Amnesia

Lately, I've been toking on some very strong Amnesia from Clandestine Gardens. Clocking in at a wonderful 28.1% THC, this potent sativa really knocks your block off. One of my favorite growers, Clandestine, raises every plant with sunshine, unicorns and love, resulting in a heady, potent, and flavorful buzz, with a great aroma and a stickiness that rivals the paste you used to eat in elementary school.

Just a few hits from that shit and my brain collapsed.

No shit.

Look at that fucking deliciousness. Just look at it.

I'd been meaning to try the strain for a while. I'd heard good things about it, I'd seen it in the local retail stores and considered buying it, but, fickle smoker that I am, some other strain would catch my eye like some gaudy butterfly and I'd go with that instead and then I’d forget all about the Amnesia. It was like I had amnesia from not smoking Amnesia.

Anyway, my girlfriend and I were in Cascade Herb Company, in Bellingham,​ a week or two ago. I forget why we went, because I had literally just stopped in at The Joint - Bellingham​, for some outstanding Blue Bastard, which was an Indica from Treedom​ and a couple of half-gram pre-rolls of Bruce Banner and LA Cheese, from Analytical 360​, so I was well set for the night. Evidently, she wasn't.

Blue Bastard

Oh, I remember now. My girlfriend wanted to get a new vape cartridge and I had a 20% discount at Cascade, so off we went, hand in hand, in search of more weed. Because nothing says buy more weed than saving money on dope and nothing says true love more than going weed shopping, hand in hand, with your girlfriend. Skipping through the sunshine and rainbows, slipping on the unicorn shit.

We hadn't been to Cascade for a few weeks. We'd bought a few vape cartridges there, before our vacation to the east coast, but we hadn't been back since then and I'd been lazy, buying my weed closer to home, mostly because of my odd work hours and the vibe at the shop had changed a little bit.

Cascade has had a bit of a turnover in staff lately, with most everyone that we know either gone, or working hours when we usually don't or can’t frequent the store. When you've been going to the same place for a long time and you're used to dealing with the same people, you kinda sorta build up a relationship of sorts with those people and when it all changes on you, it throws off your equilibrium. It's like switching weed dealers, or escaping from the backwoods in Deliverance. It takes a little while before you become comfortable again and I still shake uncontrollably when I hear banjos.

We walked into the store and the comforting smell of good weed washed over us like a warm summer day. Sure enough though, it was all new people working that night and there wasn’t a familiar face in sight. Bummer, but no biggie, It doesn't need to be a social call. We'll just get our shit and leave, but things didn't go as expected. The dude behind the counter was really cool and patient with us, he ensured that we had the time and the attention that we needed and this made us feel more like people and not just a number. We checked out a few cartridges and then headed over to where the flower was, sitting all pretty inside of the glass display cabinets.

Everything looked and smelled so good! I just wanted to cuddle with all of the lonely little buds.

Fuck. I was about to blow my weed budget. Again. That happens more than you might think.

My girlfriend and I looked over those delectable nuggets of goodness, smelling this and sniffing that. Fondling bags and ogling buds. We asked questions and compared strains from different growers and the guy behind the counter seemed to have a taste in weed that was similar to ours, so we felt as if his recommendations could be trusted. He spoke highly of a few strains and growers and I picked out a few bags of buds, for us. I also asked for a recommendation for something that would make me giggly and stupid. Dude strongly recommended the Amnesia, from Clandestine Gardens. I'm quite familiar with Clandestine's products and I've never been disappointed. Their prices tend to be at the higher end of the scale, ranging anywhere from $14 - $17 a gram, but when it comes to quality and potency, you definitely get your money's worth. As I like to say, you can tell that it was grown with love… and unicorn shit.

Things were starting to get a little out of hand. In addition to what I had purchased earlier, between the two of us, we now had an additional eighth of Strawberry Tangie, an eighth of Amnesia, a gram of Blueberry and a big ass joint of Double Lemon Cheesecake for the ride home. You have to have a travel doobie. It's like a rule, or something and I'm big on following the rules.

We bought a lot of fucking weed. No worries, though. You can never have too much weed and it was all going to a good cause.

Getting me high.

Because I'm a charitable motherfucker.

But we hadn't finished shopping yet.

My girlfriend still wanted a vape cartridge, We looked the cartridges over again and she asked me to pick one out for her, because she knows that letting me do that kind of shit makes me puff out my chest and feel all smart and self-important and stuff. This way, I think I'm in charge and don't realize that she's in control. Whatever, I can live with my illusions. Quite comfortably, I might add. She told me she wanted an Indica, so the choice came down to either God's Gift, which we'd just had, or the Afghani Hash that I had looked at earlier and which I had kind of a hankering for.

