WHO SAYS MONEY DOESN'T GROW ON TREES?

Sydney Luke is suprised by some of the information written on the side of a plant at Stem, a plant

shop on Alexander Street that specializes in rare and exotic plants. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

BY VERONICA VOLK @VOLKVERONICA VVOLK@WXXI.ORG

Rochester’s rare plant market is booming

Imagine a hard-to-find, intensely Instagrammable houseplant, and something like the monstera deliciosa albo variegata, with its iconic broad-split leaves streaked with white, might come to mind.

Samantha Mills has one in a gold pot on the counter of her shop. “Her name is Betty,” Mills said, a tribute to “The Golden Girls star Betty White.

Mills is a co-owner of Stem, a new shop at the corner of Alexander Street and Park Avenue specializing in plants like Betty: hard to find and all the rage.

The market for horticulture, particularly high-end houseplants, that had been blossoming for years came into full bloom during the pandemic, as people hunkered down at home long to reconnect with the natural world and social posts about the houseplant hobby fuel their yearning. Growers and retailers are struggling to meet demand, and it’s not uncommon for greenthumbs to fork over hundreds or thousands of dollars on coveted, rare plants.

On a recent afternoon at Stem, the foot traffic was constant and customers laid down anywhere from $2 to $475 on plants. Mills values “Betty” in the thousands of dollars due to the plant’s unstable mutation and slow propagation.

Kerynn Laraby, the other coowner of Stem, said business has been booming since the doors opened in February. “It was a madhouse,” Laraby said. “We sold out real quick.”

The notion of Stem was conceived a year ago. Mills is a horticulturalist whose love of plants was cultivated as a little girl gardening on her family farm. Laraby discovered a passion for plants when she and Mills began collecting rare houseplants for fun. Their hobby quickly translated to making online sales, and they noticed a deficit in the plant economy in Rochester.

Since opening, Laraby said, Stem has received customers from Buffalo, Syracuse, Watkins Glen, and as far away as Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Local nurseries have seen similar spikes in interest in houseplants.

“It’s been nuts here,” Marissa McTiernan, a longtime employee at the Garden Factory in Gates, said of houseplant sales. “We can’t even keep them in stock.”

McTiernan said she first noticed a serious uptick in houseplant sales around three years ago. But in the last year, she said, the nursery has shifted from placing orders for new plants monthly to weekly to keep up with demand.

Complicating efforts to meet pent up demand, retailers and suppliers said, are pandemic-induced restrictions on international shipments between the United States and South Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, where many rare plants originate.

Even the ubiquitous pothos, a lush vining plant known for its low maintenance and ability to grow and propagate, has become harder to find and keep in supply.

The rare houseplant boom has drawn comparisons to the tulip mania that gripped the Netherlands in the 17th century, when tulip bulb prices skyrocketed to extraordinary heights before crashing in dramatic fashion. The term “tulip mania” is now synonymous with economic bubbles in which prices of assets deviate wildly from their face value.

But McTiernan doubted that the houseplant boom is a bubble poised to burst. “I don’t think it’s going to go back to normal, ever,” she said.

Linda Adams agreed. She is the chief operations officer of the Florida Nursery, Growers & Landscape Association, a nonprofit that supports commercial nurseries that sell houseplants to retailers across the country.

Kerynn Laraby is a co-owner of Stem Rochester.

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

CONTINUED ON PAGE 40

Brandon Kelloway shops at Stem. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

“Times are good,” she said.

Adams has been with FNGLA since 1984, and seen the ups and downs of the industry. Though the prices of individual plants fluctuate based on trends, she said, there are always new varieties to be coveted. She differentiates between the popularity of particular plants over time — like the tulip or orchids, of which rare varieties have been known to fetch upward of $100,000 — and the current explosion in popularity of houseplants.

“The people in the industry that are studying these things think that this is going to continue,” Adams said.

One reason plant fans are adamant about the staying power of this trend is the proven psychological and scientific benefits of keeping and growing plants.

“Plants provide meaning, purpose, connection, and even physical and mental stimulation,” said Matthew DelSesto, a researcher of therapeutic horticulture at Boston College.

People and plants have been intrinsically linked since the dawn of human existence and share an evolutionary history. Plants provided nutrition, medicine, and energy for people and livestock to migrate around the globe and human settlements to flourish.

