Experience of a Lifetime

On Tuesday, Jeff La Magra and I were invited by Stahlbush Farms to tour their processing plant and biogas energy plant.  Stahlbush farms which is located just the other side of the Willamette River is the national leader in sustainable agriculture and food production.  Their biogas plant is the first of its kind in North America and generates enough electricity to provide service to 1100 homes by digesting the vegetable waste from its processing plant to create gas used to heat their plant and power generators to generate electricity.  We had a very interesting tour and as we continue to reach out to local farmers and ranchers to supply food for the 9500+ meals we prepare and serve every day, it made me think about a question we received the other day about how we go about purchasing the foods we use.

A few years ago we made a conscious decision to build our meal plan program around culinary excellence.  We recruited and eventually were successful in hiring Jeff La Magra who serves as our Director of Culinary Development.  Jeff heads a culinary faculty made up of our registered dietician, Tara Sanders; David Lewis and Dale Lawson at McNary Dining; Shakoda Hill at Marketplace West; and Bruce Hoerauf and Nathan McClure of Arnold Center and OSU Catering.  This creative team of culinarians works with local brokers, vendors, farmers, and ranchers to product test, evaluate and purchase the highest quality ingredients available.  We have an inventory of 7000-8000 food items in stock at any one time and over 450 items on our menus available on any given day.  It takes several vendors to supply all of our needs in order for us to provide our residents with the wide variety of choices available each day.

We buy locally when possible because we believe this is in alignment with the land grant mission of OSU.  We also know locally grown foods are generally fresher, of higher quality, last longer, support the local farm economy, and help in reducing our carbon footprint.  Our apples and pears come from Riverwood Orchard and Farms, much of our beef comes from Country Natural Beef, pork from local farms, lamb from Rainsheep Farms, berries from Willamette Fruit, bread from Williams Bakery, milk and dairy products from Spring Valley Dairy, cheeses from Tillamook and Rogue Valley and other local creameries, gelato from a gelaterria in Eugene, and a wide variety of other wonderful products from local businesses.

We use the power of a national Group Purchasing Organization, HPSI/CURB to ensure that we get the best pricing for the products we specify and we negotiate directly with national manufacturers to provide deviated pricing and marketing allowances which help reduce the cost of food to the students we serve by tens of thousands of dollars each year.  Our grocery bill is roughly $5 million per year and we serve approximately 2 million meals per year.  To prepare and serve those meals we employ nearly 100 full time staff members and about 600 part-time student employees.

Your thoughts, ideas, suggestions and questions are always welcome.  Please don’t hesitate to call me or email me.

Best regards,

Rich Turnbull

Associate Director

University Housing And Dining Services

Richard.turnbull@oregonstate.edu

541-737-0689

This week on November 18^th, UHDS will be hosting Taste of the Mediterranean at Marketplace West.  The event is a celebration of the cuisines and cultures of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.  It’s a menu as diverse as the area – we’ll have a variety of items from Spain, Greece, France, Italy, Morocco, and the Middle East.

Join us for this cultural celebration on Wednesday, November 18^th from 5-8 p.m.  Along with the extensive menu prepared by our talented culinary staff, we will enjoy live flamenco dancing by Portland Flamenco.  Tickets are available in advance at any UHDS dining center for $8 or at the door the evening of the event.  Marketplace West is located on the west end of campus, on Jefferson and 30^th Street.

Taste of the Mediterranean Menu

Spain

Calamari Frito

Green Beans in a Coriander Tomato Sauce

Paella (a regional Spanish rice dish cooked in a flat round pan) with chicken, sausage and shrimp

France

Ratatouille (French vegetable stew)

Snapper Provencal

Roasted Fennel with Orange and Kalamata Olives

Grilled Polenta

French Baguette

Italy

Bruschetta (toasted bread rounds) four ways – with tomatoes, garlic and basil, olive tapenade, goat cheese spread or caponata (eggplant salad)

Antipasto (cured meats and assorted cheeses) with marinated olives, pickled carrots, onion, peppers and cauliflower

Margharita Pizza (pizza with fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil)

