Transform Your Edibles with Vanessa Lavorato

Margaret 00:00:04 Welcome back, friends to episode 295. And today I'm thrilled to sit down with Vanessa Lovato. Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles where I help you take control of your life. I'm your host and Certified Ganjier Margaret and I love helping cooks make safe and effective edibles at home. I'm so glad you're here. Welcome back, friends, to another episode. There won't be much preamble today because I am excited to get into this conversation and to share it with you. You might know Vanessa from the Vice show Bon Appétit, which was the first cannabis cooking show on the internet. You might know her from Marigold Sweets. You might know her from a brand new cookbook, how to eat Weed and Have a Good Time. Or maybe you're just learning about Vanessa today. On this episode of Bite Me! Regardless, you will pull something from this episode. I am sure we cover a lot of interesting stuff in this episode, such as working with concentrates in your edibles. How much does cultivars matter when you're making edibles? How long do you really need to infuse for terpenes versus cannabinoids? And a whole lot more.

Margaret 00:01:12 There's no way you're going to listen to this episode and not come away with something new. No matter where you are in your cannabis edibles maker's journey. I've been making edibles for a long time, and I definitely pulled away some new things that I'm going to be experimenting with. So without further ado, please enjoy this fascinating conversation with Vanessa Lovato. Alright everyone, I am very excited today to be joined by Vanessa Alvarado. And Vanessa, you are coming out with a new cookbook, How to Eat Weed and Have a Good Time, which I'm really excited to share. And can you just take a second to introduce the listeners of Bite Me Who you are. Tell us a little bit about yourself. We're going to get into it. Of course, during this interview. But just to get a sense of.

Vanessa 00:02:04 I'm so excited to be here. I love what you're doing, so thank you for having me. I think there needs to be more education about edibles and eating cannabis. I'm Vanessa Lovato. You might know me from Bon Appetit on munchies.

Vanessa 00:02:20 Vice. Munchies? the first cannabis cooking show on television. And since then, I have spent a lot of time writing this cookbook, which is called How to Eat Weed and Have a Good Time. Real emphasis on that. Have a good time. Part of the title. and I make edibles. That's what I do. I've been doing that since 2010. As Marigold Sweets, I also have a club of edible and food enthusiasts around the world. We're an international Club called The Edibles Club, and I cook for them live every Saturday and then we sesh on Wednesdays. So very active in the cannabis community and excited to be branching out and meeting more amazing people as this book starts to go out into the world.

Margaret 00:03:14 Right. So you have been deeply immersed into the edibles space for quite some time. I could say you're probably a pioneer in the edibles space. And what initially. Yeah. What initially sparked your interest in infused cuisine?

Vanessa 00:03:30 Well, you know, honestly, I tell the story in my book, but my mom, when she first told me about my uncles, they left a plate of pot brownies out.

Vanessa 00:03:41 They lived on. They lived. My one uncle lives on Kauai, and so she was there visiting them. Didn't tell her that there was anything in the brownies. She ate the entire plate because, like, let's be real, We know one eats one brownie and she did not have a good time. So she told me. She told me that story is like a warning sign. But of course, in my brain, I was like, oh, you can eat weed. I didn't, I didn't know you could do that. And it was like, I can bypass this whole kind of smoking ritual, which was a little bit intimidating for me when I was younger. And then I was like, oh, I can put it into food, which I had been cooking since I was a little kid. You know, I was three when my grandma would put me in front of the pot and be like, stir. so that was really the spark in my brain. And then when I was a senior at Berkeley, I just saw what was out in the market at the time.

Vanessa 00:04:42 I had a medical card, and it was like snickerdoodles wrapped in Saran wrap. And, if there was dosing, it would be like triple X or something. It was like, no, right then without whatever, they would just make it up. And I was like, wow, so people can't even eat an entire edible. And they they're stale. Everything was stale because no one wants a snickerdoodle that's been sitting around for a month. But when you put pot into it, nobody wants to get rid of it. So everyone's eating crumbs of like, overdose small like stale cookies. And I was like, well, listen.

Margaret 00:05:21 There's got to be a better way.

Vanessa 00:05:23 There's there's more we can do with this. It's, it's such a cool plant that you can cook with it in so many different ways.

Margaret 00:05:32 Right? Yeah, yeah. And I love that you mentioned that. When as soon as you have, like, no one wants to eat the stale edible, but no one also wants to get rid of it because I feel like that is so true.

Margaret 00:05:41 You're like, oh, but eating it, I don't want to throw it away. Yeah.

Vanessa 00:05:45 It's expensive. It's an expensive herb, you know, think about what we pay per pound. And then you think about what we pay for pound for other things we're comparing. It's on. It's on par with saffron and other herbs that are very, very expensive by by weight. And so we want to be thoughtful when we're cooking with it. We don't want to be wasteful. I mean, I live in a land of plenty, right? There is weed galore in California. This is the epicenter of we just have the land. We have the history. Humboldt. The Green Triangle has been around forever, not forever, but for generations. And so there's a rich history. So I'm not I don't need to be stingy. But I do know what it is like to be like, I cannot waste a crumb of this because I don't know what I'm going to get more of it. You know, it's hard.

Vanessa 00:06:37 It's more difficult to come by. So that's how I treat it as a very expensive ingredient. So we need to be thoughtful with how we cook with it. And you don't. Wonderful thing about edibles is you don't need that much when you're cooking with it versus when you're smoking. So from like a stretching your supply mindset. Edibles are a great way to do that.

Margaret 00:07:02 Yeah, I totally agree. And especially those folks out there who are also using the the AVB from their dry herb vaporizer. I mean, that's another definite way to stretch your cannabis a little bit for a little bit further. And I've definitely eaten edibles. It probably weren't so fresh just because of that same feeling. So I know because even if you do have, you know, live in the land of plenty, I'm in Canada. It's been legal here for a while, so there's no shortage. But you still have to go go out and buy it. Decarbia infuse it like all those steps. So you want to make it last as long as you can.

Margaret 00:07:34 But just talking about Bon Appetit for a little bit because you said like it introduced a lot of people to the idea of gourmet cannabis cuisine because it was the first cooking show online around cannabis cuisine. What was the most surprising thing that you learned about that? You learned about weed cooking with weed while you were working on that show?

Vanessa 00:07:54 Well, I think for me with Bon Appetit, it was always a challenge of how do we get it into every, every step of this recipe? It was kind of this competition we would have with ourselves is how many infusions can we do? So I was always being introduced to the newest products that that, like concentrate makers were coming up with, whether it was the, water soluble cannabinoids. And then there's the nano, the nano can, you know, all of that stuff. I was kind of being introduced to it. But for me, the one of the most surprising things, I think cooking with the leaves, which are super iconic, they don't really hold any potency.

Vanessa 00:08:41 Right? The, the, the trichomes are there to protect the sex organs, the female sex organs from, you know, predators, which doesn't really do a very good job because mine always get covered with bugs. But anyway. Right. And now we're the predators. But some people would argue the plant has evolved to attract us anyway. So for me, the leaves, I was like, oh, so I can cook with these and I'm we're not going to really get high. But you have this beautiful like it tastes like perilla and kind of playing with that, you can juice it, you can candy it, you can fry the leaves. And kind of looking at it as a plant, not just for getting high or, you know, that effect, but also because it tastes good and it's, you know, it's a it's a delicious herb and it makes food taste better. And that's what I learned when I went to Thailand, and I was cooking with edible makers and activists in Thailand, is that for generations the Thai people have been using cannabis to make their food taste better.