For people who live in urban settings and spend so much more time nowadays interacting with screens, houseplants are demonstrably beneficial. They require tactile attention, like potting and pruning and watering, the acts of which are shown to reduce stress. They give their owners validation of a job well done by sprouting new leaves and blooming flowers. They give people an outlet, and a sense of control.

“The sense of connection and also the sense of contribution in a world that maybe often seems distant and out of control is really key right now,” DelSesto said.

There are benefits to even looking at plants, with studies marking the accelerated convalescence of hospital patients with landscape views out their windows.

Plants can be living art; the lush greenery of thriving plants set against a minimalist backdrop has become the aesthetic of many online influencers during the houseplant boom. They can also be a symbol of status.

Like any hobby, there are levels of exclusivity.

The fiddle leaf fig, whose popularity swelled after its use in interior design in the 2010s, is both notoriously hard to care for and expensive, with a mature plant going for hundreds of dollars. But smaller, easyto-care-for plants like sansevieria, with its stiff, upright foliage and variety of subspecies, offer even novice plant collectors a way into the club.

A group of prospective plant buyers in Stem chit-chatted about pest control products and watering schedules with the same enthusiasm of Star Wars fans discussing Easter eggs in “The Mandelorian” series. Mills recited the slogan of the popular Japanese franchise “Pokemon” when referring to her own collection: “Gotta Catch ’Em All.”

Christina Suralta carries a White Vein Fittonia as she shops for other plants at Stem. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

“I friggin’ love plants,” said Sydney Luke, a Stem customer who described having an entire room in her home dedicated to her plants and left the store with two more in a paper bag to add to her collection.

Luke said it was the pandemic that boosted her casual interest into a full-blown obsession.

“You couldn’t do anything, and I just feel like having plants around my house and propagating more plants to have everywhere made me happier,” she said. “It’s where I had to stay for months, so it was nice to just kind of liven it up.”

The thriving online community of plant-sharing groups and plant influencers has also served as a proxy for a social life for plant lovers during the pandemic.

That was how Lee Ennis connected with plant enthusiasts in the area and eventually found out about Stem.

“You kinda get to meet people,” Ennis said. “You learn more about people. And then it’s really nice to be able to feel comfortable and confident supporting a local business when you’re like, oh, I know actually who runs that.”

It was Rochester’s passionate online plant community that helped drive Mills and Laraby to open Stem.

Mills acknowledged the risk in building a business around items experiencing sudden, explosive growth. “They could wax and wane like any other trend,” she said of houseplants. “Like bell bottoms.”

But she added that she’s banking on people having found a renewed connection with plants and the boom being a gift that “keeps on growing.”

“Plants bring people joy and we just absolutely need that right now,” she said.

LIFE FILM

A scene from "Without a Whisper," a documentary film by Katsitsionni Fox, which will be screened as part of the inaugural Haudenosaunee Filmmakers Festival. PHOTO COURTESY WOMEN MAK MOVIES

INDIGENOUS VOICES IN THE SPOTLIGHT

The inaugural Haudenosaunee Filmmakers Festival features the work of filmmakers from the Six Nations Confederacy.

BY REBECCA RAFFERTY @RSRAFFERTY BECCA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

For the majority of film history, stories about Indigenous people have been presented by non-Indigenous writers, directors, and too often, actors as well. This fact has done a lot of damage in terms of how Indigenous people are seen, and the often subtle apologist tones with which American history is portrayed.

That’s begun to slowly change. And this month, Rochester’s newest film festival will serve not only as a showcase of regional Indigenous films, but an initiative to promote filmmaking specifically among Haudenosaunee women.

“There is a powerful difference between telling our own stories or having someone tell them for us, says Michelle Schenandoah (Oneida), founder and editor-in-chief of Rematriation Magazine, a publication devoted to creating space for and uplifting Indigenous women’s voices. She’s also one of the founders of the Haundenosaunee Filmmakers Festival, which premieres virtually throughout the week of April 19-25.

