• Yesterday, Global Chef Adriana Yunes Caporossi prepared authentic Brazilian cuisine for students and faculty in the Lunda Room as part of Sodexo Campus Dining Services' 2009 Global Chef Program.
• Today, Chef Caporossi will be preparing Brazilian cuisine for students in the Straz Tower dining room from 11 a.m to 1:30 p.m.
• Caporossi will also be teaching other Marquette chefs how to prepare several Brazilian dishes.

Brazilian Chef Adriana Yunes Caporossi prepared authentic Brazilian cuisine for students and faculty yesterday in the Alumni Memorial Union's Lunda Room.

Caporossi's visit to Marquette is part of Sodexo Campus Dining Services' 2009 Global Chef Program, which brings Sodexo's top chefs from around the world to various universities and corporations in the United States to share authentic international cuisines with local culinary teams, students, faculty and staff.

Along with the cuisine on the Lunda Room menu yesterday, authentic Brazilian specialties were featured at Fresh Greens and NYC Subs in the AMU's Marquette Place. Free menu sampling and Capoeira Afro-Brazilian dance performances were held in the second floor lobby of the AMU.

Today, Caporossi will prepare a specialty Brazilian lunch menu in the Straz Tower dining room from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Caporossi will also be available to meet with students and faculty.

The Global Chef Program started at Northwestern University in 2003 in an attempt to bring an authentic cuisine to the university's international students, said Monica Heminger, marketing manager of university dining services.

Daniel Auger, the general manager of Sodexo at Marquette, said Sodexo is one of the world's largest food service providers for schools K-12, colleges, universities and corporations.

Auger said when Caporossi isn't touring the U.S. as a Global Chef, she works for Sodexo at a Brazilian location rather than at a university.

"In Brazil they don't have the kind of colleges we have here where students live on campus," Auger said. "Almost all of the students in Brazil are commuters."

Last year, Marquette hosted a Sodexo Global Chef from South Africa.

"Because Sodexo is a global company, we have a lot of global resources at our dispense," Heminger said.

Caporossi said she started cooking with her mother and grandmother when she was 7-years-old in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Now she is one of three South American Sodexo Global Chefs currently in the U.S. -— the other two are from Peru and Colombia.

Heminger said Global Chefs do more than just prepare authentic cuisine during their stay on a college campus.

"They teach our chefs while they're here," Heminger said. "And because they're teaching as well as cooking while they're here, we will continue to reap the benefits long after they leave."

Caporossi said this is her second time participating in the Global Chef program.

Along with preparing meals on Marquette's campus, Caporossi has cooked at Wheelock College in Boston during her tour, as well as several schools in Illinois, including the Illinois Institute of Technology, Aurora

University, Benedictine University and Northwestern University.

"I've seen a lot of different reactions from students at different schools," Caporossi said of her Brazilian cuisine.

"The students at IIT loved the food, especially the pizza," she said, referring to the Pizza de Banana e Mussarela — a dessert pizza made with bananas, mozzarella, condensed milk and cinnamon. It will now be featured on the IIT dining menu two to three times a week.

"The students at Aurora weren't very open to trying new things," Caporossi said. "They didn't even try the pizza."

Before heading back home to Brazil on Friday, Caporossi will stop at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. She has been on tour of college campuses since the beginning of this month.

And even though Caporossi is disappointed to be missing the Brazilian Carnival, a festival that she said is bigger than Christmas in Brazil, she said her time in the U.S. has been well worth it.

"It's nice to bring the food and traditions from Brazil to people who have never experienced them before," Caporossi said. "And while I was in Chicago I got to see snow fall for the first time in my life."