Vanessa 00:09:45 It was the original MSG. You know, like we'll add a little bit of weed and then we'll want to eat more of this.

Margaret 00:09:52 So that's really cool. And I, like you mentioned the leaves. Like when you're talking about leaves, you're talking like the fan leaves and stuff. Yeah. Not the trim and everything else.

Vanessa 00:09:59 The sugars no sugar leaf will have trichomes on it because again it's there to protect those. Those the flower. Yeah. But the fan leaves not so much the roots we made. We cooked. I cooked with the roots, in on koto in Thailand with KD. And he used them medicinally. It's very good for your bowels, you know, for that IBS and those kind of things. There's I don't know, there's probably not any research on that. So don't totally quote me because.

Margaret 00:10:27 It's funny you mention that though, because I have had been having discussions with people about the about the root ball, like using the root ball and infusions and how they make really good topicals because apparently they're really high in certain cannabinoid cannabinoids.

Margaret 00:10:39 So Yeah. You know, I mean, if you have access to the plant, you might as well use it. All right?

Vanessa 00:10:45 That's how I. That was one of the things with cooking on Bon Appetit. I had access to the entire plant. You know, before that, I was really operating as an edible maker. And so I would be given I started with cold water hash was really when I kind of came on to where my edibles entered the next level of being able to have an excellent flavor and a very controlled dose. Much easier to do with concentrates than it is to do with flour.

Margaret 00:11:15 Because.

Vanessa 00:11:15 It's so variable.

Margaret 00:11:17 So variable. And I've been hearing that more and more recently that people are starting to work more with concentrates just because you can, like, they can be more potent as well with less, and then it's easier to control the dosing.

Vanessa 00:11:29 Well, you have to think the amount of trichomes on flower will vary depending, whereas concentrates are just ideally it's just those trichomes, right? So depending on the quality of hash or whatever concentrate you're using, you're going to either have more plant matter for a lower grade or less plant matter.

Vanessa 00:11:49 And you're really just looking at those the heads. Right. You just want to try them head for yeah for five star hash. So but and then within my so that's as an edible maker in the actual California regulated industry you have to use concentrates. I don't know anyone who is working starting from flower because the very it would be very difficult to dose accurately and the cost of failing is very expensive. You have to pay to destroy your batch. So you want to be accurate. Now the trend is for solvent lists, full spectrum. So you're going to be wanting to use concentrates like hash or live rosin, which, you know, water. It's not a solvent. It's you make it cold, so you get. You know how the cold water hash works? so as an edible maker. Yes. I think that is the best way to dose for home cooks who might not have access to things like hash. Or maybe the laws are stricter if you do get caught holding concentrates. I remember before it was legal in California, if you had concentrates on you, you'd be in a lot of trouble.

Vanessa 00:13:01 So I wrote this book for everyone, but also keeping in mind that a lot of people don't have access to things like live rosin.

Margaret 00:13:11 Right?

Vanessa 00:13:11 Some of my members are in like New Zealand where it's it's not legal at all, and they're growing in the middle of the woods, you know. So I try to be conscious, but then there's also a section in here on cooking with concentrates. And it, it, it talks about it has a chart that says these concentrates are raw. These ones are already carved like so. Or full extract cannabis oil will be ready to go for you, and then all you need to do is have a good milligram scale, which can be one of those little black jewelry scales or a bigger one, so you can weigh your other ingredients too. I recommend one in my book. and then you, you whisk that concentrate into a warm fat. Right. Because. cannabinoids the resin likes fat. Right. Most of all, if you have a very high proof alcohol you can use that as well.

Vanessa 00:14:02 But fat is the easiest thing to do. Heat it up a little bit. Just warm enough to melt the the resin into the oil or butter or whatever you're using. And then make sure it's nice and homogenized. No clumps, no clumps of hash or anything so people don't bite into a cookie. It's just base.

Margaret 00:14:23 Yeah. Yep.

Vanessa 00:14:25 And then just, you know, it's dosing. It's easier to dose because you don't have to once it's already carved for you. And you know that potency from a lab. You can just. There's no calculation of loss, right? There's no right. No having to calculate when I convert that thc a, which is the acidic form of THC into THC. How much loss is going to happen automatically already? 12.3%. That's what cannabis labs calculate for. and then on top of it, you have to think of loss during the cooking process of like there's going to be some batter. So you're making cookies. There's going to be batter stuck to the bowl. There's going to be batter stuck to this boot.

Vanessa 00:15:09 All of that is going to deplete your your overall calculation for THC in the batch. It's it's it can be yeah. It's complicated.

Margaret 00:15:19 Yeah. The math always gets complicated. And I find that something that people find a little intimidating. And I mean, if you're just eating them yourself, that's one thing. But as soon as you start gifting them to people, giving them away, then that's when it really becomes important. But we'll come to that back to that in a second, especially the part about the concentrates, because like I said, I've had a lot more people talking about that recently. But when you are in the process of developing a new infused recipe, where do you even start?

Vanessa 00:15:45 I look for the fat in a recipe. So I'm looking where can I sneak an infusion in? So what part of this has fat and some recipes will have fat throughout? So then I go, okay, which part is evenly distributed through in this dish? Right. So say I was going to do I remember one chef was doing a toffee and she like infused the chocolate.

Vanessa 00:16:09 But the chocolate, like if you were to do chocolate chips in a chocolate chip cookie, you wouldn't want to infuse the chocolate chips even though you could, because there's fat in chocolate. Because how do you guarantee each cookie gets the same amount of chocolate chips? Right? Yeah, yeah. So you want to infuse the butter in a chocolate chip cookie because then you can weigh it out. You know exactly how much dough is in each cookie. So. Oops. Sorry. My ear buds. So when I look at a recipe as far as how do I infuse this, how do I turn this into an edible? That's one of the things I consider is that where is there a fat here? If there's not a fat, then I look for can I put an alcohol in here and in some way cook off the alcohol, because the alcohol is just kind of a, it's like a carrier.

Margaret 00:16:57 For.

Vanessa 00:16:58 The cannabinoids. It doesn't really melt into it in the same way that it does in fat.

Vanessa 00:17:04 So that's where I'm going to take a tincture and I'll make I have a cannabis sugar in my cookbook. And with that sugar you can make all sorts of things. I haven't tried a meringue, though. I'm very curious if the the weight of the cannabinoids, the resin will weigh down the egg whites, and so you won't be able to do a meringue. Right? Really. Right. So that's one of the ones I've kind of avoided because that's my that's what I think will happen is they're not going to work, but always fun to try.

Margaret 00:17:32 You'll need to experiment with that and report back and see how it goes. But yeah. Now are there any underappreciated ingredients that you find pair exceptionally, exceptionally well with cannabis.

