Greetings from Dennis Pierce, Director of Dining Services

Fall Semester 2007

Greetings:

If you look around, you will observe that we all have a passion for food and our passion is growing. Maybe it was the PBS TV shows with Julia Child or Martin Yan that planted the seed for today’s Food Network. But if you notice, our lives have been highly influenced by the media as it relates to food. The Food Network has made the names of Rachel Ray and Emeril become household words. Why has this happened? Because we all have home-town appetites. Every person has a mental inventory of the best fried chicken they ate or a favorite grandmother’s apple pie so when we see a chef prepare a dish we are always hoping, just hoping, that we can relive that culinary experience.

I am making this observation because we, Dining Services, have a tough challenge ahead. You bring the diversity, the culture and the memories of past savored foods and we, Dining Services, have roughly a four year window to meet your dining expectations. We believe while you are at UConn, that we have the challenge of what we call meeting your “emotional eating” needs. Ponder this. Dining Services operates eight resident dining facilities, each having a separate and distinct menu, many quick service coffee shops and a pretty eclectic Food Court. In all of our operations we have to provide you comfort food when things are not quite right in your world, new items that will expose you to dishes you might have never experienced, and plain old good, nutritious items that will prepare you for your academic rigors.

As we find that individuals have become educated and curious about their food choices we have become aware that students want to know the nutritional information for our menus. Dining Services provides a plethora of information through our website where individuals can research the nutritional analysis of our menu offerings. In our research we have found that this site has been the most popular web site in the Division of Student Affairs.

So what’s new this semester? Once again we will continue our “Recipe from Home“ program in our resident dining units where they will be featuring many “Recipes from Home” solicited from the parents of first year students. Additionally, in our retail venues we will be offering several nutritious items with our new line of grab and go items called “Spa Food.” These are recipes put together with a focus on low calories and low fat options for those that are looking for a healthy choice. In other initiatives we continue on east campus with our sustainability options. This fall at Whitney, we will be offering milk items sourced from a local dairy. On the North side of campus we are making changes too. We have been reading our surveys and based on your requests we will be opening Northwest this fall as another late night option. Northwest, as well as Buckley, will be serving dinner until 10:00pm. Take a look in the next few pages for their specific schedules. Lastly, we will begin to work with the international initiative to prepare for a renovation at McMahon. Our goal is to create an offering of international recipes that are authentically ethnic. These recipes will be featured when the renovations have been completed.

It is an exciting time for our staff and the creative juices are really flowing. To keep in touch with any of our changes please utilize this culinary “guidebook,” the UCuisine, as a means to keep you informed of our hours of operation, contact information, menus, and helpful tips on what and where to eat and to provide you with solutions to any questions that you may have. If you’re on the web you can find us at www.dining.uconn.edu. Let us know how we can meet your needs. Your dining experience has to be a memorable one or we have failed to provide you with services that you expect. Enjoy the semester, make new friends, break bread with them and they will be your friends forever.

Eat well, enjoy life, pursue your dreams.

C. Dennis Pierce
Director of Dining Services

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