The festival, which is co-hosted by Friends of Ganondagan and Rematriation Magazine, is also intended to coalesce as a network of Haudenosaunee film writers, directors, producers, and actors. It seeks to connect Haudenosaunee filmmakers with resources and opportunities to screen their films, to connect Indigenous filmmakers and industry leaders, and foster collaborations across the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Toward that end, the event includes screenings and educational panel discussions, but also a filmmaking workshop exclusively for Haudenosaunee women.

A call for films in early February yielded dozens of submissions, out of which 25 were accepted into the festival. A handful of feature-length films will be presented, as well as a number of short films. The films will be first available to stream on different days of the week corresponding to different categories of films that will be presented, and after they’ve debuted, they’ll continue to be available for streaming through May 1.

Classics (more than two years old) will debut on Monday, April 19. The category includes the touching 2016 short documentary, “Soup For My Brother,” by Seneca director Terry J. Jones. Filmed entirely on Seneca Nation territory, the story’s protagonist, Jimmy, lovingly prepares a soup for his deceased brother, guided by memory and the words of his grandfather.

Michelle Schenandoah.

PHOTO PROVIDED

Contemporary films (less than two years old), will debut Wednesday, April 21. This group includes “VeRONAka,” a short comedic drama by director-writer Kahstoserakwathe Paulette Moore (Mohawk), in which the title character is a personified COVID-19 who terrorizes the community before her run-in with a group of powerful Mohawk aunties.

This set also includes one of the feature films, “Haudenosaunee Canoe Story,” by director Rosann Whitebean (Mohawk). The documentary film follows a father, Hickory, and his 5-year-old daughter Ellie as they undertake a voyage through waterways and the history of their people.

On Friday, April 23, films by Haudenosaunee women will be featured, including “Without A Whisper” by Katsitsionni Fox (Mohawk). The award-winning short documentary tells the story of how Indigenous women influenced the early suffragists, and features Mohawk Clan Mother Louise Herne and suffrage movement historian Sally Roesch Wagner joining forces to tell the hidden history. The film was meant to premiere at Ganondagan in 2020, but the pandemic prevented that.

The final category, presented on Sunday, April 25, is Traditional Language, featuring films that prominently feature the Haudenosaunee family of languages, with accessibility considerations for non-speakers. This category replaced the planned Youth category, Schenandoah says, because the festival organizers didn’t receive as many entries from young filmmakers as they’d hoped. They did, however, get a lot of Indigenous-language submissions.

Within this category is a short documentary film about Marion Delaronde (Mohawk), who is preserving and helping to perpetuate the Mohawk language through the use of puppetry on her Montrealbased children’s show, “Tóta tánon Ohkwá:ri” (“Grandma and Ohkwá:ri”).

That film is also part of a presentation of five short films from the Rematriation Magazine Indigenous Women Series that will be streamable throughout the week. The series shares the stories of Haudenosaunee women artists and leaders and the films have a common thread of dismantling social injustice, but through a spirituallygrounded lens, Shenandoah says. She adds that the series centers the voices of Indigenous women who hold traditional knowledge about living in balance with the earth, democracy, and justice.

The other subjects of this set of films are Grammy Award-winning musician Joanne Shenandoah (Oneida); Santee Smith (Mohawk), who is an artist, dancer, and choreographer, and who was the first Indigenous woman appointed Chancellor of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada; Carla Hemlock (Mohawk), an activist and textile artist who uses her designs to promote caring for the earth; and Angela Ferguson (Onondaga), who is focused on food sovereignty — a drive “for our nations to be able to feed ourselves with our own food,” Schenandoah says.

Films aside, four panel discussions will also be live-streamed, including Thursday’s, “Which Side of the Camera?” The program will feature Haudenosaunee filmmakers discussing their experiences making films about Haudenosaunee people.

The festival will also feature a week-long workshop, “Rematriating the Narrative,” that is open exclusively to Haudenosaunee women. It will focus on un-learning the Westernlens approaches of storytelling and filmmaking, and replacing those with methods of telling stories from an Indigenous point of view, Schenandoah says. As part of the workshop, participants will create one-minute film stories from their perspectives.

On Saturday, April 24, a panel also called “Rematriating the Narrative” will discuss and showcase the work of the women who participated in the workshop.

There’s limited space for the workshop, and interested Haudenosaunee women can register at rematriation.com.

Head to ganondagan.org for more information on the festival.