Vanessa 00:17:43 You know, this will sound very American of me, but peanut butter is great. You know, very, very kind of I don't want to say basic, but you either love peanut butter or you don't. And yeah, but the the fat in it is really great. I've found and this is anecdotal so I haven't done I wish I could do some research on it and like give people butter versus peanut butter and be like which one do you feel more? but from my experience as an edible maker, when I put it into peanut butter, people tend to feel the high more.

Vanessa 00:18:17 It almost makes it more bioavailable. But don't. Again, like no studies done on that. That's just been my.

Margaret 00:18:24 My little evidence.

Vanessa 00:18:25 Yeah. It's like, Holy cow. Those peanut butter cups really sucked. You know.

Margaret 00:18:31 Yeah. And it goes really well with chocolate, too.

Vanessa 00:18:33 And like.

Margaret 00:18:33 Yes, it's it's a nice ingredient as well because it will mask the taste of cannabis if you're not looking for that flavor. So yeah. You know peanut butter I love peanut butter and most nut butters. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I usually don't buy almond butter because I like it too much. And I.

Vanessa 00:18:51 You eat the whole thing.

Margaret 00:18:52 Yeah I do. Yeah. So I'm like, maybe if I just don't buy it, I'll be fine.

Vanessa 00:18:55 But that's how I do it too. I'm like, I don't buy this.

Margaret 00:18:58 Yeah. It's like an occasional treat. Yeah.

Vanessa 00:19:01 Yeah. You can't have that.

Margaret 00:19:02 Yeah. Now, just strains even matter when it comes to edibles. And how would you say that the home cook should work with terpenes and in what context? And I know you talk a bit about this in the intro of your book as well.

Vanessa 00:19:14 It's a loaded question. Yes.

Margaret 00:19:17 That's why I asked.

Vanessa 00:19:18 Yeah. And, you know, no one can prove it right. How do you prove that? terpenes. When you eat them, they can't even prove it. When we smoke them now, people will argue like, that's bullshit. And I. I hear them on that. But when we eat a food, we're also eating. Terpenes aren't just in cannabis. They're in our food as well. So how do we control that? How many? How much of a terpene when we eat it is going to actually have an impact. So I guess my question would be for you. What do you mean by do terpenes? Do strains even matter? Do you mean as far as flavor, or do you mean as far as the effects of the the edible?

Margaret 00:20:01 I probably first and foremost the effects, but also the flavor, because I do see a lot of folks that will, like, use certain cultivars in a recipe and say, you know, the terpenes will lend itself well to this recipe.

Margaret 00:20:12 But then I'm like.

Vanessa 00:20:13 What do you mean?

Margaret 00:20:15 Yeah. Like, don't they all kind of through the whole process of de carb and infusing and baking and eating Like what's left of that Turpin at that point.

Vanessa 00:20:25 I think it's an excellent question. It's definitely something that I've investigated as an edible maker to the extent that I can. You know, I with it becoming more legal, hopefully we'll be able to have studies, although I've thought about it. Like, how would we figure this out? Like if they actually do have an impact when we eat them? It's just for me. Our bodies are so complicated. When we smoke, it's one thing. It's going into our lungs and then into our bloodstream, into our brain. When we when we eat it, you know, some of it will sublingual get into our system, but then it has to go into our stomach and then it goes, our liver starts metabolizing it. And like you said, there's there's before that de carboxylate in which these terpenes are very volatile.

Vanessa 00:21:11 So how many how are you going to be preserving all of them through that process? Okay. Then we're looking at doing a sous vide using sous vide to de carb to protect those turbines. which some of them are still pretty volatile and will still evaporate. and you smell it when you'd carb, you can smell them. and then during the baking process, let's say you don't you make a salad, you make a salad dressing. Sure. Okay. But then in that salad, maybe you put some lemon juice in that dressing, too. Now, is the limonene in the lemon going to have an impact as well? Like I don't eat a lemon meringue pie and all of a sudden feel excited, even if I put a bunch of THC and other cannabinoids in it. Yeah. Terpenes are the same. No matter if they're coming from cannabis or if they're coming from a lemon, or if they're coming from rosemary. So I think you get into this tricky business of trying to. And that's not even taking into consideration how unique we are as individuals.

Vanessa 00:22:16 Right. So you might not be able to eat chocolate after 4 p.m. because some of the compounds in chocolate might just, you know, excite you too much. Maybe the anandamide in chocolate, which is also a endocannabinoid that we make, the bliss molecule, maybe that you're just too blissed out. You can't do it. I can eat chocolate at any point. I could wake up at 2:00 in the morning and eat chocolate and then go right back to bed. So we're all different with our bodies. And I think when you start trying to prescribe people and affect with your edibles, you're giving yourself too much credit. That's what I think, right? However, strains are not just defined by terpenes. They're also there's other compounds in them. And some strains like, Farm Cut has this royal blueberry and it's a 1 to 1 CBD to THC. If you're looking at the cannabinoids in a, in a in a strain or a cultivar, then yes, that is something to take into consideration as far as how it's going to affect you.

Vanessa 00:23:19 Like how much THC like these new kind of minor cannabinoids that we're finding outside of THC and CBD. We have CBG, we have CBN and now that one is one that you do not want if you're trying to stay awake right.

Margaret 00:23:39 It's going to give you the couch lock.

Vanessa 00:23:41 CBN is degraded THC. What happens is the hydrogen and THC binds with oxygen in the air to make H2O aka water. And what we're left with is CBN which is not great. If you want to party. And and I wouldn't serve it at like a cannabis. Like I wouldn't serve CBN at a Bon appetit dinner party right. I I would give it to someone who's like I can't go to sleep at night. Like try a CBN edible something light and figure out what dose works for you. So in that sense and that wouldn't be strain specific right. CBN can happen in any cultivars.

Margaret 00:24:22 So right.

Vanessa 00:24:24 It's really for me that's what I focus on.

Margaret 00:24:26 Yeah. So basically it's the difference between terpenes and cannabinoids. The terpenes don't matter as much necessarily.

Margaret 00:24:32 The cannabinoids obviously do as a full CBD infusion obviously is going to have a very different effect than something THC, THC or any of these other minor cannabinoids.

Vanessa 00:24:44 And how they're all mixed together. Now, as far as like the entourage effect, with all of those terpenes in the does that impact our how we feel and edible? I cannot speak to that because it is so complicated. I don't think anybody really can at this point. And I've looked into it. I know there are people who are trying to prove that right. Good luck to them. I hope they figure it out. Yeah it is.

Margaret 00:25:12 It's tricky though, because I see even in like the dispensaries, you go in and you look at the edibles and they'll be like a sativa edible or an indica edible.

Vanessa 00:25:19 But I'm like, it's so binary.

Margaret 00:25:21 I know, and kind of.

Vanessa 00:25:22 Bullshit, but it's bullshit because sativa and indica, first of all, they have been sliced and diced so many times by these cultivators that no one can really say they have a pure, pure, pure sativa, pure or pure pure indica.

Vanessa 00:25:36 It's pretty much all hybrids. Now, there are some people who've really preserved those genetics and, you know, more power to them. But that's not what you're getting from these edible makers that are stamping indica and sativa on their edibles. So for me, it's too binary. And I think it's, you know, people will again expect a certain effect from taking that indica edible. And I don't like to take that kind of responsibility on like you're going to feel this way. I'm like, no, you're going to feel high. You know, the edible high. Yeah. It feels different than the smoking high. It lasts longer. It feels stronger. It might be more of like a body kind. Everyone's different. Everyone I can, I can eat edibles and do an hour of yoga. Other people eat edibles and they can't leave the couch.

