I love to read as much as I love to write. The eloquence of the written word has consistently captivated and consumed me, but it rarely eluded me—until I read Gertrude Stein. I have a minor in philosophy, and let’s say reading Descartes or Kierkegaard is more straightforward than reading Stein. Like the great treatises, her works require intense examination, patience, reflection, and a willingness to grapple with complex ideas and arguments rather than simply absorbing the traditional narrative form.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter. Ms. Stein’s Lost Generation contemporaries wrote some of my favorite books. Hemmingway, Elliot, Fitzgerald, and Steinbeck were gifted writers whose works will undoubtedly stand the test of time. Their writings, each unique in style and content, continue to captivate readers and inspire new generations of writers.
Although some argue Steinbeck’s writing was more grounded in realism and social commentary than the Parisian expatriates’ experimental and modernist styles, Steinbeck’s novel The Red Pony is still one of my favorite books. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by St. Louis native T.S. Eliot is one of my favorite poems. But, alas, I digress.
While Hemmingway’s writing is direct, Stein’s work is multi-layered and open to interpretation. Like her dear friend Pablo Picasso, who deconstructed and reassembled objects from multiple perspectives, Stein uses simple words and everyday language, arranging them in a way that makes them almost unrecognizable.
As is my habit with art that I admire, I often delve into the artists’ lives to understand their work better. During one of these explorations, I stumbled upon a significant figure in Gertrude Stein’s life, Alice B. Toklas. Perhaps it was Alice who helped me understand Stein best.
Alice was more than just a figure in Stein’s life. She was her confidant, lover, cook, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer, chiefly living in the shadows (thanks, Wikipedia). Behind every great woman is another great woman. Alice, it turns out, wrote a cookbook and the very first recipe for pot brownies. Yep. While I may be wrong, cannabis makes Stein’s writing style make much more sense.
“Haschich Fudge” was printed in The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book in 1954. Of course, this wasn’t Toklas’s recipe—it was sent to her by a friend, the artist Brion Gysin, who lived in Morocco. (You may not recognize the name, but he’s a literary celebrity in his own right or should be: Gysin invented the cut-up method, which William S. Burroughs made famous.) But that is a story for another time.
Publishers left the risqué recipe out of the US publication; the 50s weren’t ready for her recipe or her pot pals. Eventually, in the early 1960s, a second edition, including the recipe, was published for US consumption, and hippie culture crowned their queen. Hence, the 1968 Peter Sellers movie I Love You, Alice B. Toklas.
I love this movie for so many reasons. The film’s exploration of racism, culturalism, religion, traditional norms, and how superficial facades of convention fade after having a few brownies is a nostalgic reflection of the 1960s culture.
Whether it was a traditional family or a group of stoned-out communal hippies, Sellers realized each group had their own expectations. Are you square, or are you hip? In the end, it turns out it was all the same thing.
Finally, at the movie’s end, Sellers’ character, Harold Fine, decides that the constraints of each of those two worlds were not a world he was comfortable in. However, once cannabis opened the door in his mind, he realized he didn’t have to settle for the confines of either. So, he seeks to find a third life—one that combines the relevant elements of the previous two existences, sheds the unyielding expectations of everyone, and sets out to find his own path. Like Stein’s work, the movie is fantastic and open to interpretation.
So, Tolkas’s recipe calls for stoned dates, which made me laugh out loud! Stoned simply means removing the seed (or stone) from the dates. While I recommend chopping and dicing first, feel free to fire one up and blow some smoke their way. The original brownies recipe doesn’t do much in the way of “getting you high,” like the more modern versions using canna-oil. You see, THC needs a fat molecule to dissolve and release from its plant, so we infuse it into oil.
However, overheating this mixture will cause the THC to evaporate, and all your efforts will have been for nothing. So, please repeat after me, I shall not let my oil boil! I tried to make a recipe that was as close to Toklas’s. It’s raw vegan (okay, mostly raw) and uses either oats or hemp seeds, though I prefer the texture of oats. Before making this recipe, please read the Description and disclaimer in the Notes section!
Enjoy!
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I love you, Alice B. Toklas Fudgy Brownies
Description
With respect to dosing, if you have one, use a ruler to cut the brownies. Were there no weed involved, this would be embarrassingly fussy. But there is weed involved! Carefully cut pieces mean reliable dosing, for cannabis with 20% THC, an 8×8″ pan cut into 12 pieces shakes out to about 8⅓ milligrams THC per piece.