I hope that's enough for the weekend.

Just before we left, the owner popped out of the back and it was nice to finally see a familiar face. He greeted us and then he introduced us to all of his new employees. Suddenly, the store felt as warm, friendly and welcoming as it always had. I'll tell you, that's the kind of shit that makes me feel like a valued customer and keeps me coming back. It's also one of the many reasons that I recommend Cascade Herb Company to everyone that I speak to. Keep up the great work, guys!

We smoked up on the way home and then we smoked up some more when we got there. The Double Lemon Cheesecake was smokealicious. We tried out the Afghani Hash and the Strawberry Tangie, first thing and pretty soon, we were both pretty lit.

I put the Amnesia away for later.

We smoked most of what we bought that night, over the course of the next few days and then we bought some more weed, forgetting all about the Amnesia. Sort of. I just kept looking for excuses to smoke other strains, keeping that Amnesia in reserve, making it my side bud.

It took me two weeks to break into the Amnesia, but after smoking out all day yesterday, I finally cracked the seal last night. I packed a bowl and then my girlfriend and I drove over to the grocery store to get some mushrooms for dinner. She lives close to the store, so we were only able to take a hit or two each, before we got there, so we sat in the parking lot for a few minutes and finished the bowl. I was feeling fairly fine, as we got out of the car.

As we approached the store, my girlfriend noticed one of her besties on her way in as well, with her bestie's bestie child in tow, so we took a moment to stop and say hello.

That moment was all that it took. By the time the two of them were finished talking about whatever shit women talk about, the weed had caught up with me and my eyes had glazed over like a doughnut. I was pretty fucking stoned and it felt fabulously fucking phenomenal.

Unfortunately, the worst place in the world for me to be when I'm stoned is at the grocery store. It can be deadly. I get lost. I fall into some kind of mysterious, space-time warp anomaly thing and I emerge from the store twenty-seven years later, like some kind of wasted Rip van Winkle. It's not pretty.

So, the two of us are now wandering around the store, fingering the food and leering lasciviously at this and that, sucking up time the way work sucks away my life. Gone and lost forever, but at least we were laughing our asses off. Everything was funny. 

Time dilation has some strange effects. So do large quantities of weed. Makes you think you know shit about time dilation, when you really don't know shit at all.

We were only there to buy one item, for fuck's sake! Well, there was one other item that I wanted too, but I was so high, So high, I couldn't remember what it was.  It was like I had amnesia from smoking the Amnesia.

At some point while the two of us were wandering through the desert, trying to find the promised land of the exit, we ended up in front of the freezer case where they keep some of the higher end things like duck and bison, as well as a few, more exotic meats. I noticed that they had frozen duck breasts and I suddenly had to have them, but I was stoned, so I had to debate it with myself, first. I live on a pretty tight food budget, so I have to justify spending money on erroneous things like food.

"Stop fondling the breasts and just throw them in the basket." My girlfriend demanded. Quite unfairly, I might add.

Jealous much?

I threw them in the basket and then I wanted to go stare at some short ribs, because I'd been wanting to cook them for a while and it never hurts to look.

They didn’t have any fucking short ribs. Bastards. Who does that?

We started looking at the steaks, instead.

While we were busy touching all of the packages of steak and playing with our meat that we had no intention of buying, she asked me what I had done with the duck.

"What did you do with the duck breasts?" she asked me.

"I've been pinching their little nipples," I replied. “They seem to like it.”

Did you know that a platypus has no nipples? Me either.

She looked at me, askance, rolled her eyes at me and said, "Don't make me kill you. I'm not in the mood to hide your body right now."

"You'd have to dig a hole, first," I answered quite smugly. Have to follow the rules...

"I have," she told me.

"Oh," I said. "Shit. They're in the basket. Please don't hurt me."

Fuck me. Gingers are dangerous when they get all riled up.

"No, they're not," she said. "There are only two things in the basket and duck isn't one of them."

Wtf?

I peered into the basket. I saw some mushrooms, some other fucking shit, but sure enough, there were only two things in the fucking basket and, neither of which was duck.

"What did you do with the duck?" I asked her.

"I never did anything with the duck," she continued, "You never put it in the basket."

Well, fuck me. Apparently, my overly stoned ass had thrown the duck back into the freezer. I sheepishly retraced my steps and went back to get them.

When I returned, she was looking a bit smug, but I quickly turned the tables on her.