Margaret 00:26:25 So, yeah, well, a lot of the times that's also going to depend on the dosing as well. You know, if I'm going to do yoga, I'm going to do a lighter dose than if I'm, you know, flaking out on the couch watching a show.

Margaret 00:26:35 There's obviously different doses for different occasions as well. But is there a time when you might want to use, like look at the the terpenes in a particular cultivar? And because I've always wondered as well if I, infused raw cannabis into an olive oil once, and I suppose if you tried that with different cultivars, maybe that would preserve some of the terpenes. But of course you're using that more for.

Vanessa 00:26:58 The.

Margaret 00:26:59 Flavor. Flavor. Yeah.

Vanessa 00:27:00 But you would get some like you don't need to de carboxylate it all the way. That's for the high. So if you're really trying to preserve some of those turbines more? You would get that flavor of course.

Margaret 00:27:11 And yeah.

Vanessa 00:27:12 And so when I cook with cannabis, that's definitely something I consider. Like with Marigold sweets, I'm wanting to use something for a caramel that is going to have more of those fruity notes to it. Like Sonoma Hills Farm has this cherry cheesecake that they're going to they're going to let me use some rosin for my next batch, and that is going to lend those terpenes to that.

Vanessa 00:27:37 Just like when we go and pick mint or time. There's different types of mint in time. There's chocolate. There's all sorts. Right. English thyme, whatever. Depending on the recipe, I'm going to use different flavors in it. So there are savory and sweet recipes in this cookbook. You know, there are some some terpenes and some cultivars that really are versatile, that you don't have to worry about anything with lemon, like Super Lemon Haze. Like the flavor is going to be good. I wouldn't use anything skunky or gassy per se. Great for smoking. I love to smoke those kind of strains, but when you're cooking with it, you're going to get those flavors, especially when you're dosing it potently. You know, I, I dosed lightly, but if you're really trying to pack a punch, you're going to get more of those flavors as well. So you want to be considering the the terpenes.

Margaret 00:28:31 But that also may be applied to some of the ones that smell like, I don't know, some of the cheesy strains, or I have a friend that loves like the piss strains.

Margaret 00:28:41 I know the ones that smell really gross, but yeah, you know.

Vanessa 00:28:45 Smack they. Yeah, they really like you smoke them and you're like, whoa, you know, they. Yeah, they smell for a reason. That plant is like, get the hell away from my phone. Yeah. So, you know, I guess from a cooking perspective, I try to go with, with strains that I know are going to taste good as well because it will impact the flavor. but I don't focus on it too heavily, if I'm being honest. I personally do not feel a difference when I use different strains. I just always most of the strains I'm using are high THC. Now, if I were to use something that had more CBD or something else, maybe I'd feel a difference. I would just probably not feel as stoned, but right. I'm not as sensitive as some people. Some people swear by. I only do blue dream edibles or I, you know, and whatever works for them that stick with what works for you.

Margaret 00:29:45 Yeah, nothing wrong with that for sure. But I always love to ask people this question because it is a little controversial. But yes, controversial is not the right. I mean, if that's the kind of controversy we're dealing with in the cannabis industry, then I think we're doing all right.

Vanessa 00:29:56 But we're doing okay.

Margaret 00:29:58 Yeah. Now, in your book, you talk about something interesting around d the carboxylate that I have. That I was sort of this was new for me. And so I hope we can talk about how you like to make a paper pouch when it comes to d carving, and why you like to do that. Because this is something, like I said, that was this is a new concept for me, but it makes sense.

Vanessa 00:30:21 so more so than the paper pouch. I'm just trying like I explained that CBN process where you're trying to get rid of oxygen from the equation. If you take oxygen out of the equation you don't have to worry about degrading your THC. the the most obvious way of doing that is using a CV to, you know, heat it very slowly, to protect the, the sticky resin from, from sticking to the sous vide bag.

Vanessa 00:30:52 I use parchment paper and I just create a little parchment pouch, and I if I'm doing it in the oven, it'll go into a stasher bag, which is that brand is of and safe. Which is why I'm saying it. I'm not.

Margaret 00:31:05 Those are the silicone, the reusable silicone bags.

Vanessa 00:31:08 And it's the Stasher brand specifically is safe in the oven up to a certain temperature and d d carb temperature is safe. So I roll those up, smash as much oxygen out as air is out as possible, and then put it in the oven, like with the pouch. The parchment pouch in the silicone. If I didn't put parchment, I'm trying not to waste any of those trichomes, right? I don't want any of them to stick to that silicone, and it will as it as it heats up, it will. And over time, I'm sure if you use your stasher without parchment or use whatever without parchment, you could see that resin built up. Like as you trim plants, you get the hash on your hands.

Vanessa 00:31:49 It just takes time to see those tiny little trichomes. it's kind of a protection thing. It's being a little bit more precious than just throwing it onto a pan and tossing it in the oven, because that's really going to expose it to oxygen and heat like blasts of heat, which is where you're going to get that CBN. so it just it's like an extra step. Again it's an expensive herb. Is it totally necessary. You're probably fine skipping it. But I just like to kind of give this plant the respect that it deserves at the price that it costs.

Margaret 00:32:26 Because it's I like that idea too, because sometimes people do find it when they make edibles. It can make them sleepy. And that could just be because, you know, it's being degraded and converting into that CBN, which is maybe not what they're looking for. And this little extra step might help them avoid that process and make their edibles more impactful and less tire like make them less tired.

Vanessa 00:32:49 They might be using old weed too. I think people kind of hold on to to flower and they're like, oh, I'll just make some edibles out of this and it might be a year or two old.

Vanessa 00:32:58 And then there's still decarbia. DeKalb oscillation will happen the minute that plant gets cut down. Or if it's just left to die in the in the woods or whatever, it will start d carboxylate because THC is the stable form, THC is acidic, so it's going to start that d carboxylate process at room temperature. We just want to speed it up because we don't want to wait around, and we want to convert as much of that THC as possible, because we're trying to get as much high as possible. Right. So they might already have THC like a good amount and then they're d carving it still and then it's degrading it to CBN. So I you know I think there's there's different ways to kind of protect and store flower. So you're not you're going to avoid those things. And then there's times to just kind of look at some some bud and just be like hey, this is my sleepy time weed, and I'm gonna go to bed. Yeah, just be aware of that. That.

Margaret 00:34:02 So would people in that particular instance then be better off, like Decarbia.

Margaret 00:34:06 And then like if they have a lot of weed that they're going to make edibles with it eventually anyway, would they be better off carving it first and then storing it already instead of to avoid some of that degradation that you're talking about?

Vanessa 00:34:20 And that's a good question. I would have to do lab testing on it. My instinct is no, my instinct would to just kind of. They'd have to like plan. They'd have to be like, okay, this weed I'm going to. Most people just kind of forget that they have some weed and they're like, I'm going to throw it into some butter and make some edibles with it. we can run more experiments on it. I that's all I'm about. I love running experiments. That's this whole book was like hundreds of experiments that I just was like, I don't know, I guess I'll, I'll run some testing on it. I think that's the, the, the best place we can come from is like staying curious and and being able to say, well, I don't, I don't know.