This is right for many, but some prefer less, and others want more. You do you. For a smaller dose, cut 16 pieces for about 6¼ mg THC per piece. For a larger dose, cut 9 pieces for about 11 mg THC per piece. If this is your first time trying an edible, go small—you can even cut 32 pieces for 3⅛ mg THC per piece. Resist the urge to eat more if you’re not feeling anything. The effects can kick in within 30 minutes but might take 2 hours or more.
If you have a decarboxylator, it dramatically helps dispel the smell! Otherwise, know that your kitchen will smell like weed while baking and cooking the oil. I have a decarboxylator but wanted to write a method everyone could use. If you want to cut down on the smell, open the windows and burn some Nag Champa like a true hippie!
Ingredients
Canna-Coconut Oil:
- ½ g cannabis flower (I used sativa)
- ½ cup coconut oil
Brownies:
- 3/4 cup rolled oats (or hemp seeds)
- 3/4 cup walnuts
- 1 cup stoned medjool dates (pit removed)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 heaping tablespoons cacao powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- Pinch nutmeg
- Pinch coriander (optional)
- Pinch of salt
- 3–4 tablespoons of coconut oil infused with cannabis.
- Chopped peanuts
Glaze:
- 1 tablespoon each of almond butter, maple syrup, and cacao powder
Instructions
Decarboxylate your cannabis.
- Place a rack and an oven thermometer in the middle of the oven; preheat to 225° F.
- Using your fingers, gently break up ½ g cannabis flower into raisin-size pieces and spread out in an even layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Bake, gently tossing every 10 minutes or so to avoid burning, until weed turns brownish green (indicating it has decarboxylated), 10–20 minutes if using old or lower-quality weed, 15–30 minutes for cured high-quality weed, or 45–60 minutes for anything recently harvested and still damp.
- Let cool on baking sheet.
To make Canna-Oil:
- Grind or break down cannabis. A grinder will break your weed into an even consistency, but you can just as easily use your hands. Keep in mind that anything small enough to fit through a strainer will end up in your finished product, so don’t grind your cannabis into a fine powder.
- Heat oil and decarbed cannabis.
- Add oil and decarbed cannabis to a double-boiler, slow cooker, or saucepan and simmer on low for 2-3 hours. Make sure the oil temperature stays between 160-200ºF.
- Put a mesh strainer or cheesecloth over the oil container and pour the oil/cannabis mixture through it. Do not squeeze it out—this will add more chlorophyll to your oil and make it taste more vegetal. Discard the plant material.
- The oil will have a shelf life of at least two months and can be extended with refrigeration.
- Label the bottle.
Brownies:
- Pulse the oats and walnuts in your food processor until they become a powder. Add the rest of the ingredients and process until they all stick together.
- Press into a parchment-lined 8×8 baking dish and put in the fridge to set for a few hours.
- Spread on your glaze.
- Top with chopped peanuts.
- Enjoy!
Notes
DISCLAIMER
Recreational cannabis is not available in all states. State laws impact what dispensaries can and can’t sell to recreational customers and certified patients. Not every type of product, consumption method, dosage form, or potency mentioned on this blog will be permitted in all locations.
You assume full responsibility for using your best judgment when cooking with cannabis and seeking information from an official food safety authority if you are unsure. You must also take care to not physically injure yourself by coming into contact with hot surfaces, sharp blades, and other kitchen hazards. It is your responsibility to review all listed ingredients in a recipe before cooking to ensure that none of the ingredients may cause a potential adverse reaction to anyone eating the food based on recipes featured in this blog post.
This includes allergies, pregnancy-related diet restrictions, etc. Please consult with your medical professional before using any recipe if you have concerns about how you may individually react to the use of any particular recipe or ingredient. By voluntarily creating and using any recipe provided here, you assume the risk of any potential injury that may result.
The author disclaims liability for incidental or consequential damages and assumes no responsibility or liability for any loss or damage suffered by any person as a result of use of the information provided in this blog post. The author assumes or undertakes no liability for any loss or damage suffered as a result of the use of any information found on this Website. From time to time, this Website will publish content with recipes. All such recipes have been tried and used successfully, but results may vary from person to person.
Consult your medical professional before using any recipe if you have concerns about how you may individually react to the use of any particular recipe or ingredient. By voluntarily creating and using any recipe provided here, you assume the risk of any potential injury that may result.