0:00 [Title and opening music]

0:10 Narrator Lauren: Indiana University’s chapter of Alpha Chi Omega may seem like your average sorority. But when it comes to meals and dining, A-Chi- O takes it to the next level. Over 130 girls show up to the dining room for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. With so many meals showing up on the table, it’s important to understand where this food is coming from and how it is prepared.

0:30 Lauren: Clard Davidson, the head chef, works about 5-6 days a week, averaging 45 to 50 hours a week. He says it takes a lot of teamwork to prepare each meal.

0:40 Clard: Typical meal prep, I usually start about noonish and I’m usually done about 5. So about four or five hours to get one meal done.

0:48 Lauren: Everyone in the kitchen is assigned a certain position to keep the kitchen running smoothly. There is a Sous chef , prep chef, baker, breakfast cook, dishwasher, and Evans Scholar volunteers who all work together throughout the day.

1:03 Michael: A typical day comes in. I check on the breakfast cook Julie to see if she needs anything. Then I go into checking the little kitchens, restocking that. And then going and doing some dishes so the dishwasher is not super overwhelmed when she gets here. And then after that, I go into my mode, getting ready for my lunch.
1:24 Lauren: To determine how much food is to be made for each meal, the kitchen staff estimates based on past experience how much food will be needed. Oftentimes, there are guests, so they always make twenty servings above the estimated amount.

1:38 Michael: We make it all together, so we make 90 to 100 stuffed mushrooms, and then we pan up what’s going to come out, and then whatever’s been hot held in the oven, it’s ready to go. So you just pull the empty pan out, put the new one in.

1:52 Lauren: There are over seven to eight different food suppliers. Sysco and Piazza are two of the main companies. Sysco is one of the main food suppliers in the nation with approximately 425,000 customers. Piazza provides fresh fruits and vegetables to the house.

2:09 Clard: Some people come in and they’ll take the orders face to face, and we’ll let them know what we need, which is pretty nice to have a casual relationship with them. And then we’ll have a couple orders that I’ll do online. You know, I’ll get online, I’ll see what we need, I’ll, you know, put it in. That’s mostly for our vegetables and stuff like that.

2:26 Lauren: After preparing each meal at the house, the staff ensures that the kitchen is cleaned properly. Everything is washed and sanitized and put back in the proper places.

2:34 Clard: When a dinner is almost about done, everybody pretty much knows what they need to do, vacuum cleaning, wiping down tables, and cleaning different things. Our dish boys take care of a lot of things as well. And I try to make sure things are clean as well.

2:47 Lauren: The leftover food that is not eaten is put into the snack room for girls to eat later or sometimes saved for the next day. In sorority and fraternity houses at the University of North Carolina, a program called Go Meal travels around campus to collect leftover food and donate it to the community kitchen. Indiana University should look into a program like this to help the people in need.

3:11 Lauren: Much of the work the staff puts in to running the kitchen and preparing meals goes underappreciated. This is true in not only sorority kitchens but also all restaurants around the world. With collaboration and team work, an entire staff ensures the kitchen is run smoothly.

3:25 Clard: The whole thing’s a team effort. It’s legitimately a team effort. Not one person can do it all by themselves. We’re all pretty talented, but we work really well as a team.

3:35 Lauren: Thanks to the awesome staff here at Alpha Chi Omega, keeps us Alpha-Chis happy, and also full. For Professor Halloran’s A100 class, I’m Lauren Becker.
[Works Cited and closing music]