How to Host a Canna-Dinner

As cannabis is becoming increasingly recognized as being as legitimate as wine or food tastings, we’re seeing the rapid growth of cannabis tasting events. Sometimes it’s herb tasting and ranking. Other events are full-scale dinners, featuring infused food, or food paired with specific strains.

In Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco, forward-thinking chefs are creating whole menus based on infused cannabis dishes. Since overdoing it on edibles is easy, most use very little cannabis in each dish, usually around 5 milligrams per serving — or half of a standard Colorado dose.

Even with these low doses — and especially if combined with alcohol — illness can still arise. So the next wave of cannabis-food pairings involves specific flower strains paired to complementary tasting food. Here’s some rules for aspiring holiday canna-dinner party hosts.

INFUSED OR PAIRED?

Decide which type of event you want to have, infused or paired. These are two totally different types of events so you need to think about what best suits you and your friends. Since infused food takes up to two hours to be effective it is VERY easy for people to smoke/drink and otherwise medicate before the cannabis in the food kicks in.

CROSSFADING

A note on alcohol: while some can enjoy cannabis and alcohol responsibly, it’s easy for others to lose control. So unless you want to spend half your party cleaning up and calling Ubers for your friends, try your first gathering sans alcohol.

CATERING TO TASTE

If you decide to go the paired route — it’s fun to contact your guests ahead of time and ask what strains they do or don’t enjoy. The last thing you want is to plan an indica-based dinner for folks who fall asleep after their first hit of purps or Afghani.

FRONT LOADING

With an infused dinner, it’s best to put more THC in the earlier courses. That way folks will begin to feel the effects before the party is over and also won’t get hit on their way home with a big boost to their already-altered state.

SATIVA STARTERS

With strain-paired dinners, start with more upbeat sativas like Red Congolese and move onto heavier ones and or concentrates as the meal progresses.

HYDRATE

Always remember to have lots of water on hand. Sparkling, flat or both. Put it into attractive bottles or pitchers and strongly, but gently encourage your guests to consume it throughout the meal.

KEEP IT LIGHT

Above all, have fun and experiment. There are no Julia Childs or Robert Parkers telling us how we should do things. We are all co-creating this new world together, so have fun with it.

Originally published in Issue 23 of Cannabis Now. LEARN MORE

TELL US, have you hosted a canna-dinner? How do you incorporate marijuana?