Vanessa 00:35:04 So why don't we write the gate and see what would be the best way to go about that?

Margaret 00:35:09 Yeah, I'd be curious about that myself, just because I do tend to do carb like not huge amounts, but larger amounts so that I have it d carved ready for what? I want to make an infusion because I like it just cuts down the time. If you can like do a batch and have it ready to use. Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa 00:35:26 I think the best thing you could do is d carb and infuse at the same time, because then you have that oil around it. And I found what I did run testing on infusion and d carboxylate at the same time. And it almost it protects the cannabinoids. So it takes a lot longer for it to right. Once it's submerged in a fat which for me, I'm trying to cut time. I don't I think you're like me and that you don't like to spend, like, hours stirring a pot on the stove.

Margaret 00:36:01 No, I don't.

Vanessa 00:36:02 You can take half that time.

Vanessa 00:36:04 You will. Yeah. And that's that's where this book is coming from, is like. I want to know, are there shortcuts? Are there ways for me to do it faster? Does it make sense to do carboxylate and infuse at the same time? To me it doesn't because you're going to be putting that plant matter in, in a fat and and heating it in that fat, just like tea gets bitter as you steep it for a long time. Yeah. You're going to pull more of that chlorophyll, more of those bitter plant flavors, not just the terpenes, all of the other stuff that's in the cannabis plant into that oil while you're carving, you probably could infuse and then continue to de carb after you take the plant matter out. But again, it's just like taking longer for me, in my opinion, for no reason. Right? so that's something to consider. Is like if you're going to do a batch D carb, do a batch infusion right after and you'll, you're going to look at, you're going to look at this book and you're going to, you're going to see how long it takes to infuse.

Vanessa 00:37:05 And it's going to blow your mind. You're going to be like, I.

Margaret 00:37:08 Know this for.

Vanessa 00:37:09 Shorter.

Margaret 00:37:10 Well, I admitted, I saw a lot of your infusion times were shorter than what I was accustomed to. And admittedly, I do have infusion devices at home as well just from doing this show for however many years. But. Right. I mean, that changes how you might set the temperatures on some of those devices too. Based on some of these, like testing you were running, what you were finding the longer isn't necessarily better. That's basically what you're finding that you don't extract more THC from your cannabis. Yeah, yeah. Which I it's counterintuitive almost.

Vanessa 00:37:46 I think that's kind of that was one of the biggest things that from writing this book. and this was really brought on from my club, the Edibles Club was they, you know, them, my patrons asking me questions, me not being able to answer them. And I'm like, well, I'm going to find out. And so and me asking questions on Bon Appetit and then people not being able to tell me and then I'm like, well we need to find this.

Vanessa 00:38:11 We need to figure this out. Right. And so that was one of the biggest things. And how quickly butter infuses, you know, 50% of that infusion happens in the first 30s.

Margaret 00:38:24 So yeah, that's wild. Like a.

Vanessa 00:38:27 Straight line.

Margaret 00:38:28 30s.

Vanessa 00:38:29 Yeah. You're not going to get the rest of the 50% in the next 30s it takes longer for that, that other potency to come out, but you don't need to do it for two days, like some of the recipes I see online are like nine hours in a crock pot. I'm like, at that point, you're just making soup. Like you're making a green sludge.

Margaret 00:38:51 Well, and then it does end up looking really green as well. The results. And I think people associate that green color with more potent, potent infusion. Not right.

Vanessa 00:39:00 Yeah I don't look at green. I don't look at green cold water hash and think this is a better hash. Our goal is the same as when making hash. We're taking we're trying to strip the trichomes off.

Vanessa 00:39:12 That's it.

Margaret 00:39:13 Right.

Vanessa 00:39:14 For me personally, I know that some people want the other compounds in the cannabis plant because they believe that it has other health benefits, etc. I am not of that school. I'm in the school of getting people high. I'm not a medical professional, so I don't really dole out advice on that kind of stuff other than hey, this I've heard it helps you sleep and I heard it helps with pain.

Margaret 00:39:38 And yeah.

Vanessa 00:39:39 It's a fun time.

Margaret 00:39:40 Yeah.

Vanessa 00:39:41 So for me, it's really like, how do I do this quickly and from a flavor perspective, how do I preserve? How do I make sure this tastes good? While I don't let it steep in in the butter or the oil or make a tincture for 30 days, I ran lab testing on that. I did a room temperature tincture and a tincture made in the freezer to see what, and I shook it every day and did all of the stuff. It does not matter that time is not the variable, it's temperature, and it is agitation.

Vanessa 00:40:12 And for alcohol, it's going to be the proof that you use the amount of ethanol because ethanol is the solvent. and for, for butters and oils, the butter is acting as the solvent, the trichomes like the butter, it just melting it right off the plant. So how do we help it melt? We stir it up, we agitate it. And that's what they'll do in a lab is they'll for alcohol. They get those jewelry. I almost considered putting this in the book. They get those jewelry cleaners. And they put ethanol in it. And then you can put whatever we, you know flour with the, the shake, the, you know supersonic shaking whatever agitator. It will shake all of those trichomes off into the ethanol. So if you really wanted to like take another you could get a jewelry cleaner and do it that way. Yeah. So for me, I was I just wanted people to understand what the goal is here. The goal from from my book and from my perspective is get those trichomes off.

Vanessa 00:41:14 And then from there you want to keep doing stuff with that plant matter. By all means, knock yourself out, throw it into some meatballs, throw it into whatever you want.

Margaret 00:41:23 But that also, I guess, means that when somebody is using, whether they're doing it on a stove or in a device, if they can change the temperature on the device, the not necessarily the temperature but the time, then it might be worth considering doing that.

Vanessa 00:41:35 The device, as long as it's agitating. That's my problem with the device if it's just sitting there and your plant isn't moving, that means those like you have, like I think of it like I'm washing, say you're washing. That's how we describe it. Washing like you're washing your you're trying to wash those trichomes off. You don't wash your washing machine doesn't sit still. Right. It.

Margaret 00:41:59 Yeah.

Vanessa 00:41:59 Yeah.

Margaret 00:42:00 Moves right.

Vanessa 00:42:01 Move so that those molecules. So the atoms whatever. If you want to get really sciency so they, they melt off.

Vanessa 00:42:08 They shake off. Yeah. So it gets them off of the plant.

Margaret 00:42:12 So basically if someone's looking for a device and they should look for one that includes agitation when it's infusing.

Vanessa 00:42:19 If you like a device I talk about this in the book too. I don't like a single use device. Yeah. For me a double boiler is I can make that at home and it works just as well. And since it doesn't take very it's not taking me hours to infuse. It's only taking me like I think for the butter. It took 30. What did I say? 30 minutes.

Margaret 00:42:40 Or.

Vanessa 00:42:40 30 minutes, right. I don't want to have to set up a whole device. And my kitchen is tiny. I don't want to have another thing in my kitchen personally, but I understand people like to kind of set something and forget it and go on. If there is a if there is a feature that it will agitate, that will help. If you have a slow cooker, so you want to set your crock pot to a certain temperature.

