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Butter Beans is preparing and delivering emergency grab & go meals for schools, daycares, and community centers in need, in response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Grab & go meals are packaged in our commissary kitchen and delivered by our in-house transportation team to locations across the New York metropolitan area. * Compliant with National School Lunch Program, Seamless Summer Option, Summer Food Service Program and Child and Adult Care Food Program Contact our team at info@butterbeanskitchen.com or 718-499-0010 to set up a grab & go meal program at your school, daycare, or community center. The health and wellbeing of our students is now, as always, our highest priority at Butter Beans.

Some people think about sustainability in more personal terms: composting, shopping at a farmer’s market, or joining a community-supported agriculture program (CSA) to increase the sustainability of our food system. Because it’s such a global concept, however, we start small–by taking the word sustainability back to its roots, then working up to these big, abstract ideas over time. While some things will happen with or without our help–the sun will rise, the planet will turn–when it comes to taking care of plants and animals that depend on us, we have to make conscious choices about how we keep certain things going. This includes lessons and conversations that plunge young children into modern food controversies (i.e. the issues surrounding factory farming), without first providing them with a basic understanding of the foundational concepts of food (i.e., where it comes from, how it’s grown or made, and how molecules and microorganisms play a role in the above).

Moreover, it was hard for these children to imagine how historical peoples from around Asia, which they were studying, had managed to figure out how to turn a wild grass like wheat into the domesticated and versatile product it is today, and how to turn the hardy brown grain into the finely-ground white flour we use in thousands of products. That said, they also allow kids (and parents) to see that they can easily add flavor to veggie-based dishes without using animal protein, i.e. by adding garlic and ginger and by creating a punchy, salty sauce using just soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil. When cooking in the classroom, family involvement makes all the difference Speaking of cultural connections: Not only did this lesson kick off a Chinese New Year celebration, we’d be remiss if we didn’t note how important it was to have parent involvement in this activity, which involved constructing over a hundred dumplings with four groups of students in a sink-less school classroom. After seeing their children open up and try new foods in class, many parents said that they were excited to try this recipe at home with their children, and some even left with to-go kits of leftover filling and wrappers to try it again that very night.

In our cafeterias today, our food service teams spread the Valentine’s Day love with a homemade pink lemonade…Butter Beans style! If we trace back the roots of pink lemonade history, there are claims that this beverage was invented at two different circuses:  In 1857, when a concession stand ran out of water, its salesman, Pete Conklin, found a vat of pink water that apparently one of the show’s stars used to wash her pink tights in. Another claim was in 1912, when  circus promoter, Henry Alliott, accidentally dropped his red cinnamon candies in the vat of lemonade he was making. *Look for a cranberry juice that is 100% cranberry juice – no high fructose corn syrup or sugar added At Butter Beans, “We go together like “cranberries and lemonade! ”