Baking a Fool of Myself: Cannabis-Infused Baked Salmon with Asparagrass

This marks my tenth column, and we are really starting to cook with cannabis now. We’ve covered the basics, such as cannabis conversion, time-honoured recipes, and why I profess to be an “expert.”

We then moved on to some advanced concepts, like how to fight the law and win, gluten-free options, and Fried! Fried Chicken!

If you’ve been following along, you know for certain that cooking with cannabis does not need to be a daunting task. It becomes a very creative process once you get the hang of it. Essentially, it’s an herb. Use it like one.

The options are endless: juice it, dry it and crush it, soak it in booze, toast it in the oven, saute it in duck fat, etc. Most recently, I infused stove-top popcorn with two tablespoons of Ms. Envy cannabis coconut oil in a pot with a tight-fitting lid. Simple! Delicious! Mildly intoxicating!

Another time, I sautéed a teaspoon of dried sativa flowers in peanut oil to mix in with peanut butter. Then, I made a modified classic: PBBJ (peanut budbudder and jam). Rocket scientist need not apply. I love to invent things. Food. Myself. Sometimes, I rearrange the furniture and pretend that I moved. Embracing change and moving forward is always exciting.

After all this talk about running for mayor, I am suddenly running for city council in Vancouver’s by-election. Geoff Meggs stepped down to become chief of staff for the new B.C. premier, John Horgan.

So, there is one open seat to fill on a council of 10, not including the mayor.

Dana Larsen, who ran the Sensible BC campaign, called me up to pitch I run as a “cannabis-friendly councillor.” We would call our party Sensible Vancouver. He would run the campaign. I would be the candidate. So far, it’s the perfect storm.

I find it quite ironic that the most dangerous thing about weed is getting caught with it. - Bill Murray

Cannabis and its burgeoning new industry will be a great benefit to this city, if done in a meaningful way.

Along with offering effective, non-toxic new medicines, it also offers a dynamic, new, green industry and economy. Why inaugurate this new economic opportunity with impossible or arbitrary regulations that make regular citizens unable to compete?

After a long struggle for the legalization of cannabis, we cannot hand over the helm to our prohibitionists. British Columbia has always had a thriving cannabis community, regardless of its legal status. How could it otherwise?

We must integrate these existing players or suffer mutiny for years to come. We need only to look at Colorado and Washington states to see who has best practices. Colorado integrated compliant stake holders and has had great success. Washington did not and still suffers a thriving black market.

No good captain sets sail knowing mutiny is on the horizon. It would be a huge waste of time and money. Plus, you’ll most likely lose your ship.

Sensible Vancouver intends to inspire a large group of people who wouldn’t normally vote, as well as win the hearts of those who do, to come out and support us. It is obvious now that harms caused by prohibition are worse than whatever is being prohibited.

We want to reduce those harms until we can legalize all drugs, decriminalize prostitution, and regard shelter as a basic human right. We’ve been gaining overwhelming support from dispensaries and their users by simply talking to them about our idea.

We are also reaching out to other communities, such as sex worker advocates, and asking what more needs to be done. If you use a dispensary and want to see it stay open, please join our efforts and vote Mary Jean Dunsdon in this coming Vancouver by-election on October 14, 2017.

Personally, I am very excited about the near future. I want to be a fresh voice for Vancouver city council. I want nothing more than to help inclusively usher in this new era of legal cannabis in Canada. I am so full of enthusiasm and Canada is so full of promise right now. We have so much to get right after so much we got wrong. Let’s get it right.

In the meantime, I leave you with a recipe for:

Recipe: B.C. Baked Salmon with “Asparagrass”

Salmon Ingredients

• Several servings of fatty salmon, such as spring
• 1 g dried cannabis per serving of fish
• Rock salt

Salmon Directions

• Preheat oven to 400˚F
• Place fish on lightly greased casserole dish
• Rub one gram of dried, crushed marijuana on each serving of salmon
• Sprinkle with rock salt
• Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes
• Remove foil and brown the top a bit. Notice the white fat oozing out the sides of the salmon; that is the perfect fat for conversion, along with fish skin

*You could also pan fry this dish with similar success.

Asparagrass Ingredients

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 g shake flour
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• 1 lbs. washed and trimmed asparagus

Asparagrass Directions

• Start the butter and shake flour on medium-low heat
• Toss in the garlic
• Add the asparagus. It will depend on how cooked you like your asparagus as to when you put it in
• Use tongs to keep turning asparagus in weed butter garlic sauce as it cooks
• Plate alongside B.C. Baked Salmon