"Did you remember to get your wine?" I asked her.

A panicked expression crossed her face and was replaced by a look of determination. She didn’t say a word, she just turned and ran like hell for the wine section.

Distraction and sleight of hand. You can always distract a woman with wine. It works like a charm, every time.

After that, we were over at the butcher case and we got into some conversation with the meat guy over exactly which cut of beef constituted a "medallion," because at $20 a pound, that medallion had better be something special and not the cheap ass sirloin that they usually try to pass off as "medallions." The meat guy didn't have a clue and to be honest, he told us that he thought the meat was sirloin. Well, as red as that guy’s eyes were, I'm pretty sure that he didn't have a clue about much and I know that fucker was just as stoned as we were and I’m fairly certain that he knew that we were stoned too. We know our tribe.

From there, we went to go stare at some expensive and nasty smelling cheese and then we went over to the new section that was full of artisanal meats, such as Jamon de Iberico, specialty salamis and other wondrous things, but, as before, we bought nothing. Finally running out of shit to look at, we made our way to the front of the store to pay for the few things that had managed to make it into the basket.

I still couldn't remember what the hell the other thing was that I had wanted to buy. It was like I had amnesia, or something.

As we were headed to the exit, we heard my girlfriend's bestie call out, "Oh my God, are you guys still here?"

Nice job there, Captain Obvious.

We sort of explained why it had taken us an hour and a half to buy four items. You really don't want to tell anyone that you're stoned out of your mind on fucking weed while you're in front of their nine-year-old child. It's just poor form.

We said our goodbyes to bestie and child and we left the store, headed for home. That was when I finally remembered that I had needed to buy toothpaste, of course, but now it was just too late and there was no way that I was going back. Grrrrrr...

On the way home, I was still so stoned, I forgot where I was going. And where I was. Which happens more than you might think. My driving was fine, I was just a mental moron, but at least I was coherent enough to drive, even if I didn't quite know where I was. I just kept driving until things looked familiar and luckily, I guessed right, when I turned left, instead of right.

Somehow, I managed to get us home and I even managed to cook dinner without the summoning the fire department. The cooking thing just took a while, that's all. Trying to multi-task was a disaster, because I kept forgetting what I was doing.

Eventually, I managed to get it right. Pan seared duck breasts with a balsamic glaze and a bacon-mushroom risotto, made with beef stock. It was fucking amazing. I make the best shit, when I'm stoned.

After dinner, we smoked a little bit of the Blueberry, to wind down after a long day and that seemed to ground us a little bit more..

Fuck me. I've smoked a lot of dank shit over the years and that Amnesia was some of the dankest shit I’ve ever smoked.

On the Goodshit scale, I'd give it a 9.5 out of 10.

And now I'm off to smoke another fat bowl of it. Thanks, Clandestine!

Freshly Baked

I’ve been getting stoned a lot lately, which is nothing new by itself, but sometimes when I get stoned, I get the munchies something fierce. Like wrap two slices of fucking bread around the fridge and throw some fucking ketchup on that shit kind of fierce. Big, fucking, ground breaking, earth shattering revelation, you say? I know, right? But, seriously, I get fucking hungry as fuck when I’m high. Don’t you? Sometimes, you can just smoke some more weed and then, poof, the munchies go away, but not always. Sometimes, those few extra hits make you think you’re Doctor Fucking Livingstone or Indiana Fucking Jones or some shit like that and you mount an ill-fated expedition into the deepest, darkest reaches of the kitchen, where you spend the next two hours lost in the refrigerator, until some other stoner, who thinks he’s fucking Stanley, finally realizes that you’ve been missing for two hours and sends out a search party to rescue your ass. True story.

Anyway, back to the food. I love to talk about food. I love to eat food too, but I hardly ever eat, not unless I’m stoned. I just don’t get hungry very often. Get me stoned, though and I’ll eat everything in sight. I have no self-control when I'm high. None, whatsoever. I’m supposed to be gluten-free, having Celiac disease and all, but shitballs, what the fuck am I supposed to do when pizza comes around acting all slutty and shit? 

The mind is willing, but the flesh is weak. Oh, so very weak. I had pizza yesterday and I’m going to eat it again, tonight. Fuck it. I’ll live it up tonight, pay for it tomorrow and tomorrow’s not here yet, so fuck it, I might as well live it up tonight. That’s circular logic. I like circular logic. It enables and empowers me. Here I come to save the fucking day…

Most of the time…

No, that’s not right.

Some of the time…

No, not that one, either.