Vanessa 00:43:05 And because you don't want to have to worry about a flame on the stove, although the the point of a double boiler is the water keeps the temperature static, you know, just stir it. Just make sure you're stirring it.

Margaret 00:43:18 So that's what I need to do is to stir. Okay.

Vanessa 00:43:21 Heat, agitation fat. That's it. Yeah. It's not rocket science. Then squeeze as much of the the butter out of the flour as you can. You're not going to be able to get it all out. Some people like get press you know they go really extreme to try and get every drop of butter out. Yeah. Knock yourself out. There will be a little bit of potency left in the butter, because it's physically impossible to get every drop out, so you can use it. It's not going to have too much, but if you're really sensitive, you can throw it into something. Just try to pick recipes when you're using flour straight. And some of my recipes in the book do that.

Vanessa 00:44:01 You want to make sure you're using a recipe with a lot of other flavors and textures, right? Like I say, meatballs because meatballs have garlic and parmesan and. Yeah, and all of these other delicious and tomato sauce, you know, all of these things where you're not going to be like, am I eating weed? Right? If I put it into a snickerdoodle, I just throw some refuse butter, you know, buttery weed into a snickerdoodle. I'm going to bite into that and be like, gross. You know, there's too much else to distract your palate from.

Margaret 00:44:32 From no. Meatballs is definitely a perfect example. And back to the peanut butter too. Because peanut butter is such a strong flavor that it's going to mask that that.

Vanessa 00:44:40 Firecrackers.

Margaret 00:44:41 That.

Vanessa 00:44:42 Firecrackers come in with that AVB, right. Maybe AVB will have a little bit of CBN. There's I mean it depends right. Depends how old your flower was when you first vaped it. And but some on Reddit someone posted lab results from AVB.

Vanessa 00:44:58 And it had you know it was there was a little bit of THC and a little bit de carb. And that's kind of the same idea of using weed that's already been infused into to butter. There'll be a little bit of potency there. So just throw it into something with like, yeah, peanut butter or yeah.

Margaret 00:45:15 Which is super easy to do. Yeah. But I mean, you kind of already touched on this before, but how do you approach cooking with concentrates? Because once again, I've had a lot of people asking about that recently.

Vanessa 00:45:26 I love cooking with concentrates. That's really what set me apart as an edible maker. Was getting a I'm getting my hands on some cold water. Hash de carboxylate was not even a word I knew at the time, and it wasn't a word online. this is like 2010, right? So I just I figured it out. I don't know how I put it in the oven. I was like, oh, look it it's bubbling. Oh that's interesting.

Vanessa 00:45:50 And then I can't that I put it into my caramel. And people were like, oh, this felt really good. It felt stronger. It felt. And I was like, great, I can I can stretch my hash a little bit by heating it up beforehand and then putting it into the caramel, because the caramel would de carb the hash a little bit without pre carving it, because it goes up to a high enough temperature. But doing it a little bit beforehand helped. so cooking with concentrates they're potent. You need a milligram scale. There's no using one of those basic kitchen scales. It has.

Margaret 00:46:26 To be.

Vanessa 00:46:27 A milligram scale. Yes, you can use a jewelry scale. You can get one of the bigger ones that I have that they use in labs. I like them because you can measure your flower like cannabis flower and your flower like baking flower, all on the same machine again. I'm big on less machines in my house just because I don't have enough space. and then knowing the potency, if it's not carved or not, there's kind of a lot to think about when you're cooking with concentrates.

Vanessa 00:46:59 It depends on the concentrate that you're using. That's why I put a chart in the book that's like, this is the average potency. This is whether or not you need to de carboxylate. and just trying to dose responsibly. There's a chapter called A formula for an ethical dose. And it's it's like the first thing I said in this conversation. No one eats one brownie. So it's really considering how much of something someone's going to eat, and giving them the grace to be able to eat more of something if they want to.

Margaret 00:47:35 Yeah, I'm a big proponent of that too, just because I know myself and that's how I am. I never eat just one. I just I know.

Vanessa 00:47:43 It's insulting when you see a bag of chips and they're like serving size five chips. I'm like, whoo!

Margaret 00:47:49 Right? Yeah, I know, right? Nobody eats five chips. It's ridiculous. Yeah. So as far as cooking, cooking with concentrates, then there are certain ones that you would de carb you mentioned like the, so on Fico you wouldn't need to de carb because it's already been de carved.

Margaret 00:48:05 And then through the process you could just use some of that concentrate in a fat, mix it up really well and then you use or you could probably also put it right in some recipes too, could you not.

Vanessa 00:48:14 You just want to make sure you homogenize it because it's so potent. So you want to make sure it's being distributed evenly throughout the recipe. So like if you were to do and I talk.

Margaret 00:48:25 About candies like I find they lend themselves. Lend themselves well to candies. Would you find that that's one you could add concentrates to pretty directly?

Vanessa 00:48:34 Yeah, it depends on the candy. Most, like gummies and things like that, will still homogenize it into a coconut oil to make sure it's not gonna, like, stay in a clump in the candy. or or MCT oil, whatever they want to use. caramel has a lot of fat in it, so I still, I could just plop it right into the pot while it's cooking, but just for my peace of mind of knowing that it's evenly distributed, I still whisk it into a warm butter.

Vanessa 00:49:05 Some people will use, lecithin. I don't love the taste of lecithin, and I haven't really seen anything that is convincing that it helps bioavailability other than, like, what people say. I haven't seen studies. I understand the thought process behind why it's believed to increase bioavailability, but I haven't seen any convincing studies that are proving that.

Margaret 00:49:30 Yeah.

Vanessa 00:49:31 Does that for cannabinoids which are operating on our CB1 CB2 receptors. You know what I mean? Like it's.

Margaret 00:49:37 Yeah.

Vanessa 00:49:38 It's not quite there for me yet to be like yes. Put lecithin you know, put lecithin in. I think it helps to can help to distribute it or it's an emulsifier. So it's going to help.

Margaret 00:49:50 Which is sort of how I've used it before as an emulsifier. Not necessarily for bioavailability, though. I have heard that lots of times. But it's hard to know when you're eating something.

Vanessa 00:50:00 Is it more.

Margaret 00:50:01 Available or is it more available or not than the other thing that I made? I don't know. I'm high.

Vanessa 00:50:06 So that's right.

Margaret 00:50:08 Yeah, that's how.

Vanessa 00:50:09 I feel about.

Margaret 00:50:09 It.

Vanessa 00:50:10 Yeah. I think though with like some drinks if you wanted to use a lecithin, I just personally don't like the flavor of it. I find I've tried like I soy and I've tried the sunflower lecithin, and I find it gives it kind of like this dusty flavor, which is not super appealing to me, but to each their own. what were we talking about? Oh.

Margaret 00:50:33 Just concentrates. I think I was asking about putting them in candy in particular, but. Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa 00:50:39 And so, like, distillate is a pretty common concentrate that people use. And that's going to be just distilled cannabinoids. It's not going to be full spectrum. and then there's also like things that are using BHO, you know, like live resin which is using the flash frozen flower, but it's resin, so it's washing it with butane or ethanol, whatever they want to solvent that they want to use. And some people have problems with those solvents. You know, it's kind of like the seed oil discussion.

