Ganja Chefs Serve up Medicinal Marijuana for Foodies
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34466906/ns/health-health_care/
Ganja chefs serve up medical pot for foodies
At $89 per pizza, the munchies can get rather expensive
The Associated Press
updated 11:08 a.m. PT, Thurs., Dec . 17, 2009
DENVER - Any slacker living over his parents' garage can make pot
brownies. Gourmet chefs are taking the art of cooking with marijuana to
a higher level.
In Denver, a new medical-marijuana shop called Ganja Gourmet serves
cannabis-infused specialties such as pizza, hummus and lasagna. Across
town in the Mile-High City, a Caribbean restaurant plans to offer
classes on how to make multi-course meals with pot in every dish. And in
Southern California, a low-budget TV show called "Cannabis Planet" has
won fans with a cooking segment showing viewers how to use weed in
teriyaki chicken, shrimp capellini and steak sandwiches.
The evolution of pot cooking was perhaps inevitable given the explosion
of medical marijuana around the country in recent years. Many
health-conscious patients would rather eat the drug than smoke it. And
they would prefer to eat something other than sugary treats.
"When I started using marijuana, I was eating a brownie every day. I
gained a ton of weight," said Michael DeLao, a former hotel chef who
hosts the "Cannabis Planet" cooking segments on Los Angeles' KJLA. "Then
I learned how to really cook with marijuana, and once more people learn
about all the possibilities, we're going to see a lot more people
wanting this in their food."
Ganja Gourmet's menu includes lasagna ("LaGanja"), "Panama Red Pizza"
and an olive tapenade called "ganjanade," along with sweets such as
cheesecake, muffins and brownies. Employees wear tie-dyed T-shirts that
proclaim, "Our food is so great, you need a license to eat it!!!"
All patrons at the Ganja Gourmet must show a medical marijuana card that
proves they have a doctor's permission to use pot for some kind of
malady. The place opened last week, and so far, 90 percent of its
business has been takeout.
$89 pizza
The food isn't cheap. A whole pizza sells for $89, and a dozen sweet
treats called Almond Horns cost $120.
"The food is really good," said Jamie Hillyer, a 41-year-old medical
marijuana patient who paid $12 for a serving of vegetable LaGanja.
Hillyer said that he can't taste the weed in the food and that it gives
him a "more mellow" buzz than smoking pot.
Chefs are able to use marijuana in cooking because its key ingredient,
the mind-altering drug THC, is fat-soluble, meaning it binds with oils
or fats.
Marijuana chefs put leaves or buds in a food processor and grind the
marijuana into green flour. Then they add the flour to oil or butter,
cook it slowly for up to a couple of days while the THC binds to the
fat, and strain out the green flakes.
The result is "cannabutter," or butter that makes a diner high. Chefs
say 2 teaspoons of cannabutter typically contain the amount of THC in an
ounce of weed.
The pot-infused oils and butters have a greenish tint and an earthy
taste, but chefs say the flavor can easily be masked with garlic or
other herbs and spices.
Denver's 8 Rivers Modern Caribbean restaurant does not serve pot-infused
food, but its husband-and-wife owners, Scott Durran and Wanda James,
plan to offer cooking-with-marijuana classes starting next month. They
also own a medical marijuana dispensary, which they hope will eventually
offer take-home soups and roasted chicken.
Endless cycle of munchies?
Marijuana chefs say it takes 20 minutes to two hours for the pot-laced
food to produce a high. The biggest problem, they say, is that users
often eat too much, thinking the food isn't working. While you can't
exactly overdose on marijuana food, people who eat too much may feel
more sluggish or disoriented than they would like.
So at Ganja Gourmet, customers are allowed to eat only one menu item
every 45 minutes.
(The drug takes so long to start working that there's little chance of a
customer developing a case of the munchies and getting hungrier the more
he ate.)
Ganja Gourmet owner Scott Horowitz tried to get liability insurance of
the sort bars take out to protect themselves against damage caused by
intoxicated patrons. But he said he couldn't any insurers selling
similar coverage for pot shops.
Ganja Gourmet does offer customers a ride home if they need one. "If
someone leaves my place wasted, I'm liable," Horowitz said.
Horowitz's liability worry may be shortlived. Denver's City Council is
considering an ordinance banning dispensaries from allowing marijuana to
be smoked or eaten on site.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
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