Occasionally…

Nope, not gonna’ do it.

Every now and fucking then…

There we go! That one sounds about right.

Every now and fucking then, I try to be good about the things that I put into my body and let me tell you, that’s a lot of shit to keep track of. I’m not as good as I should be, nor do I do it as often as I should, but I do try to eat healthy whenever I can. Shit, sometimes, I’ll even read the label on the food, but usually I’m too stoned to think about that sort of thing.

Hell, I’m stoned, right now and I’m thinking about that sort of thing. I’m so confused.

Big fucking surprise, right?

Most of the time, it’s great to have a few bags of chips, or candy, or chocolate, or popcorn, or bacon, or cardboard, or cat litter (it stays crunchy in milk), or whatthefuckever, handy for when you’re stoned, but sometimes, you just feel the urge to be creative. Channel your inner caveman. Hunt, kill and then eat something. Like your roommate. Just kidding. Don’t shit your pants.

As an example, I like to do most of my baking while I’m baked. This way, I’m baking while I’m baking.  The goods get baked and so do I. I just bake and bake and bake.

Did I mention that I also like to cook with wine?

It does wonders for my attitude.

Speaking of baking, lately I’ve been making parmesan crisps and let me tell you, they’re fucking good. Plus, they’re easy as fuck to make and you only need a few things to do it and the plain, old, basic recipe only calls for one ingredient, parmesan cheese. Listen to me though, don’t make the boring, plain, old, basic recipe with just one ingredient. Play with it a little. Be creative, unlike my sex life.

Let me take you on a journey to a faraway land and we'll go off on a magical food adventure together. It’s like a fantastical stoney tale, where you’ll get to live happily ever after, or at least until your buzz wears off.

I never promised you a rose garden.

Making the parmesan crisps is stoner simple and all that you need to do it are an oven, gas/electricity, a baking sheet, some parchment paper (not wax paper - the cheese sticks to it) and some sort of device to measure time, like, you know, a timer. Oh, and maybe like a glove, or a towel or something to pull the hot baking sheet out of the oven. You just might regret it if you burn the living fuck out of your hand. Safety first. No glove, no love.

Once again, this is a simple recipe and you can use pretty much whatever kind of parmesan cheese that you might have sitting around the house, except for the shit that comes in the green plastic bottle. Don’t use the powdery Kraft shit or anything else like that, because it sucks. I made the crisps a few different times, using different types of parmesan and had pretty decent results, most of the time. I mean, the shit was good, but they would overcook a little and to be honest, while good, they seemed a bit plain. I adjusted the cooking time downward and got much better results and decided to try adding a few different ingredients.

Don't use this kind of shit.

Flash forward to today and I’m out running some errands for my girlfriend. My first stop was at Trove Cannabis and I have to admit, that particular errand was all about me. I picked up a gram of The Jack, a very potent, 28% THC, Jack Herer pheno reserve strain from Cascadia Gardens that was packed full of tasty terps and with a flavor that was pleasing to the palate.

I also bought a .85 gram, pre-rolled joint of Black Cherry Soda from Leef, so that I’d have some driving around weed. The reason I’d stopped at Trove was because I’d received a text from them letting me know that today was a vendor day and that the folks from Leef would be in and that all Leef products were 20% off. When I got there, all I could see were a few cartridges, some concentrates and two different joints. I asked about some flower and the girl behind the counter told me that they were waiting for the folks from Leef to show up with their delivery. I asked her when they were expected, figuring I’d grab a little something for now and then come back a little later for some more. She told me she’d ask her boss and then she went into the back to find out the answer to my question. When she returned, she told me that Leef had just emailed the store and let them know that they wouldn’t be delivering any flower today, but they would be dropping off some Agent Orange, in a couple of days. Crap. What kind of bullshit was that? You have a vendor day and the vendor isn’t even there and when they do eventually show up, they don’t have jack shit. That’s cannabis capitalism for you, or is it stoner socialism? Whatever. It all tastes like disappointment to me.

Well, there wasn’t much that I could do about any of that, so I grabbed my shit and took off. Places to see and weed to smoke and all that.

I sparked up the joint and smoked half of it

I ran the rest of the errands on my list and finally ended up at Whole Foods. I was so fucking high by the time I walked in there, I was instantly swept away on a sensory tsunami of epicurean delight and I was lost like the SS Minnow on a three-hour tour, stranded in a faux hippy Wal-Mart.

