The Chatty Gourmet

Until recently, I had never thought about excercing for my health.

As I did not drive in Japan, I walked and biked a lot everyday. I needed to do so if I want to go somewhere.

I got my first driving license a month ago, one week before I began my internship here.

I had never driven a car in Japan.

I was grew up in a small city where public transportation is more convenient than driving a car. My parents have a car but my mother uses it mostly. My father goes to work by bus.

After graduating highschool, I moved to Tokyo to go to college there. It is pretty rare to have car in Tokyo if you do not have kids. You can go anywhere by train and subway.

When you visit Tokyo, I strongly recomment NOT to drive there. It is really hard to find parking, even if you find one,it is super expensive to park and also, the road is so narrow compared to here.

Since I began driving, I stopped walking. I used to walk to the subway station and between stations. Even after I came here, I biked everyday to school.

And I realized that I need to be little tired to have good sleep. Sometimes I have difficulty in getting to sleep. And of course, I gained a little weight.

These days, I go to the gym every other day and I have very good sleep now.

What I am trying to do now is stop parking the car as close as possible to the gym and park a bit further to walk.

As an intern, I work three times a week; Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

When I am not working, I go to gym, library and hang out with friends. I am pretty relaxed and enjoying nice Californian weather. I am from southern, very warm part of Japan, but climate here is much nicer, less humid and sky looks much brighter.

One of the things that I like about working here is that I can work for three companies at the same time. For example, one day, I read some articles about health for Susan's Healthy Gourmet in the morning, and I did small reserch about chocolate brokers for Xan in the afternoon. I also did some paperwork for Life Spring. Life Spring's office is close to the kichen and the scent of the room keeps changing and someitmes makes me so hungry.

I will come back soon to talk little more about here.

Have a wonderful week!

This past week I was able to attend the Natural Foods Expo in Anaheim and it was amazing! Coming from a nutrition/food background I felt right at home. I have gone to expos before in the past but this one was all about natural and healthy products, it full of "good for you" foods. We usually go in a big group, Susan, Kerry, John, Erin, Monya and myself but this time I was the only one available to go and it was a different experience. As I was walking up and down these long aisles packed with every product imaginable I was really able to realize just how many companies are out there trying to get good food and products to the consumers. I just never realized how big these food shows really were, they are enormous and there is something out there for everyone. There was natural, organic, vegan, non-dairy, fresh and frozen. Whatever "healthy" product you were looking for it was there! 

The day before I attended a "Healthy Baking Seminar," with our chocolatier Tracy. It was so interesting and we both learned so much about where the trends in healthy baking are today. There was such a diverse group of people there, food scientists, vice presidents of major food manufacturing companies, nutritionist and product developers.  By chance we sat at an all-woman’s table for lunch and it was so motivating to hear where everyone came from and what they did in the world of food. Being that I am still pretty young it really got me thinking about how much more studying I would like to do and reconfirmed my true passion to work with food and healthy living.

I feel very lucky that I am given the opportunity to attend events like these, I enjoy them so much! It is such an indescribable feeling to be in a room filled with your peers who share the same passion as you do and who are making a difference in the world of food and health today.

We are out of room at our home on Sky Park Circle in Irvine CA! We have been looking for a new place with more room to grow and we have recently found that at 1202 McGaw in Irvine CA. We will miss our home of many years but look forward to the many possibilities that await us at the new location! If you are in the area please stop by to say hi and check out our new home!

For those of you who don't know....our Customer Service Reps here at Susan's Healthy Gourmet have possibly the hardest job. 

They correlate with the drivers and kitchen. They take orders, compliments and complaints(from you and from us!), answer phone's, work Saturdays and have to do crazy mathematical equations to predict the amount of meals the kitchen has to make.     

So how do we make them feel valued while also adding some fun? 

Contests...Contests...Contests with fun rewards. So here are just a few contests, team building excercises and rewards we do at SHG.

The Value Board = Each member picks their 5 top values and then we put down the most popular and vote for which one's we should be doing for our customers. Then we make a big poster of it. Here is our most recent one. Our service words are: Dedication, Laughter, Freedom, Family and Integrity.      

How Many orders will we get?  = We all pick the number of orders we think we will get for that date and whomever wins get to pick from the goody basket. The goody basket has make-up, colorful notebooks or folders, starbucks gift cards and other fun things we know the girls would like.

Turning the Most New Customers = Occassionally throughout the year we have a "How many info calls can you turn into new Custumers" contest. We do it for say a month and half. Then whomever wins this one gets to pick either a) a potluck day where they can tell you what to make out of your "specialty dish closet" or b)they can pick a theme day.

This was our 80's theme day for the last one. Tara, Erin, Casey, Jenn (Top Row) Carissa and Kerry (Middle and Bottom)

   We have plenty of other fun things we do for our girls as well but if you feel like being a better part of their work environment and they've done a great job for you...let us know! Anyone who gets a compliment "randomnly" from a customer gets a quick $20.