Gnocchi (small dumplings) with basil pesto and Italian sausage

Vegetarian Wild Mushroom Ravioli

Greece

Dolmas (stuffed grape leaves)

Baba Ganouj (mashed seasoned eggplant) and Hummus with pita bread

Greek salad with Feta cheese, olives, tomato and cucumber

Moussaka (sautéed eggplant with tomato, peppers and ground beef)

Fried Pumpkin Patties

Middle East

Flatbread

Tabbouleh (bulghar wheat salad with parsley, lemon, garlic and cucumber)

Middle Eastern Lamb Stew

Lebanese Spinach with Carrots

Basmati Rice

Morocco & North Africa

Chicken Tagine and Vegan Tagine (braised slow cooked stew) with olives and preserved lemons

Garlic Shrimp

Moroccan Cauliflower

Toasted Moroccan Cous Cous

Dessert

Baklava (layered phyllo dough with chopped nuts and honey)

Apricot Compote with Pistachio

Cannoli

Sables cookies (French butter cookies)

Fruit Platter with a variety of melon and grapes and dried apricots, dates, currants and figs

I receive many inquiries about sustainability and our sustainable practices at Dining Services.  Sustainability has a variety of meanings.  Sometimes it’s used to refer to environmental concerns.  Sometimes it’s used to refer to nutrition and healthy food choices.  Sometimes it’s used to refer to social and ethical concerns around food production.  I tend to look at it from the perspective of, “What do I have control over and how can Dining Services purchasing and menu decisions impact the overall health of the OSU community while at the same time not becoming the Food Dictator?”

Fortunately OSU has taken a strong lead in sustainability issues and I’ve had the opportunity to speak in a variety of forums on sustainable practices in college food service.  While I’m flattered to be asked to speak, that doesn’t make me an expert.  It is something that I care about and continue to learn about and my opinions and beliefs have changed over time.

But let me share with you some of the things we are doing.  For the past several years we have been involved in composting pre-consumer waste.  This is food waste like damaged lettuce leaves that are removed prior to cleaning and chopping lettuce for the salad bars.  It includes carrot peels and all vegetable waste that occurs during the production of the over 2 million meals we prepare and serve each year.  For several years we have been requesting the opportunity to compost post-consumer waste which involves composting food and bio-degradeable food containers.  The regulations governing post-consumer waste are very strict.  The concern has to do with introducing human pathogens back into the soil and potentially resulting in contamination of food grown in that soil.  However, Allied Waste, our local garbage collector, has a composting program and we are working with them on a trial basis doing post-consumer waste composting at Marketplace West.  This has the potential of removing a significant amount of waste from the landfill as well as for providing local farmers with a nutrient rich source of compost for organic crops.

As part of this research we are converting our to-go containers to bio-degradeable products.  We are working with a local Corvallis company, Ecnow Tech, to provide and develop products for the food service industry.  This process of conversion will take place over a few years as there are still some product solutions that need to be developed.

Another area where I receive lots of questions has to do with shrinking our carbon footprint by buying locally.  We buy our beef from Country Natural Beef and other local ranches.  We also buy our pork and lamb from local ranchers.  The vast majority of our dairy products are Oregon products.  Our bread is local.  Much of our produce is grown locally, especially products we serve during the Oregon growing season.  Our first priority in purchasing is to buy local when possible, and organic when cost effective and practical.  Even if products like coffee are grown at significant distances from Corvallis we work with local roasters like Allann Brothers and Starbucks who utilize fair trade practices.

There’s lots of other stuff we are doing, so if you have questions don’t hesitate to shoot me and email or give me a call.

Best regards,

Rich Turnbull

Associate Director

University Housing And Dining Services

Richard.turnbull@oregonstate.edu

541-737-0689

Hello Everyone!

I hope everyone had a good and fun Halloween weekend. College has really been going by fast. I am already looking for my new classes and seeing my advisor to talk about my career path. My life in Finley Hall has been really fun and has been a whole new experience. Living here is like gaining a whole new family, who helps you through the ups and downs of college. The resident director, J, and the resident assistant’s have really done a great job putting on events for us.