A scene from "Haudenosaunee Canoe Story," by Rosann Whitebean. PHOTO PROVIDED

LIFE TASTY THC

PHOTO COURTESY DAN CURTIS, CURTISVISUALWORKS.COM

AN EDIBLE ENIGMA

Expectations for edibles vary - here’s what to watch out for

BY REBECCA RAFFERTY @RSRAFFERTY BECCA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Last summer, Rochester morning radio show host Brother Wease was hungry during a commercial break. In the refrigerator he found a packaged sleeve of cookies, and without much thought, he devoured five of them and went back on the air.

Wease recalled that about an hour later, in the middle of the show, he started feeling “dizzy and a bit nutty.” He had unwittingly eaten cannabis cookies and ingested 50 milligrams of THC — between five and 10 times the recommended dose.

Wease was no stranger to edibles. But he’d gone too far. He described his state as “comatose, a bad trip, and a buzz that lasted 24 hours.” It was so bad, he recalled, that his wife had to put him to bed. “I was out of my mind,” he said.

The longtime voice of Rochester radio was caught unaware, but even people intending to consume cannabis edibles can make mistakes. Stories of overindulgence — often by people who are eager for a high or don’t know what they’re supposed to feel — abound. That single-serving square of cannabis chocolate becomes four. The few gummies become a handful.

New York is on the cusp of legalizing recreational cannabis, including THC-infused edibles, and the likelihood is that adults who’ve never sampled will dabble. A 2016 nationwide study found that nearly 30 percent of respondents who had used cannabis reported consuming it in edible or beverage form.

But beware, newbies. Edibles are deceptive and a lack of knowledge about them can lead to a bad, if not terrifying, experience. A fatal overdose of THC is unlikely, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises that a consuming too much THC can lead to “extreme confusion, anxiety, paranoia, panic, fast heart rate, delusions or hallucinations, increased blood pressure, and severe nausea or vomiting.”

Yikes! Here are some tips for eating edibles and avoiding that bad trip.

THOSE EDIBLES HIT HARD

It is so easy to ingest too much THC from edibles that the topic has become the subject of numerous medical research papers in recent years.

Each goes off on its own tangent of the topic, but they all start from the same premise: The biggest difference between ingesting and inhaling cannabis is that eating the drug delays its onset.

In other words, you don’t feel as high as quickly.

“Consumers often do not understand this aspect of edible use and may consume a greater than intended amount of drug before the drug has taken effect, often resulting in profoundly adverse effects,” wrote the authors of a 2016 paper titled “Tasty THC: Promises and Challenges of Cannabis Edibles.”

The consequences can be serious.

Researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine found that marijuana-related emergency room visits increased threefold over a four-year period that included Colorado legalizing pot. Of the almost 10,000 cases they reviewed, 11 percent involved edibles.

The report looked at ER admissions from 2012, when the state had only a medical cannabis program, through the end of 2016, two years after the state began legal sales of marijuana for adult use. It noted that out-of-state tourists accounted for a disproportionate number of edibles cases.

“It’s not because people are seriously injured, it’s because they’re new and they took way too much, and they don’t know what’s happening,” said Johnathan McFarlane of Hybrid Marketing Co., a Denver-based cannabis marketing firm. “They don’t know what to do. So the doctors are basically just like, ‘You’re just gonna have to hang out.’”

WAIT FOR IT. WAIT FOR IT. JUST WAIT.

Many people consume cannabis edibles without understanding how they behave in the body. It takes longer for the THC in edibles to kick in (typically between 30 and 90 minutes), and the resulting “high” is longer-lasting, with a peak at two to four hours after ingestion. By contrast, when weed is smoked or vaped the high hits quickly and peaks within 30 minutes to an hour.

“Give yourself at least two hours before you consider taking any more, because sometimes it will take that long for the effects to be felt at all,” MacFarlane said.

Many individual factors, including weight, metabolism, and eating habits contribute to how soon and for how long a person will feel high. If you’ve had a big meal recently, for example, it may take longer for your body to metabolize the THC.

After Colorado saw a spike in hospital admissions from THC, the state mandated that edibles’ labels contain a prominent diamondshaped “THC” symbol to let buyers know that’s not their grandfather’s Snickers bar they’re picking up. The labels must also outline the dosage of THC and its intoxicating effects.

