My first love…FOOD!

Anyone who’s a chef, who loves food, ultimately knows that all that matters is: ‘Is it good? Does it give pleasure?’

-Anthony Bourdain

The Green Baker’s initial mission was to bring the recreational, medicinal and social use of cannabis into the mainstream by way to FOOD. Food is the one thing we can all agree on whether we are on the left or the right of the debate of the use of cannabis, it is no denying that when anyone offers you good food there is no divide.

Food and I have had a varied and sometimes torrid love affair. I can remember from my earliest memories food always being a central and intrinsically part of my life. I grew up with a grandmother with southern roots in a melting pot of a city, NYC. So it made for some interesting food options; from the bean pies and fried fish up in Harlem; to the slices I shared with my granddad when we would go on our bargain shopping trips in Manhattan. Food was always there and GOOD food at that! Ha!

My grandmother would make her delicious coconut cake and steamed cabbage with fried chicken for Sunday after church dinners (we were Baptist so all that black hymn ‘sanging’ made you REALLY hungry). She would force me to eat the wet soggy vegetable and after much chagrin I would just so I could get to that heavenly coconut cake (maybe that is where my coconut obsession is rooted) Because of this I have never really been fond of cabbage, but after my own culinary training I have struck a happy balance with this veggie (mostly because of bacon) and now I can tolerate it. Desserts were always the shiny prize, the reward for adult-ing and getting through the soggy mess of the day that is life sometimes.

Now in my current version of my love affair with food, I am trying to find a happy balance. I am a true lover of food so being a phat gurl I knew that restricting and ‘punishing’ myself for this love would never work. I am a fan of things that bond that unite and food is just one of those things. My faith is so strong that I made my whole career around that belief, I had to not only reframe how I looked at food but how I could consume the things I loved in a healthier way.

When it came time to decide how to navigate the cannabis ingestion medium I knew that SWEETS were where it was at! What a better way to reward ourselves for getting through a difficult day and to feel good then with a decadent chocolate brownie or cookie laced with that good ole MaryJane? And not to mention the possibilities were endless; from chocolates and candies to cakes and pies, my culinary wheels were spinning from the beginning.

Sweets nowadays are not just for the kids (or the inner kids) in our lives, with the advent of such great alternate sweeteners so readily available in our local grocery stores; it has been fun experimenting and trying out how to put a new school spin on some great classics like carrot cake, chocolate chip cookies, banana bread and others. So i take the things that collectively unite us and with my magical unicorn culinary powers I make them healthier and more balanced to fit into a proportional eating habit. So medicate, feel good about it and move it along. Yes sugar is the new culinary boogeyman, but it doesn’t have to be if we are just a little bit smarter and healthier about what we consume. Food is ALWAYS going to be the central piece to health, but it also a connection to our lives, our cultures, our histories and even our future as humans. Who would want to let that go?