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As the largest of the ICC cooperatives, Escher is the only one which employs a cook to fill the roles of Head Chef, Food Steward, and Kitchen Maintenance Manager.
Contents
Responsibilities
Meals
- Plan all weekday menus, along with weekend menus on weekend days when menus are not planned by members.
- Order all food. (Planning and ordering typically take 15-20 hours per week when Chef Lynn is at home.)
- Prepare all weekday meals
- Monitor guff refrigerators on a daily basis for food safety (appropriate labeling etc.) and adjust as needed. See that items omitted by cleaning crews are restocked.
- Attempts to accommodate all member requests, and incorporate food survey results into meal planning
Training
- Train and supervise weekday cooking crews
- Train lunch prep on deli slicer and food processor
Finances
- Maintain expenses within assigned food budget while satisfying member needs
- Provide the ICC finance office with an inventory buy-back figure at the end of each semester to ensure equitable distribution of student food expenses
Health & Safety
- Ensure that state food safety and sanitation requirements are met
- Keep abreast of current food and nutrition studies and trends by subscribing to and reading publications including:
- Tufts University's Health and Nutrition letter
- Environmental Nutrition Newsletter
- Center for Science in the Public Interest Newsletter
- Vegetarian Resource Group
- VegNews
- Food and Wine
- Cook's Illustrated, and all sister publications
- Fine Cooking.
- Recipes in newly-published cookbooks and on the web.
Maintenance
- Keep cleaning supplies stocked: paper towels, toilet paper, hand soap, laundry detergent, etc.
- Make sure the city picks up missed trash and recycling and calls for extra pick-ups as needed
- Coordinate the repairs of kitchen equipment, and operation reconfiguration, as needed:
- Walk-in compressor failure, approximately once per year
- Various dishwasher repairs: 8-10 times per year
- Garbage disposal replacements, about once a year
- Occasional major events (e.g. sewer blockage under O'Keeffe milk machine)