programming and facilities
Our goal for your child’s experience at Butter Beans Food and Garden Camp is for them to fully understand and appreciate the seed to table journey of where our food comes from. Your camper will learn many new and useful kitchen and cooking skills that include the proper way to hold a knife, sautéing, poaching, baking at proper temperatures, pickling, jam making, how to make sauces and vinaigrettes, how to use herbs and spices, how to make sun tea, and many, many more!Each unique two-week session is divided into themes that include exciting food and garden adventures every day!
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Session 1 (weeks one and two) - How Food Grows
In these first two weeks, we will explore the growing cycle by touring roof top gardens and farms (including The Grange) and planting and sprouting our own plants. We will learn about composting and meet beekeepers who will share the importance of honeybees (while we look on with our bee suits) and explain why honey can taste so different while we pick our favorite batch, and we will cook our own meals with fresh ingredients from our trips to local farmer’s markets.
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Session 2 (weeks 3 and 4) – How Food is Produced
During this session we will divulge the mystery of how our favorite foods are created. Imagine being able to visit master chocolate and cheese makers AND seeing how ice cream is made! We will take your excited children to local purveyors of these delicious treats and will even get to taste their wares, and then come back to base camp to make our own. Yum!
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Session 3 (weeks 5 and 6) – Preserving Food
Throughout this session, campers will be going home with lots of preserved goodness for the whole family to share. We will take full advantage of the season with a berry-picking trip so campers can make their own farm fresh jellies and jams. Of course no preserving would be complete without some pickles. We will be visiting local pickle makers to see how they make pickle magic, and then making our own back at base camp.
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Session 4 (weeks 7 and 8 ) – Cooking and Recipe Making
While we will be cooking all summer long, this session is really focused on the art of cooking. Campers will explore new and creative recipes, learn from master local food sourcing chefs, and create as our final project a beautiful recipe book to share with the family. We’ll be honing cooking skills including (but not limited to) knife skills, sautéing, baking and poaching. We will visit local restaurants and chefs who embody the farm to table philosophy. It will be a fun-filled session with lots of delicious lessons!
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Ger-Nis Culinary and Herb CenterWe are so excited to be hosting camp this year at Ger-Nis Culinary and Herb Center! It is a state of the art kitchen and beautiful sunny loft space in the heart of Park Slope. With 14 ‘ open beamed ceilings and exposed brick with custom French industrial farm interior design, it invites your young chefs into a welcoming environment where they will feel ready to cook and create. Come visit us at one of our open houses (coming soon!) and see for yourself.
Registration has started (minimum is two weeks) and if you sign up by March 15, 2012, you will get 10% off, so reserve your space now! For more information or to register please email us at camp@butterbeanskitchen.com
Follow these links to learn more:
- a day in the life
- FAQ for parents
- FAQ for campers
- meet our Camp Director and her staff
- parent packet and registration
have a nutrition question?
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blog feed
- Parents, envision this: your child(ren) cooking up a delicious dinner for you after a long dayMany of you may have already read the recent New York Times article entitled “My Sons, the Sous Chefs” but for those of you who haven’t, you should definitely check it out. One mother explains her story about getting her kids excited to cook for her. She offered a trade, instead of she and her […]
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- winter produce + tonight’s dinnerWith beautiful displays of summer produce throughout winter in our grocery stores, it’s easy enough to forget what it means to eat locally in the winter. Local food, even this time of year, is fresher and has the added bonus of supporting the farmers that work so hard just beyond the limits of our everyday […]