux.umass.edu

You can follow Ken Toong on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/KenToong

I think most of you would agree in time, starting this week and over the next two weeks, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”, with no school, no exams, shopping for love ones and holiday cheer. Here at UMass Dining, our staff are getting a much-deserved holiday break; besides the essential staff, most of them will have some time off too. Our staff holiday party is this Tuesday and it is always one of my favorite events.

We are already working on the menu for the spring and will plan the weekly specials next. Our goal is to continue to improve and offer an even stronger dining program, with some surprises thrown in for excitement.

I will be home with my family to celebrate the holiday season; the tree is up and the house decorated. I will be the chief cook again and am still planning the menu. As Canadians, my family is thinking about having Traditional Turkey, but I always want to prepare something different. We will be joining two other families for dinner, so I might have to compromise and cook a turkey. But one thing for sure, is that I can always count on my daughters, to take charge when it comes to shopping, and for that I am lucky, as I am not much of a shopper.

It has been a great year for UMass Dining with double digit growth and highest customer rating during these economically challenging times. There are so many people to thank for to helping to make UMass Dining what it’s today. Our staff, our managers, other university departments, our supply chain vendors and also our customers; all work together to make things happen.

Cheers to all of you and your family.

This is Ken Toong and thank you for keeping UMass Dining at the top.

Ken Toong
Director

Contact Ken at ktoong@mail.aux.umass.edu

You can follow Ken Toong on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/KenToong