I think I must have groped about half of the items in that place, as I stumbled down the aisles, but I somehow managed to get the few things that I needed, pay and get out, in something like less than two hours and that must be some kind of fucking record for me. Added bonus - I didn't have to smell any Whole Foods Hippies, those dreadlock coiffed empty shells, stuffed overfull with organic patchouli and tie-dyed arrogance. 

Meanwhile, I’d worked up quite a case of the munchies, which makes sense, because I’d smoked an awful lot of pot by this time, so I decided that when I got back to my girlfriend’s house, I was going to chow down on some parmesan crisps.

I smoked the rest of that joint on the way there.

I got back to her place, unpacked the groceries and put them away, while I waited for the oven to heat up. I threw some parchment paper on a baking sheet, spooned out some grated parmesan cheese and threw it all in the oven. I set the timer for seven minutes and smoked a bowl while I was waiting.

That’s when the idea for this story and recipe were born. I even remembered to grab the camera and take a few pictures. I’m quite proud of myself for remembering that, because I always forget to take pics. Hell, I’m lucky if I can remember if I wiped my ass or not, before I pull my pants up.

The timer went off and I pulled the crisps out of the oven. They were slightly overcooked. Fuck. I was cooking with gas and had forgotten to adjust the temperature and time in the oven, because gas ovens cook a little hotter and a little faster than electric ovens do. Well, they say pot makes you forget shit, but I don’t believe that for a second. I smoke a lot of fucking pot and I can still remember all of the shit that I want to forget and none of the shit that I want to remember.

Anyway, I tried one of the parmesan crisps and it was good, but I still felt they were a little plain, so I dusted the crisps with some basil, oregano and kosher salt. They were delicious, so I decided to make another batch. I found another container of shredded parmesan in the fridge. This time, the cheese was the remains of a high-end, aged and shredded batch of cheese. I spooned out the cheese, splashed a little olive oil over the piles of parmesan and then dusted everything with garlic powder, basil, oregano and sea salt, before returning the pan to the oven and setting the timer. I checked on the cheese after five minutes and it was a soggy mess, drowning in the olive oil. Disappointed, I returned the pan to the oven for another two minutes and to my surprise, the crisps had absorbed the excess olive oil and were crisp and perfect. So much so, that I decided to experiment again with a third batch. 

Unfortunately, the only parmesan cheese left in the house by that point was a green bottle of the cheap ass Kroger shit, but it did have the same consistency as the grated parmesan that I had used to make the first batch, so I figured, fuck it, why not?

Grasshopper had much to learn.

I spooned out the third batch, added the olive oil, sea salt and some fresh rosemary. Looking at my handiwork, I decided to add some balsamic vinegar to about half of the third batch, threw the baking sheet in the oven and waited to see what would happen.

I smoked another bowl while I was waiting. Fuck it.

I didn’t have long to wait. The cheap shit had the fastest cooking time and the third batch was finished in about five minutes. The color and the texture of the cheap cheese looked entirely different from the first two batches. I tried one of the crisps and while the herbs and balsamic vinegar imparted a wonderful flavor, that flavor was contrasted rather poorly and very sharply by the appearance and the consistency of the cheap cheese.

In my opinion, the best cheeses to use were the grated parmesan, which we picked up from Trader Joe’s and the aged parmesan that we buy from Costco and then grate it fresh.

All in all, the parmesan crisps were a huge success and will have many uses, including as a substitute for croutons in a salad and I’m thinking of experimenting with some crazy parmesan crisp pizza nacho thingies.

So, I just made you read all of that and dragged your ass all the way here just to show you a recipe.

Sorry.

Anyway, here’s that recipe:

Parmesan Crisps

Fresh grated parmesan cheese

Olive oil

Fresh garlic, minced garlic, or garlic powder

Fresh or dried herbs (basil/oregano, rosemary, whatever – be creative)

Salt & Pepper

Balsamic vinegar (optional)

Any and all of these ingredients are optional, except the parmesan cheese, because you need parmesan cheese if you’re going to make parmesan crisps.

You will also need a cookie sheet, some parchment paper, a tablespoon and a timer.

Preheat the oven to 425.

Size the parchment paper to the cookie sheet.

Spoon the parmesan cheese onto the cookie sheet. Each crisp should be about 1 tablespoon.

Use the bottom of the spoon to flatten the piles of cheese.

Splash the cheese with just a drop or two of olive oil, Dust the piles of cheese with the garlic powder, herbs, salt, pepper; whatever.

Add a few drops of balsamic vinegar (if desired).

Place the cookie sheet on the center rack in the oven and cook for 5 – 7 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let the crisps cool.

Mangia.

Let me know what you think.