Thursday 7/14 1-4 pm:
While carrying out my tasks, I worked with my colleagues, taught and actively communicated with the small department managers in the kitchen about the progress of the tasks. I must mention that I met some very nice people; Wyatt was my colleague at my first event; he was in charge of the soup and I was in charge of the lids. We also sometimes swapped jobs to prevent boredom. We were so efficient that we had free time to help others with their tasks. I also got to know many of my non-Northeastern colleagues, who were international PhDs from China, high school students from around Boston, and so on. They all did their jobs well and helped me quickly become familiar with the mission environment and skills. For my first event, I only did the packing task for the soup. There were three main steps to this task: putting the soup in the bowl, putting the lid on the bowl and putting the label on the lid. I tried each of these steps, with the one I was most familiar with being the one for filling the soup and the lid. The trick to filling the soup is in the grip of the spoon and the angle of the bowl. With both at the right angle, you can quickly complete the operation in one go; when putting the lid on the bowl, you need to use both hands to press on both sides of the bowl at the same time. Otherwise, you will easily spill the soup. These are just a few tips, but they have helped me to be more efficient.
Thursday 7/21 4-7 pm:
I did a great deal of work. These included peeling the roasted sweet potatoes and scooping out the pumpkin flesh; picking the rosemary leaves and treating the roots; and cutting the carrots into large chunks. The trick to peeling roasted sweet potatoes is to start with the obvious bulge in the middle, where the skin is loosest and it's easy to find the opening. When scooping out the flesh, I prefer to use a spoon as a knife and cut the outer skin off the side of the squash, then turn the squash over and slowly cut off the remaining skin in the middle. This way, the flesh is the most intact and the quickest to handle. Picking rosemary is the most straightforward as the leaves grow upwards, so I simply follow the root tip in the opposite direction to quickly peel the rosemary leaves. Handling the carrots was the most dangerous as we had to use a real kitchen knife and one of my companions cut his hand at the time. When a carrot is too thick to get at, I used to cut along the centre of the root with the part of the blade near the handle and then quickly slap the back of the knife with both hands to cut the carrot in half. This has many benefits. Apart from better chunking, this method does not cut my hands.
Thursday 7/28 1-4 pm:
In the third week, I did work on food packaging. Specifically, I did work about measuring food portions. The job involved using a digital scale, filling a bowl with 4 ounces of food and handing it to the next colleague. I think the most difficult part of the packaging process is the measuring part, because you need to use tools to make sure you don't serve more or less than 4 ounces. I've never done this before because I don't associate precision, portioning, with food. My experience in China only taught me that dishes need to be handled in large, large portions. On top of that, I am not used to using standard kitchen utensils because they are not handy. All in all, it was a new challenge for me. The kitchen director at the time told me that the first spoon had to be scooped full so as to ensure that the first scooped food was above 3 ounces; the electronic scale needed to be zeroed with the bowl in place as the bowl also had a certain weight to it. This experience was difficult but it also taught me how precise Community serving is in controlling food portions and the basic food packaging process. From my point of view, Community serving really does pack food in a "healthy and hygienic" way.
Thursday 8/4 1-4 pm:
In week four, I am still working in the food packaging department. Just like last week, I had to complete the measuring part. But the difference was that this time my classmate and fellow employee, Wyatt, was working with me on the measurement work. The first thing we worked on was the chicken, making sure that each bowl had 5 ounces of chicken. The first task, for me, was very easy because I could use my own hands to measure the portions of food. I was very confident about this because I often have to use my hands to weigh food in restaurants in China. Of course, we had to wear gloves to ensure that the food was not infected by outside bacteria. The second task is to handle the fish, making sure that each bowl of fish is 4 ounces or more. Once again, I was in difficulty as I really don't know how to use their kitchen tools. The third task was to fill the mashed potatoes and steak, which had to be 4 ounces, then place 4 ounces of steak and finally pour the sauce. I talked to Wyatt about switching jobs as Wyatt is really good at handling food with precision. This activity taught me that food packaging needs the right people in the right positions so that efficiency can be maximized.
Reflection:
I must admit that this volunteer activity really had a special meaning for me. As well as learning a few things, I was also skilled enough to show my colleagues some of the kitchen skills I had learned in China. This activity was able to help me learn more about how the kitchen works and how hard the kitchen workers work. At that time, we generally operated in an environment of over 90 degrees to prevent food spoilage. We also had to handle a large number of raw materials at the same time and we needed to do this quickly and satisfactorily. As a result, I am sure the volunteers must have honed more kitchen skills to cope with such situations. In addition, I have learned more about the many difficulties my family faces when opening a restaurant. My mother currently has a restaurant in China that specializes in traditional Chinese cuisine. Many of the handling skills mentioned above were learned on an ad hoc basis during my mother's restaurant operation, meaning that I have not worked in a restaurant for very long. However, when I attended and completed three hours of continuous work, I realized how difficult it was for my mother and her staff. They had to ensure that the food was served to the customers in the safest and tastiest image possible, while doing three or four times more work than I did (about nine hours). It made me stand in awe.