Vanessa 00:51:15 Yeah.

Margaret 00:51:15 I'm familiar.

Vanessa 00:51:16 With that.

Margaret 00:51:17 Question.

Vanessa 00:51:17 Right. It's complicated. Right. Yeah. I personally We use seed oils all the time and haven't seen anything convincing otherwise. I think everything in moderation. And like, you know, I don't think eating tallow is somehow going to be better for me, but, kind of that same idea with concentrates, people have a problem with using butane to strip those turkey or trichomes off. And but it has benefits, right? It preserves those terpenes better. They get like perkier concentrates when they use butane. So there's always, you know, there's pros and cons with everything. For my brand, because of the the ethos of marigold sweets, I use solvent less full spectrum single strain. So I can tell people if people are very I only like the strain. I can say, well, this is the strain. I mean.

Margaret 00:52:13 Right, well and I think too with the BHO, people are just have that concern as to like, obviously you don't want to have any residual solvents left over.

Margaret 00:52:21 And that's the the main concern I would think, with using that. Otherwise I mean have at it. It's going to be great.

Vanessa 00:52:28 But it's complicated. I know because I don't know what to say to people. Like my instinct is to say like, yeah, let's not we don't know if we're going to to burn off all of that. BHO and there's not going to be, like you said, residual solvents, but. Right. I'm sorry. My dog found her sloth. I'm going to have to take take it from her and hide it.

Margaret 00:52:48 Yeah, I can hear it a little bit, but.

Vanessa 00:52:50 I'm.

Margaret 00:52:51 Sorry. I mean, switching gears a little bit because, I mean, we're obviously talking about concentrates, which can give you a pretty potent edible if you want to go that direction. And I do have listeners that definitely prefer high potency edibles, but I also know a lot of people that are really sensitive and low dose and microdose edibles I'm hearing talked about a lot more now as well.

Margaret 00:53:13 And do you see this as a trend shaping, shaping the future of cannabis edibles moving forward.

Vanessa 00:53:19 1,000%. That's my book. How to eat Weed. Have a good time and have a Good Time. It's that second part of the book is about microdosing. I've met so many people that don't touch edibles because one time they had a bad experience because someone threw like an ounce into a stick of butter and they're like, I don't know, I can smoke, you know, I smoke this much. I'll just do that and put it in a dozen cookies. I've done that. I've dosed myself too heavily before, and.

Margaret 00:53:48 I've done it to myself, too.

Vanessa 00:53:50 Yeah, it feels like the walls are melting and like you're never going to feel normal again.

Margaret 00:53:56 And yeah.

Vanessa 00:53:57 Every kind of anxiety.

Margaret 00:53:59 That heart attack feeling, which is not a good time.

Vanessa 00:54:02 No, it's not a good time. And so microdosing because edibles take longer to kick in than smoking. When we smoke, that feeling happens pretty quickly.

Vanessa 00:54:14 with edibles because we have to go through all of these systems in our body, right? Our stuff. First we're going to eat it, and we're going to swallow it and go down to our stomach. And then our liver's got to do this whole thing. People are impatient. Where are you still? You know, we're used to taking a shot and feeling drunk. And I mean, for me, I'm, like, pretty quickly shot, and I'm like, whew. Yeah. because edibles take longer. People kind of get cocky. And they also, they it they taste good. Yeah. They taste good.

Margaret 00:54:50 Yeah. And then you're like, I want another one.

Vanessa 00:54:52 That's right. So and and you're like, well, I don't feel anything. I'll be fine. And you kind of underestimate.

Margaret 00:54:57 Yeah. I feel like it's that, these edibles ain't shit kind of mentality. That's it. Because they just don't know. And they're like it's nothing's going to happen. And then it happens.

Vanessa 00:55:07 Yeah. Because the cookie is disarming. You're like, this cookie Cookie's not going to do anything to me. Whereas like a fiery shot or something given to you by like, a rough and tumble bartender. You're like, ooh, you know, you kind of know what you're in for. A cookie doesn't usually mean, you know, being glued to the couch. So as edible makers, and especially as this plant becomes more and more legal and more states and in more countries, we have a responsibility to dose people ethically and to do it with consideration. I think that really comes down to education and understanding things like, what are what's in this book? Like how much, how many milligrams on average are in a gram of wheat? Okay, it is going to have about 200mg of THC after de carboxylate iron. That's what we're looking at. A lot of people can't have more than five milligrams. So we're talking about 40 doses in one gram of of flour. And people will throw in an eighth.

Vanessa 00:56:11 And I get that mindset. You're like, it's just it's it's not even it's nothing. It's a gram. That's nothing. Okay, well it's not nothing. It's it's a lot. So microdosing first starts with understanding the potency of the ingredient that you're cooking with. And then also taking into consideration because this is something that is delicious and people want to eat more of. How many cookies or how many meatballs or how many handfuls of popcorn is someone going to eat and then dosing it based on that serving size? Okay, if I know someone is going to eat at least three cookies, I want these cookies to maybe be 1.5mg each. So. Right, you know, that compound and then someone doesn't have to feel bad if they eat three cookies because we're human.

Margaret 00:57:11 Yeah, absolutely. Although I've taken the track now to infuse the cookies or whatever I'm making to my dose so that I don't eat more than one because I have a I have a horrible sweet tooth. So that's my method because I have eaten too many before and then be like, why did I do that? I knew how strong they were.

Margaret 00:57:27 But yeah, yeah.

Vanessa 00:57:28 I don't have that self-control. So I'm just honest with myself. Like, I make brownies the other day and, you know, they, they pack a punch. And so I just but I can eat three of them and still go about my day, you know, and.

Margaret 00:57:44 And that's nice too, because then you can tailor the, the dose that you're consuming in one session to what you have to do. Like, are you going to eat three brownies if you have to run a bunch of errands, maybe you just need one in that instance. Yeah. So it gives you more flexibility with what you're what you're.

Vanessa 00:58:00 Microdose yeah, you can always eat more of them. And if you want to be healthy about it, say you're like, okay, you don't want to eat too many cookies. Cannabis can go in anything. I've got a hummus recipe in here. Make yourself some hummus, and you can get stoned and have, like, a healthy, I don't know, go for a walk or something, or make a trail and go for a hike.

Vanessa 00:58:21 Be out in nature. I think this the thinking outside of the brownie is is good. And if you want to kind of tailor this book will teach you how to infuse everything. If you are gluten free, if you are vegan. The basic the basis. There are recipes for everyone, but the basic information you're going to get in the beginning of the book, which is how to infuse quickly how to de carb in different ways, that can be applied to any recipe right now.

Margaret 00:58:54 Are there any misconceptions about cannabis edibles that you wish would die?

Vanessa 00:58:59 Well, I think we've kind of covered it as far as the indica versus sativa, but I think that's kind of a very simplified way of looking at it. I also think a lot of people are like, oh, I don't do edibles. I'll just smoke a joint and eat a cookie. And I'm like, well, you don't know what the difference is between delta nine THC and 11 hydroxy THC, and that's okay. But don't come into our lane.