New York appears to have taken a lesson from Colorado’s experience. The legislation working its way through Albany to legalize recreational pot tightly regulates testing of all cannabis products sold in New York and their packaging, labeling, and advertising.

When the sale of cannabis was cleared for recreational use in Colorado in 2014, the state limited the amount of THC in edible products to 10 mg per serving — roughly equivalent to smoking a joint — and a maximum of 10 servings per package.

Because edibles come in cookie and candy forms that are attractive to children, they have to be sold in opaque, childproof containers that explicitly warn that the product contains marijuana (as well as how much THC is in each serving). Colorado also banned retailers from adding weed infusions to a premade food item, such as a name-brand candy bar.

Rochester radio show host Brother Wease had a bad trip when he ate too many cannabis cookies.

PHOTO COURTESY IHEART MEDIA

‘START LOW, GO SLOW’

Because marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, its sale and use is regulated on a state-bystate basis, and those rules vary dramatically.

As a result, the edibles sold at medical and recreational dispensaries don’t face the same stringent federal controls on quality and consistency as pharmaceuticals, alcohol, and tobacco.

There’s no uniform method of producing THC infusions, either. As many of the compounds are eliminated in the process to make oils and butters, edibles may contain high amounts of THC and only a fraction of the plant’s other constituents, according to “Tasty THC.”

Zachary York, inventory manager at Colorado dispensary Lightshade, said the highs cannabis users associate with certain strains of cannabis often don’t translate to edibles. The components of the plant that create the expected effect, he said, are sometimes stripped from the THC distillate used in edibles.

In other words, if a package indicates an edible was made with, say, an indica strain of weed, there’s no guarantee that the consumer will experience the same high she might expect from smoking that strain.

“There is still a lot of progress to be made in terms of our understanding,” York said, adding that legalization opponents may latch onto that, but it shouldn’t scare people off. “We just need many scientifically-repeatable experiments and studies to really nail down the best edible formulation.”

Many people do have a nice time on edibles, and if you’re aiming for a controlled experience, patience is key. People who work in the pot industry all repeat the catch phrase, “start low and go slow,” as the best advice to give a person concerning edibles.

So what should you do if you get too baked? “Get comfortable, drink water, and know that you are safe,” York said. “Shower, experience things. If you’re uncomfortably high, put on music, or put on a TV show, do some activity to distract you. Your high mind will start gravitating to those positives and absorbing them.”

Additional reporting by CITY freelance writer Vince Press.

VISUAL & PERFORMING ARTS

[ Opening ]

Chili Town Hall, 3333 Chili Ave. Chili Art Group: Spring Art Show & Sale. Fri., April 30, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. 7467843. Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave. 276-8900. The 613 by Archie Rand. April 25-July 18. Reservations required.

[ Continuing ] Art Exhibits

Bridge Art Gallery, URMC, 300

Crittenden Blvd. Youth for Racial Justice: Not A Moment, But a Movement. Through April 30. 2753571.

Flower City Arts Center, 713 Monroe

Ave. Photogravure. Through May 1. Reservations required. flowercityarts. org.

Geisel Gallery, 2nd Floor Rotunda, Legacy Tower, One Bausch & Lomb

Place. Object Lessons: Recent Works by Lee Hoag. Through Apr 30. thegeiselgallery.com.

George Eastman Museum, 900

East Ave. eastman.org. Stacey Steers: Night Reels (to Jun 6) | Carl Chiarenza: Journey into the Unknown (to Jun 20) | One Hundred Years Ago: George Eastman in 1921 (to Jan 2022).

Image City Photography Gallery, 722

University Ave. Through the Student Lens 2021. Through Apr 18. 2712540.

International Art Acquisitions, 3300

Monroe Ave. Marcella Gillenwater: Limitless. 264-1440.

Main Street Arts, 20 W Main St.

Clifton Springs. Diner’s Club Show. Through April 16. Appointment required. mainstreetartscs.org.

Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University

Ave. 276-8900. “To Help People See”: The Art of G Peter Jemison Ongoing.

