Pubdate: Mon, 17 Nov 2014
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: David Kelly

THE HIGH OF HAUTE CUISINE

A Cannabis Bakery Seeks to Elevate Edibles Beyond the Pot Brownie

It was midafternoon and a disciplined team of chefs began rolling out 
the day's offerings - four kinds of baklava, oatmeal butterscotch 
cookies and a toothsome Parisian macaroon.

There wasn't a pot brownie in sight, and the mere mention of it 
caused Hope Frahm's eyes to narrow.

"That's the first thing people think of when you tell them you work 
with marijuana," said the executive chef at Love's Oven, a cannabis 
bakery near downtown Denver. "But we are developing croissants, 
eclairs, maple bacon bars, olive oil. The sky's the limit."

Here in the national epicenter of legalized marijuana, where rules on 
getting stoned are still being hammered out, Frahm is busily 
elevating food that gets people high into something approaching haute cuisine.

The classically trained pastry chef, who worked under famed 
restaurateurs Wolfgang Puck and Thomas Keller, is bringing skills she 
learned in those kitchens to Colorado's burgeoning edible cannabis industry.

"Everything I know about molecular gastronomy and portion control 
translates so well to cooking with marijuana," said Frahm, wearing a 
spotless white smock and snug black cap. "It's just another 
ingredient." Well, not quite. The Colorado Department of Public 
Health and Environment has recommended limiting edibles to lozenges 
and liquid concentrations called tinctures. To support that stance, 
officials cited cases of children eating cannabis-laced cookies and candy.

There also have been high-profile overdoses, including a college 
student who leaped to his death from a hotel balcony after eating a 
cookie with 65 milligrams of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. 
Others have reported galloping paranoia and hallucinations lasting for hours.

Frahm's motto is "start low, go slow."

"If you do 10 shots of tequila you're going to get sick," she said. 
"That's why we don't make cookies with 100 milligrams of THC - we 
make them smaller, with 10 milligrams each."

Former health insurance executive Peggy Moore owns Love's Oven. Her 
business supplies some 100 marijuana shops statewide and is among the 
biggest producers of pot edibles in Colorado. She recommends one 
10-milligram cookie for the average user.

"It's like a glass of wine that lasts for six hours," she said. "For 
most people that's as high as you ever need to get."

Restricting the products, she said, would simply drive them onto the 
black market.

"Right now edibles make up 45% of the market," she said. "And as the 
market develops we are seeing a more discerning palate evolve, which 
we are trying to satisfy."

There is little groovy or whimsical about the exacting edible 
industry. State regulators require that every gram of marijuana be 
accounted for. Security is tight. Cameras monitor kitchens, and 
anyone caught sampling the goods is sacked.

"It's all about the science. You can't take shortcuts," said Benjamin 
Fishman, a chef at Love's. "It's also challenging because I can't 
taste anything I make. I'm used to going down the line with a spoon 
and tasting everything. Do that here and you get fired."

And really, really high.

The not-so-secret ingredient in everything at Love's is the aromatic, 
cannabisinfused green butter. Once made, it's sent to a licensed 
laboratory that determines its potency.

"It tastes like a strong tarragon," Frahm said, sniffing a tub of the 
stuff. "We don't try to erase the flavor. We complement it with 
ginger, apple, cinnamon and chocolate."

She recently catered a cannabis brunch featuring sticky buns, sweet 
potato pancakes and brioche French toast.

"We dosed them really low at 5 milligrams," said Frahm, 30, who 
rarely eats cannabis herself. "You could see people wondering how 
many more pancakes they could have."

The quietly intense chef rarely strays from her calculator, 
constantly figuring out the amount of THC in her products. Pastries 
sold to recreational marijuana outlets are usually dosed lower than 
those sent to medicinal shops, where a cookie might contain 400 mg of THC.

Prices vary, but a single 10-milligram cookie costs about $5 and a 
box of 10 goes for $20. Baklava laced with 10 milligrams of THC runs 
$20 for a box of 10. Far more potent medicinal edibles are pricier, 
going for up to $15 a cookie.

Raul Sanchez, a packager at Love's, eats cannabis daily.

"It tastes great and it gets me high," he said.

Frahm wouldn't know. She lost her sense of taste before becoming a chef.

"I was working under a car and it fell on me. As I tried to get out I 
broke a hose that sprayed scalding fluid into my mouth and destroyed 
my sense of taste," she said. "I use smell and memory now. I taste 
vicariously through my customers."

Her dream is to be the next Auguste Escoffier, the vaunted French chef.

"I want to be the Escoffier of marijuana," she said with a smile.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom