My Marriott Hotel

Marriott has developed an online game that could be fun to play and recruit new employees, too.  Those who play "My Marriott Hotel" will find themselves in the restaurant business and have to make decisions to keep the kitchen moving.  The game is as realistic an experience as possible to see what it takes to manage all aspects of the restaurant business from purchasing to service and more. 

I went to Facebook where the game is to be found and it is not ready to load yet but here is the URL that you can access if you have an account to download the App.
http://www.facebook.com/search.php?q=My%20Marriott%20hotel&init=quick&tas=0.739057746431893&ref=ts#!/apps/application.php?id=145796492133388

According to an article in the Wall Street, Marriott chose to create this game due to the success the U.S. military had with its online game to recruit soldiers.  Also cited in the article was the success of Siemens AG which brought "Plantville," which simulates being a manager for bottling facility, a vitamin factory or a plant that builds trains.

In any event, this would be an EXCELLENT free tool to use in your restaurant management class for budding chefs to see if they can run a restaurant for Marriott.  The game is intended to be as realistic as possible.  According to a Marriott spokesman, those who who play the restaurant game will have to buy ingredients, such as cheese for spaghetti, after given an array of options in quality and price.  Players will also hire staff, purchase equipment and small wares.  During rounds in the kitchen, players have to direct tickets to cooks and inspect food orders for quality before sending them out to customers and more.

If you do choose to use this game in your class please let me know so we can share with others on the blog.  I am teaching the restaurant class this fall at Purdue and once I navigate it I will look into using it to establish extra credit points or something.  Time will tell.

The Pyramid is Dead!

If you are up on food politics in this country you know that the food pyramid has been under attack by those whose financial futures are tied to their influence over what American's eat, whether it is good for them to do so or not.  For example, the first pyramid design was unpopular to some because those food groups at the top were not happy that it indicated to Americans to eat less meat, for example.  Then the pyramid was revised to have slivers, more or less, running from the base to the tip to indicate what percentage of daily foods should be eaten from the basic food groups and there were still those who did not care for that design either especially if your food group was the smallest sliver.  For more information on this subject read Marion Nestles Food Politics or follow her work on her website at: http://www.foodpolitics.com/

Anyhow, the food pyramid is no more, it has been replaced by a plate, which is what most Americans eat from anyway so it makes sense compared to the pyramid.  Regardless of what one thinks about the food items that were included or excluded from the food groups on the new plate concept I think it is a more common sense approach to educating Americans on what should appear on their plates or in their drinking glass at each meal.  You can check it out for yourself and draw your own conclusions at http://www.choosemyplate.gov/index.html

I especially like the link to Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010 and Michelle Obama's efforts to end childhood obesity through Let's Move, which I reported on in an earlier blog post.  What I do not like is an aspect that is found on the food pyramids used by other countries which has exercise at the base or people running up the side -- how sad!

I guess when all is said and done it is still up to us in culinary and hospitality programs to educate ourselves and our students on serving more healthy foods based on dietary guidelines to the dining public without compromising profitability.  Afterall, when McDonalds's, the King of QSR, is revising its menu to add more healthy items it is time for academics to get ahead of the curve and do what we can to support our industry finds its way down the path of healthy eating.  Besides, it is truly sad when one realizes that there are hundreds and thousands of people in the country who have contracted diseases they would not have were it not for their inability to stop shoving garbage in their mouths and engage in regular physical activity.  if you stop to think about it, we could do our part to help reduce the cost of health care in this country by doing our best to help Americans make better food choices on a regular basis and indulge on occasion and myplate might help us in that regard.

The Future of Higher Ed?

I was alerted to two articles that speak to the future of higher education and they are both sobering.  Perhaps you are an administrator or a faculty member who is experiencing some of what is being talked about in the articles.  Either way, there is a concerted effort to cheapen what educators do in this country and if we do not take a stand we will find ourselves to be falling further and further behind Inda, China, and the rest of the world that is taking a bolder brighter path to educate its people and compete and win for the future.

Read the first article at appeared in the Nation by William Deresiewicz--"Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education" http://www.thenation.com/article/160410/faulty-towers-crisis-higher-education

The second appeared in the Chronicle and penned by Margaret Miller:
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Profession-More-Pressure/123918/

Lecture heureuse!

Taking Students Seriously in the College Classroom

This e-mail came from Helen M Bergland, PhD, Faculty Support, Student Learning Assessment Academic Integrity, Office of Undergraduate Studies, Eastern Washington University, hbergland@ewu.edu.  It is definitely worth the time to read the article she mentioned in her e-mail because it applies to culinary arts education.

If you haven’t read Vincent Tinto’s article “Taking Student Success Seriously in the College Classroom” yet, I strongly suggest that you take a few minutes to read it. You can read the article at the following address: http://coredogs.com/blog/coredogs-way.

This article provides information that could be used to significantly support the value of faculty development programs (e.g., Teaching & Learning Centers, etc.) – something this listserv has discussed in the past as we have watched one Center after another closed due to budget cuts. Some of the recommendations/studies are based on community colleges and technical/vocational programs’ efforts; nevertheless, there is much outstanding food for thought for four-year institutions.

What do you think of this article?

NRA Show in Chicago

I have been going to the NRA show in Chicago since the late 80's and have to admit that this has been one of the best.  The show is buzzing with the prospects of growth in the industry this year.  Of course there are the products and services that have been at the show for years to promote plates, cooking equipment, clothing, knives and such.  But there is no mistake that healthy eating has gone mainstream big time.  It was also hard to go an aisle without finding someone who was marketing gluten free baked goods and other food products. The weather has also been excellent!

I really enjoyed a presentation on NRA's Conserve: Walking the Pathway to a Greener Restaurant.  This program can be a great teaching tool and great industry tool for those who really want to know what it takes to go green in restaurant businesses and just how much energy is being wasted right under the noses of operators.  There is a membership fee of $125 per year but worth every penny to have a one stop shop for educators and industry people going Green.  The program is chock full of video vignettes on ways to save money on energy and more.

You can check out a couple of links to get familiar with this program through NRA who is working with the Foodservice Technology Center to role out and manage the program:
http://www.fishnick.com/greenrestaurant/
http://conserve.restaurant.org/
Here is also a food business green checklist available in San Diego and quite comprehensive:
http://www.foodnbeverage.org/images/pdfs/green_business_app.pdf