NTID Dyer Arts Center, 52 Lomb

Memorial Dr. Black is Black: Blackity AF. Ongoing. Part II: Generational Oppression. rit.edu/ntid/dyerartscenter.; This is Not Normal: Deaf Modernist Sensibilities. Ongoing. rit. edu/ntid/dyerarts-center.; Palettes of Nature. Ongoing. A collaborative exhibit with deafgreenthumbs. rit.edu/ ntid/dyerarts-center.

RIT City Art Space, 280 East Main

St. MFA Thesis: Photography & Related Media (Apr 1-11) | BFA Senior Capstone: Industrial Design (Apr 1518) | BFA Senior Capstone: Studio Arts I (Apr 22-25) & Studio Arts II (Apr 29- May 2). cityartspace.rit.edu.

Rochester Contemporary Art Center,

137 East Ave. Last Year On Earth | The Warp & Weft | Through The Cracks | UnJustness. Through May 8. $2. rochestercontemporary.org.

Rochester Museum & Science

Center, 657 East Ave. (rmsc.org). The Changemakers: Rochester Women Who Changed the World. Through May 16. W/ museum admission: $14/$16. rmsc.org/changemakers.

Visual Studies Workshop, 31 Prince

St. vsw.org. A Publishing ‘Lean-To’ by Matt Johnston. Through April 30.

Film

Dryden Theatre, 900 East Ave.

Wednesdays-Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. Advanced tickets required. $5-$10. eastman.org/dryden-theatre. Ganondagon, online. Haudenosaunee Filmmakers Festival. April 19-25. ganondagan.org. Hartnett Gallery, online. Sarah Friedland: Assembled Choreographies. Through April 26. Apr 12, 8pm: Artist talk. blogs.rochester.edu/hartnett. Little Theatre, 240 East Ave. FridaysSundays. Starting Apr 16. thelittle.org. Virtual Little Theatre, thelittle.org. 2021 Polish Film Festival. April 7-14. Daily screenings & discussions with filmmakers. $12. thelittle.org/series/ polish-film-festival.

Visual Studies Workshop, 31 Prince

St. vsw.org. A History of Police Brutality & Accountability Initiatives in Rochester from the Portable Channel Archive. Ongoing.; Recordings at Risk: Early Portable Channel Video..

Art Events

Encountering Black Holes: Art &

Science at the Edge of Astrophysics. Fri., April 23, 7 p.m. MAGIC Spell Studios, RIT Center for Engaged Storycraft. Limited capacity; registration required 606-9824. Sam Cannon: Capturing Fiction. Thu., April 22, 6 p.m. Virtual George Eastman Museum, online. Registration required $10 suggested. eastman.org.

Dance Events

MFA Thesis Dance Concert. Through April 17, 7:30 p.m. SUNY Brockport Fine Arts Series. Registration required fineartstix.brockport.edu. Rochester City Ballet: New Works. Sat., April 24, 7 p.m. and Sun., April 25, 2 p.m. Skalny Lecture & Artist Series facebook.com/skalny.center. Virtual DANCE/Strasser. April 24-May 22, 7:30 p.m. 395-2787.

Theater

2021 Playwrights Playreadings.

Thursdays, 7:30 p.m. Through May 27 genevatheatreguild.org. The Fantasticks. Fri., April 23, 7:30 p.m., Sat., April 24, 7:30 p.m. and Sun., April 25, 2 p.m. OFC Creations Theater Center, 3450 Winton Pl $25 & up ofccreations.com. Festival of Ten: Revisited. Fridays, noon. Livestream, online. Fine Arts Series at SUNY Brockport of 10-minute plays Mar 12: “In a Perfect World” Mar 19: “Squirrels in a Knothole” Mar 26: “Martha’s Choice” 395-2787. Love Letters. Fri., April 9, 7:30 p.m. OFC Creations Theater Center, 3450 Winton Pl $10 & up ofccreations.com. She Kills Monsters: Virtual Realms. Fri., April 16, 7:30 p.m., Sat., April 17, 2 & 7:30 p.m. and Sun., April 18, 2 p.m. RIT & NTID Performing Arts $5/$10. RITTickets.com.

LIFE GONE TO POT

A Moroccan salad with mint, tossed with cannabutter and honey. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH WEED BUTTER

With cannabutter, your culinary possibilities are endless. Live the high life with this fancy-pants three-course meal.