Vanessa 00:59:21 Let us do what we do. You do what you do. like, they're just totally different things. So it's not as simple as I'll just bake a batch of cookies and smoke a joint. It's like, fine, you'll be smoking another joint in 15 minutes. Whereas if I had an infused cookie, I'd be stoned for hours, which is my goal. So.

Margaret 00:59:44 And that's what I like to do. But. Yeah. now, just as we're getting to the close today, a couple more questions around just navigating the cannabis industry as a woman, have you had any particular challenges?

Vanessa 00:59:56 I don't know anyone else who's like, baby, I'm sure other women in the industry or in sciences can talk about this. And I'm not a scientist. I'm just a I'm a cookbook. Not just I'm a cookbook author. I'm very curious. I ran a lot of lab tests for this book. And I have a lot of bro's who are just like, let me see the white papers when I say things like, oh.

Margaret 01:00:18 White.

Vanessa 01:00:19 Papers. Okay. Are you serious? Like, right. I would love that. I would love for this to be studied on that level. I think for a cookbook, this is pretty groundbreaking. The information that's in here, I'm trying to help home cooks so they're not wasting time. So they're being efficient and they're dosing responsibly. I think that people kind of get prickly about this because they've been in this industry that's been kind of in stayed hidden for a long time, and everyone thinks they know everything about this topic, this plant. and here I am coming in and I'm like, hi. No, you actually don't need to infuse that long. And for some reason, it pisses people off. It pisses Brose off. It's never. I very rarely have a woman coming in my comments and being like, you don't know anything.

Margaret 01:01:13 You know, I hear that not just in the cannabis industry, but sort of across industries as well, that it's women are typically very supportive typically. Generally, yeah, generally.

Vanessa 01:01:24 And then usually I get mansplain to by by guys and I'm like this is literally what I do. I've spent the better part of five years researching and trying to answer these questions to the best of my capability. Do I wish there were 2 or 3 other people that would? That's what it would take to be a real scientific study, right? Is to have it pure, pure, tested. And who else is doing what I'm doing? I invite them to come and do it and and prove further prove this is right. I ran the test multiple times. Right? I didn't just do butter and go, okay. We. This is what happened. I got I was so surprised by the results on infusion of butter. I ran it three times. And like, each time I was like, okay, I don't know enough. I need to start. I need to do the test more thoroughly. I need to test the flour. After I need to do this, I need to make sure we're restarting the butter every time.

Vanessa 01:02:22 So I'm not pulling from, you know, like really expensive and kooky like obsessive. So it's a little insulting when these guys who've never did any testing ever, right, are like, let me see this. I'm like, no.

Margaret 01:02:39 Yeah, yeah. You don't. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And honestly, I've been making edibles for I mean, I've had this show for five years. I've started making animals before that. I discovered them later in life. But I'm always learning new things. And I learn new things from your book, too.

Vanessa 01:02:55 So thank you. I'm always learning new things, and that's how we should stay. We should.

Margaret 01:02:59 Stay.

Vanessa 01:03:00 Curious.

Margaret 01:03:00 Yes. Always be learning. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Now, Vanessa, what would surprise people about you?

Vanessa 01:03:08 What would surprise people about me? Oh, I know I saw that question. I was like, I don't know what would be surprising about me. I'm pretty opinionated, so I feel like people know most of how I feel about things.

Vanessa 01:03:27 oops, I really thought I thought I had an answer for this. And what is surprising.

Margaret 01:03:33 If you don't. Maybe there's a hobby that you have or something that would surprise people. I've had a few people mention hobbies that would be like, oh, you're into that. That's surprising. But.

Vanessa 01:03:43 I guess chess. I don't think that I just got into chess, so don't hold me to that.

Margaret 01:03:50 Oh, no, not at all.

Vanessa 01:03:51 I love puzzles, I love chess. very into learning new languages. And so that's when I say like I like to be a student. Yeah, I'm always trying to learn something new and challenge myself in that way because we can kind of get stuck in our, our box and we don't learn new skills. Right.

Margaret 01:04:14 what language are you learning?

Vanessa 01:04:16 Well, I've been learning Spanish for a long time because, I mean, Los Angeles, studied French for a while, but it's. The accent is killer. Yeah. Italian, obviously, but right now, Spanish is the one that I really want to, feel conversational enough.

Vanessa 01:04:36 I'm. I'm kind of there. I'm in Los Angeles. I feel like you should speak Spanish.

Margaret 01:04:40 Yeah, and you probably have lots of opportunities to practice. And I feel you on all that stuff because I'm learning German. And that's because I have a couple of German friends so I can speak with them. It's a lot slower than I anticipated when I started years ago. But, Ha ha ha. You know.

Vanessa 01:04:56 It takes time.

Margaret 01:04:57 It does?

Vanessa 01:04:58 Yeah. And it is good for the brain. I think that's one of the things that I've learned. when I was younger, I used to work with, you know, elderly and just keeping your brain active, staying moving a lot. I definitely, I think probably like health. I try, I try not to be too much in that lane because people are really kooky about that right now. but exercise, keeping your brain active. You know, food is medicine. Cannabis is medicine. So all of that kind of works together in a healthy lifestyle.

Vanessa 01:05:36 so. Yeah. So it's good.

Margaret 01:05:39 Well, Vanessa, you have written a beautiful book. I have my copy here, too.

Vanessa 01:05:43 Yeah.

Margaret 01:05:43 And I there's so many recipes I want to try. The Peach creamsicle really spoke to me. And maybe that's because I've been, you know, coming through a cold, dark winter, And I'm thinking of spring and summertime. But you've written a beautiful book. And where can people find you? Out in the world?

Vanessa 01:06:01 I am on Instagram. Vanessa. Marigold. Same on threads Vanessa Marigold on YouTube. And that's where all the fun stuff happens because YouTube is actually, more open to cannabis. Yes. Than meta.

Margaret 01:06:19 Yes.

Vanessa 01:06:20 I'm on blue Sky and Twitter, but I don't, you know, let's not support the billionaires. and Patreon as the Edibles Club. You can join my club on Patreon. It's really cool. You have a direct line to me, so if you ever have any edible questions, I'm right there. And I'm like, what do you need? What do you want to infuse? I'll help you out.

Vanessa 01:06:42 That's the part of the club that's awesome.

Margaret 01:06:44 Well, I'll make sure all that stuff is in the show notes so people can find it. And Vanessa, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a real pleasure.

Vanessa 01:06:51 Thank you so much. I can't wait to see the show and I hope we get to meet in person one day.

Margaret 01:06:55 I would love that. Thank you.

Vanessa 01:06:57 All right.

Margaret 01:07:01 That was amazing. I hope you got as much out of that conversation with Vanessa as I did. And I would love to hear what your biggest takeaway was from that conversation. Share it with me and I'll share it on a future episode. And of course, check out Vanessa's brand new book, How to Eat Weed and Have a Good Time. I'll link to it in the show notes so you can find it easily. And consider sharing this episode with another edibles enthusiast in your life, because they will certainly learn something from this one as well. As always, you can always look for my recommendations on the Margaret Recommends page and consider joining the Bite Me Cannabis Club, where cannabis lovers connect, learn and create together.

Margaret 01:07:41 Head to join Bite me.com to learn more. And with that, my friends, I am your host, Margaret. Until next week, stay high.