Welcome Back!
This week, we are starting to see more and more students visiting the DCs, reminding us that the summer is almost over and in fact, move-in day is this Sunday.
We have had a very busy week thus far; including the RA Resource Fair, international student luncheon, culinary training for our staff and consultation with a visiting chef, a weekly special planning session, plus meetings with our vendors – never a dull moment! Welcome to UMass Dining – a dynamic business.
I just don’t know where the summer went. It seems like we never had enough to plan for everything we wanted to do – at UMass Dining, last year was a hard act to follow. With the opening deadline approaching, there is a synergy about and a realization for all of us that we must get everything ready no matter what.
Our planning for September is complete; we have many great specials with the focus on promoting sustainability. We plan to use as much local produce as possible for the month of September and October. Chef Mai Pham of Lemongrass restaurant in Sacramento will kick off our guest chef series on Sunday at Berkshire. With the election year, we are bringing back the former White House Chef Walter Scheib to prepare both Democrat and Republican recipes for us.
For the Welcome BBQ by the pond, we are hosting our first ever an all “green” BBQ. Menus will be featuring many local items including milk, ice cream, salad and sliders. In case you don’t know what they are, these are diminutive burgers (adapted from a recipe by Alton Brown, host of Food Network”s “Good Eats”) are from Maine. You will like them. There will be local farmers there to greet you. You will not find any bottled water during the BBQ, instead there will be plenty of other beverages. I think it is a great way to show UMass to support sustainability for the first large event and we want to keep going “green” as much as possible.
It was so nice to see some of the familiar faces again and new faces on Tuesday, during lunch. I met several new international grad students from China and they enjoyed the food selections at Berkshire. They seemed to be all in good mood even though they missed home. Our conversations were instantly about the Olympics and the opening ceremony. By looking at their eyes, they are so proud of the accomplishments of China and are also glad to be at UMass too.
Welcome again and we are ready to take care of your dining needs.
Ken Toong
Director
Contact Ken at ktoong@mail.aux.umass.edu