BY J. NEVADOMSKI

Rochester is a foodie town, and with legal recreational cannabis coming to New York, the availability of commerciallyproduced cannabis edibles is poised to explode.

But those who love to cook may want to experiment with cannabis as an ingredient in their own kitchen. One of the easiest and most efficient ways to consume cannabis is through homemade cannabutter.

As the name implies, cannabutter is a combination of cannabis and butter and it provides an opportunity for us to explore a more refined use of the flower. What’s great about cannabutter is its versatility. It can be used in any recipe that calls for butter, like baked goods such as cookies and brownies, but it can also be spread on a morning muffin or a dinner roll, or melted over a side of vegetables, like asparagus, broccoli, and mashed potatoes.

But wait, there’s more! The same principles used to make cannabutter can be applied to make THC-infused olive oil, coconut oil, or any other fatty cooking mediums.

What follows is a three-step process for making cannabutter (THC-infused, clarified butter), as well as three recipes to try with your creation. Not in the mood for an elevated evening? Each of the recipes can be enjoyed without the THC.

Note: It is crucial to remember that homemade edibles are notoriously difficult to accurately dose. There’s just no good way to gauge the potency or amount of THC in any DIY infusions. Use responsibly.

CLARIFIED CANNABUTTER:

This formula has a one-to-one ratio of butter to ground, dried cannabis and can be expanded or reduced in size while keeping the 1:1 ratio. For this example, we are using 1 cup of clarified butter to 1 cup of ground, dried cannabis, which works out to between 7 and 10 grams.

Step 1: Prepare the cannabis

Before you can make cannabutter, your cannabis needs to decarboxylate, or “decarb.” This heating process converts the plant’s non-intoxicating acidic cannabinoid called THCA into THC, the molecule that delivers the euphoric effect you want. The same process takes place when the plant is smoked or vaporized. Skipping this process will result in weaker or downright ineffective THC levels.

There are a variety of ways to apply heat to cannabis for decarbing, but the best way is in the oven. Preheat your oven to 235 degrees Fahrenheit. Evenly spread out the cannabis on an oven-safe tray lined with parchment paper. Place the tray on a center rack and bake for 25-35 minutes.

Cooking times will vary based on the oven and moisture content of the cannabis. Ideally you want the final product to have reached a sustained temperature of 230-240 degrees, and for the cannabis to appear lightly toasted.

Step 2: Clarify the butter

Clarifying the butter — meaning extracting water and solid milk proteins — before infusing it with cannabis will give your cannabutter a more stable, versatile, and higherquality end result. THC-infused clarified butter can last for months in the refrigerator.

The yield of store-bought butter to clarified butter is about half of the original amount, so to produce 1 cup of clarified butter you need to start with 2 cups (4 sticks) of unsalted butter.

Note: This process can be streamlined by buying ghee and skipping directly to step 3.

Start by cutting the butter into cubes, and placing them in a small saucepan. Melt the butter on the stovetop over medium heat.

Continue gently cooking over medium to medium-high heat until a layer of white milk protein begins to separate to the surface. Increase heat to high and bring to a low boil until the proteins begin to froth.

Lower the heat back to medium and continue to gently simmer until the milk proteins continue to separate and sink to the bottom of the pan. Adjust the heat as needed and continue to gently simmer and boil off any remaining water content, without scorching the milk proteins at the bottom of the pan.

Once the water content has boiled off and the fat and proteins have separated, gently strain the butter through a cheesecloth into a heatresistant jar using a funnel and allow to cool before refrigerating.

Clarified butter can last refrigerated for up to 6 months.

Step 3: Infusion

Once you’ve clarified roughly 1 cup of butter, it is time to infuse it with the prepared cannabis. Basically, you are treating this step of the process the same way you would brew tea, only for a much longer amount of time.

On the stovetop using low heat, bring the clarified butter to a very low simmer, ideally between 160180 degrees (never higher than 200 degrees). Add in the previously prepared cannabis, mix well, and let gently simmer for two-and-a-half hours, stirring every half hour.

Remove from heat and let sit for an additional 10-15 minutes before straining. Strain the butter through a cheese cloth into a heat-resistant jar using a funnel and allow time for the butter to drip through without squeezing the cheese cloth. Be patient. Ringing or squeezing the cheese cloth will dramatically alter the flavor of the final infused butter.

