Weekly Specials, any one?
I am writing this just before I leave (National Association of College and University Food Services) NACUFS on Wednesday. There are so much to do before you takeoff for several days on top of that, we are also doing a presentation on “Weekly Specials, Anyone?” and I need to put thoughts together. It is always nice to share with your peers some of your success stories without being boastful, since we all share a passion of putting students first and providing them with high quality food and friendly service day in and day out. Sure, some dining programs are better than others, but we all have similar challenges and opportunities. Some of my peers say that UMass has a huge volume and they can afford to put more specials on than smaller units. I would say to them is yes we have a large captive audience but it also takes an extra effort to keep our student interested. That’s why weekly specials are so important. Martha, our special events manager, is the key person for rolling out our specials. Some of last term’s special events took several months in planning and the toughest part was to execute them seamlessly. We also set our standards high, and try to keep the specials fresh, innovative and have some surprises as well. One good example was the Visiting College Chef Series this past spring. We had 9 visiting chefs, from 8 schools involved in over a 9 week period. Many students told us that they were the best specials yet. They enjoyed seeing chefs from other schools and most of all, tasting the variety of food and the regional cuisines that came with them; I remember, Chef Nijo Joseph, of Stanford University, who came to Berkshire DC to showcase his talent on Indian cuisine. What a feast! There were 14 choices of Indian items to whet your appetite and I think our food from the Visiting College Chef series rivaled some of the best food in the country. Other guest college chefs kept the bar just as high. The visiting chef specials were so popular that the NY Times had a brief article on it. These are some of the things that we will be talking to with our peers about our weekly specials.
We are now planning the fall specials; there will be some nice surprises, yes, in addition there will always be Restaurant Week, Midnight Buffet, and the Taste of UMass, etc. Let me just give a hint at what is to come. There will be a gourmet Ivy dinner to celebrate the receipt of this prestigious award with guest chefs, entertainment, music and great food. I promise you will enjoy it.
Sustainable Food Supply System
Two weeks ago, I was in Kingston at Queen’s University to attend the Canadian College and University Food Service Association‘s national conference. I always like to go back to Canada to visit old friends and this year was even more special, it happened at my daughter Cally’s school, but one of the things that caught my attention was the focus on issues of sustainability. I attended Dr. David Layzell’s session on sustainable bioeconomy. Not only he is a great speaker, he talked a lot about why are sustainable food systems are important. He suggested that we are in the peak oil production now; we need to conserve our energy. Globally, crop production is a highly intensive operation in both inputs and energy consumption. Of the 10 to 20 percent of the fossil-fuel energy that is used by agricultural operations, 40 percent is indirect energy used in the development of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. There is thus a need to work with natural processes to conserve all resources, minimize waste, and lessen the impact on the environment. He also mentioned several times raising beef is a high energy consumption compared to growing vegetables. We should try to eat less beef and more on vegetables.
The message hit home, with the raising costs of food and fuel, we all need to preserve as much as possible. In other words, we need to cook, to nourish and to sustain now, to preserve for the future.
Ken Toong
Director
Contact Ken at ktoong@mail.aux.umass.edu