*Interviews — October 18, 2018
Finding The Rosé Of Weed: Interview With Cannabis Chocolatier, Vanessa Lavorato
Nick Harvill Libraries Bookseller
Writers like to get stoned. One of my favorite lesbian writers and perhaps one of the most trailblazing cannabis enthusiasts of the mid-century was Alice B. Toklas, author of The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book, published in 1954. The book contains her infamous recipe for hashish fudge, noting that, “ecstatic reveries and extensions of one’s personality on several simultaneous planes are to be complacently expected.”
Although nothing would give me more ecstatic reveries than to saddle up next to Toklas and eat an entire bowl of hashish fudge with our fingers, the next best thing was speaking with fellow Toklas devotee, Vanessa Lavorato.
Lavorato, who is based in Los Angeles, is the magical confectioner behind Marigold Sweets, a cannabis confiserie founded in 2010. Lavorato is single-handedly putting the elegance back into high with her supremely crafted chocolates. One of her main goals in creating Marigold Sweets was to reincarnate Toklas’ vision to remove the taboo from cannabis and she’s well on her way. Lavorato is also the resident culinary expert on Viceland’s cannabis cooking show Bong Appetit where she explores cooking everything with cannabis from a tandoori toke fest to the good old kosher kush.
VC: Are you high right now?
VL: Yes. I’m in Berkeley, so… I’m here visiting my friend, my best friend. We usually smoke all day. But this isn’t how I typically start my day. If I am in Los Angeles and having to make chocolates and work, I don’t smoke. But today felt like a good day to get high.
VC: What’s a day in the life like for Vanessa Lavorato?
VL: When I am in L.A. I am waking up to dip chocolates. A typical day would start with making peanut creams and then moving from dark to milk chocolates. After I make chocolates, I go to yoga. I’ll eat a 10 mg chocolate, and since my yoga studio is five minutes from my house, the chocolate won’t kick in until class is just starting. I work through my flow and after, I’ll go shopping at Cookbook and pick up some goodies. Sometimes I shop before class and they let me store the food in their fridge. When I get home I eat and binge watch some bad television shows.
VC: What are some of your favorite flavors to experiment with? What are flavors you think we’ll be seeing more of from Marigold Sweets in 2018?
VL: Spices in chocolate. Cinnamon toffee is surprisingly delicious. I tried it recently with dark chocolate and maple syrup and it worked really well. I tried cayenne pepper in the peanut cream once and that was good, too. I’ll be recipe testing the vegan coconut caramel because I want to offer a solid vegan option.
Caramel is really how I started making chocolates. I think it’s a good carrier of cannabis and it’s a classic Americana confection. I am going to make different caramels and products that are smaller and easier to travel with since we all know chocolate in the summer can be difficult. I want to make something people can take and carry with them — if they are at a party and they want 2.5 mg instead of having a drink, they can. Chocolate is really more of a presentation, a gift, and something that is really, really special. I am excited to work more with caramels.
VC: The cannabis industry has grown so much in the past year. What can we look forward to from you in the coming year?
VL: When California legalized it meant that I had to scale pretty quickly. Now I am working with a licensed manufacturing partner and I am going to be in the kitchen and overseeing the production. I want to ensure that the chocolates have Marigold standards and keep their authentic and artisanal nature. That means paying attention to details and being consistent. I have a very high standard for how I want my chocolate to be made and I will make sure that’s relayed to my team.
I will also be changing my packaging as required by the state of California. All edibles must be child-resistant and opaque. My only concern is a lot of the patients who buy Marigold are elderly and opening these boxes can prove to be difficult. But it has to be… because it’s the law! Evolving Marigold to be compliant allows me to reach more people and educate them about what they voted for and what’s happening. I want to shake up the industry in California; I hope it will have a ripple effect through the nation.
VC: Let’s talk pairings. What goes well with your chocolates?
VL: I’ve had weed wine on “Bong Appétit.” We smoke so much on that show and taste so many things that pinpointing can be difficult but when drinking wine and consuming cannabis, you should be careful. Excess is not better. The terroir of wine and the terpenes of cannabis can work really well together. Know your limits and have fun!
Whiskey is my favorite thing to drink in the kitchen. I like to sip it throughout the night and have a chocolate. For me, it’s my favorite type of dessert and the perfect way to end the night.
And a guilty pleasure for me: I love Sour Patch Kids so much but I try not to eat them too often. If I am traveling I will pick some up and eat them with a gummy. They are sweet and sour, actually, the more sour, the better.
VC: Listening to you, my mouth is doing something weird right now…
VL: So is mine. I think we are having a sour patch Pavlovian response.
One more: They say cannabis leaves are more nutritionally dense than kale. We used to say that cannabis is the new kale on the show a lot, and advocate for eating the whole plant. I also don’t like kale.
VC: If I haven’t told you already, you’re the best.
VL: I know it’s bad, and I will eat it because I like to get roughage. I just prefer eating other greens.
VC: What’s a pie-in-the-sky infusion you want to do but haven’t done yet?
Something I’ve always wanted to do is a mole – there are so many different types of mole, its very broad. I would love to see the ways in which it can be transformed. The sky is the limit in terms of cannabis infusions and I think that’s something we really came to see in “Bong Appétit.”
VC: Writers are sensitive. Sometimes we’re even anxious. Can you help us?
VL: To not be anxious? Try a little CBD, you know, mellow out… it’s all gonna be okay.
VC: What’s going to be okay? Are you sure? Just drop some in our coffee and that’s it?
VL: Ideally, if you’re in a legal state you should find a CBD dominate variety. I call it the rosé of weed. You can enjoy it all day long.
VC: Oh my god, I need this.
VL: Yeah, there used to be this culture around the strongest and most potent variety but I think that’s changed and now there’s more balance. You don’t want the wine with the highest alcohol content, you want something balanced and something that makes you feel right. People get so excited when they find the variety that works for them.
VC: You credit the literary shero, Alice B. Toklas, and her hashish fudge recipe for helping to take the taboo out of cannabis as one of your inspirations in creating Marigold Sweets. If you could talk with Alice now, what would you say?
VL: I would ask her if she would heat the cannabis before she put it into the fudge to activate the THC. In her recipe, she says to just crumble the weed in with the other spices and heat butter with sugar into this date fudge, which sounds delicious. But I am wondering if you could put it into the butter to make a classic cannabutter and make it more active. Maybe she didn’t want to do that; maybe she didn’t want it to become totally active.
VC: Are you telling me Alice B. Toklas didn’t get stoned?
No way. She did. She said in the recipe she did. I love that she had the courage to print something like that. I love her forward thinking and what she says about the cannabis movement in general at the time. I especially love that a woman and patron of the arts was the first to print a recipe like this. I thought it really spoke to Marigold and me as a female edible maker. I want people to see it as an herb — excess is never good — if you put too much garlic in something it’s not going to be good. Educating consumers on how to use it is important. And I thank Alice B. Toklas, the pioneer edible maker.
Victoria Cooper graduated with an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2011. Her short story, "Tunnel No. 2," appeared in Issue No. 3 of No Tokens. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their dog, Sally.