During the weekdays they have two separate rooms where we can hangout, do homework, play ping-pong or pool, or just watching some movies. They also have a piano, who some people decide to play and helps relax you during stressful times, like midterms. For academics and knowledge about global issues they hold tutoring sessions, awareness talks, and many other resources where you can get the most from your college.

During the weekends the hall council, who are students, makes decision on what happens during the weekends. There are Halloween and Southside dances, sport events, movie nights, and this weekend they are making all sorts of pancakes, which we get to eat watching cartoons J. It can’t get any better than that. It is just like home sweet home. Events like these also provide a chance for you to make new bonds with people whom you have not met yet.

Well I hope you all have a good weekend!

-Lizeth

Last week I talked about budget issues and the resulting change in hours.  After listening to a number of queries from customers we made some adjustments to those hours which were implemented on Monday.  In addition to customer feedback about dining hours, we also hear much feedback about the need for nutrition information in our dining centers.  This fall we have begun posting calorie information on menu boards, as well as posting full nutrition labels online for our regular menu items.  We are presently working on updating the nutritional information for all items on our menus, which are posted on the web at  http://oregonstate.edu/uhds/dining/menus/

Tara Sanders, the Registered Dietician for University Housing and Dining Services, will be working over the next several months to continue to update the nutrition information on the website.

I thought you might be interested in what we’ve seen in purchases this year compared to last.  While there are many factors that influence a purchasing decision, and I don’t pretend to claim that the posting of calories has impacted buying habits, it is possible that it has.  Here are last year’s top ten purchases compared to this year’s top ten purchases (in order of popularity):

Last year

1. Deli Sandwiches
2. Pizza
3. Stir Fry
4. Calzini’s
5. Teriyaki Chicken
6. Scrambled Eggs
7. Cereal
8. Chicken Strips
9. Cheese burger
10. Bacon Cheeseburger

This year

1. Deli Sandwiches
2. Pizza
3. Calzini’s
4. Breakfast Burrito
5. Scrambled Eggs
6. Stir Fry
7. Cheeseburger
8. Teriyaki Chicken
9. Chicken Strips
10. Bacon Cheeseburger

This also makes me wonder if there is some phenomenal item you’d like to see on the menu that we aren’t serving or if you have a recipe for something you would like for us to prepare.  Our culinary team meets twice a month and are continually working on new products, new recipes, watching trends in the restaurant industry, and trying to bring to campus the latest ideas in food trends.  If you have a recipe idea, please share that with us.  We are developing a Recipe From Home contest and any recipes you submit now, we’ll hang on to and enter into the contest later if you’d like us to.  Also, if you have thoughts on the posting of nutrition information, we’d like to hear that also.  It will help shape our decision making as we move forward to provide more information on the products we serve.

Best regards,

Rich Turnbull

Associate Director

University Housing And Dining Services

541-737-0689

I live on campus in Callahan Hall; I like that everybody is real social and friendly. Corvallis is way different than from where I grew up. The weather in Corvallis is different because it rains a lot. Where I come from, Nyssa, it is hot and dry in the summers and in the winter it is really cold. In Nyssa it doesn’t rain often, I guess rain in Nyssa is like snow here in Corvallis. When it snows here in Corvallis people’s reaction is like “Oh it’s snowing? WOW!” and rain in Nyssa is vice versa. I miss my mom’s cooking, Mexican food.  I found a good place that is on fourth street called “La Rockita,” I eat lunch there on Saturdays. I usually order a chicken Chimichanga, that place is good. If you’re feeling like eating Mexican food you should definitely consider going to La Rockita.

What excites me about being in this new place is that I’m setting myself up for a good future. I’m excited to get a degree and finish school so I can get a good job. I’m excited that I’m attending a university and not a college because there are so much more people I can meet here. Maybe the basketball players I meet today will be NBA superstars in five years. I’m not just excited for me, but also for the other students because later in the future I can say, “Oh I know that Doctor or I know that football player”. I’m excited to see what the outcome of my generation will be.