Chill the butter overnight. This same infusion process can be applied to olive oil, coconut oil, or any number of other fatty cooking mediums.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 50

Roasted garlic (and weed) butter bruschetta canapés. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

ELEVATED APPLICATIONS

Now that you have a supply of THCinfused cannabutter, it’s time to use it in some culinary endeavors.

The three examples presented here include an appetizer, a main dish, and an exotic dessert. But the real possibilities are endless.

Just keep in mind that the potency of your cannabutter will vary, so it’s best to use it sparingly.

Appetizer: Roasted garlic butter bruschetta canapés

Serves 2-4 You will need: 1 baguette (thinly sliced on the bias) 2-3 Roma tomatoes (medium diced) 1/2 small red onion (finely diced) 3-5 tablespoons fresh basil (roughly chopped) 3-4 tablespoons olive oil 5-6 large garlic cloves (roasted and mashed) 2-3 tablespoons cannabutter (room temperature) Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions: 1. Mix the diced tomato, onion, basil, and olive oil in a non-reactive bowl, adding salt and pepper to taste. Let the mixture stand at room temperature for 30-40 minutes to marry the flavors. 2. In a separate bowl, mix the roasted garlic and the cannabutter into a thick paste. 3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Arrange the sliced baguette on a nonstick oven-safe tray. Using the back of a spoon, smear a small amount of the garlic butter mixture on the top of each baguette slice. Place the tray on the center rack of the oven and bake until evenly toasted (about 10 minutes). 4. Remove from the oven and allow the baguettes to cool enough to be comfortably handled and top each slice with two tablespoons of the tomato basil mixture. Serve warm.

Main Dish: Creamy butter & mushroom risotto with white wine

Serves 2-4 You will need: 8-10 cups chicken or vegetable stock 3 cups arborio rice 1 cup white wine 1 lb. assorted mushrooms (thinly sliced) 1 small yellow onion (finely diced) 4-6 cloves fresh garlic (roughly chopped) 1/4 cup olive oil 1/4 cup fresh parsley (roughly chopped) 1 tablespoon fresh thyme (removed from stems) 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary (finely chopped) 2-3 tablespoons unsalted butter 2-3 tablespoons cannabutter Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions: 1. In a large saucepan, bring the stock to a simmer over medium-high heat,

Creamy cannabutter & mushroom risotto with white wine. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

then reduce to low heat to keep the stock perpetually warm throughout the cooking process. 2. In a separate large sauce or flatbottomed sauté pan, heat the olive oil over medium to medium-high heat until it begins to lightly smoke. Add in the garlic and onion, cook until softened (about five minutes). Add in the dry rice, mix well, then cover the mixture with the white wine and bring to a simmer. Allow the wine to reduce until the mixture has thickened. Add in the thyme, rosemary, parsley, mushrooms, and salt and pepper to taste, mix well. 3. Begin ladling the stock over the rice, just enough to cover the rice mixture with each interval as the rice absorbs the stock, stirring frequently. Repeat this process until the rice is fully cooked al dente (soft outside, slightly firm inside) and the mixture still retains a soupy (not firm) consistency (roughly one hour). Add in the butter and allow to melt, stir completely, and serve warm.

Dessert: Moroccan fruit salad with mint

Serves 4-6 You will need: 1/2 cup strawberries (stems removed, cut into quarters) 1/2 cup fresh or dried figs (stems removed, cut into quarters) 1/4 cup fresh blueberries 1/4 cup fresh blackberries 1/4 cup fresh raspberries 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts 4-5 tablespoons fresh mint leaves (finely chopped) 6-8 tablespoons buckwheat honey 2-3 tablespoons cannabutter (room temperature)

Instructions: 1. Starting at room temperature, thoroughly wash and dry the figs and berries. In a non-reactive bowl gently toss the figs, berries, pine nuts, and cannabutter with half of the fresh mint leaves. 2. Separate into individual portions and place the mixture into serving bowls. Generously drizzle honey over each serving and garnish with the remaining mint leaves. Serve at room temperature.

J. Nevadomski is the author of the long-running “Highlife for Lowlifes” series (2013-present) and is a food and culture contributor to CITY.