Mindful Infusion and Elevated Experiences with Cannabis Culinary Expert, Chef Liv Vasquez

This episode's guest is Cannabis Culinary Expert and Event Planner, Chef Liv Vasquez. With over 20 years of hospitality experience, she's an educator with a mission to help people develop a clearer understanding of cannabis as a plant, and industry, in beautiful places. Liv travels the country hosting beautiful and magical pop-up events that act as a classroom for her to teach and answer questions in depth. She shares baking tips in her book "Smart Infusion: A Basic Guide To Understanding Edibles", and when she isn't cooking up infused dishes on shows like Netflix's Cooked with Cannabis, you can find her on TikTok talking about all things pop culture. Without further adieu, let's sesh!

Host: What is your favorite recent pop culture moment?

Liv: Oh my gosh, there's so many. I think, like, the last week has been the Scooter Braun thing. I'm just so curious to know what's going to come out about Scooter Braun. Everyone he's worked with who is notable is announcing their split from him in the last week or so. And, I'm just very curious to see what that is.

Also, I talk a lot about the Kardashians as well because they're billionaires who let us see in their lives. Billionaires are usually pretty secretive and these are the only billionaires that have a reality show where they're showing us what's behind the scenes. Kind of, it's all very curated.

I like to make a lot of content pointing out that they are doing shady billionaire stuff in front of our faces. So there's a lot of like Kylie Jenner is a fake billionaire and Forbes has been trying to tell everybody. Since they announced she was a billionaire. I just find that so interesting. She had her 21st birthday, everybody was wearing Forbes billionaire Kylie Jenner shirts. She really put it out there that she was a billionaire, she was not.

Host: Yeah, that was really awkward!

Host: What are your favorite creators to follow on TikTok?

Liv: I like @crutches_and_spice she is amazing. She's a disability advocate with a telecommunications degree, I believe, and she works in communications.

So she's really good about pointing out the ways that people with disabilities can be disenfranchised or harmed outright. The cannabis industry is an industry built on people with disabilities so I think it's really important to center disability rights advocates. She's one that I feel like I'm always just like, YES. Absolutely. You're so right, so spot on! I love her content.

I feel like @hellotefi, I really love. I just feel like she's so good at the pop culture stuff, but also she talks to her audience like you're on FaceTime, and it's just so fun. I just love her stuff.

And then on Instagram, I love @sousweed. She's written multiple books on infusing food. And she's just cool. She really talks a lot in her stories about the Asian and Asian American experience, not only within cannabis but just kind of like within the world. She has so many amazing food pictures and tips, because she's constantly making content for books and collaborations. She's one that's a very inspirational follow. I love watching her channel.

Also, Lauren Yoshiko, with Broccoli Magazine. She just started podcast, called Sticky Bits. She's a journalist who's worked within the cannabis space for a long time. I've done multiple articles with her. She's got her finger on the pulse everywhere. And she just talks about such a great variety of stuff that always kind of comes back. I just love her content so much.

Host: If you could sesh with anyone currently in pop culture, who would it be?

Liv: Oh my gosh, I really have thought about this so much. I feel like Jane Fonda. I just would love to just have a joint with Jane Fonda and just talk about like everything in the world…activism and everything.

She would be a big one. And then Gordon Ramsay, just because he's so mad all the time. He needs a joint. He just needs to chill. I would just love to hand him one and just be like ‘Take a puff, bro. Just chill, please.’ Like, you're yelling a lot.

Host: Seriously, I wonder if he does consume.

Liv: I feel like he doesn't because he's so on edge all the time. Even just a CBD supplement or something. He's on edge. Like, you're rich and famous. Chill out, bro.

Host: What is your favorite infused dish or cocktail, or both?

Liv: I feel like everyone's been really moving into the infused beverage space, and I'm down!

I love an infused beverage. I teach monthly cooking classes, and we usually do an infused drink. So I would say I love a drink, I love mocktails. We're getting to the end of the season where we have a lot of extra fruit. So I like to make a fruit-infused shrub, which is kind of like a vinegary sweet addition.

You can just have it with soda water and make a fun mocktail with it. It's just a great way to use up extra fruit at the end of the year when you have all these berries and stuff. I love doing stuff like that. Drinks tend to hit you a little bit quicker 'cause they're going through your sublingual, under your tongue, so you get it in your system a little faster than eating food. I mean, like a cocktail, I would say probably a shrub, like a blackberry shrub cocktail, with some barrel bitters that make it a little smoky, or spicy. Last month we made a spicy margarita with an infused jalapeno simple syrup, and that was really good.

Host: Who is a woman in cannabis who inspires you?

Liv: Oh my gosh. I would say Mara Gordon always. I've said this since I first got in the industry. Mara Gordon is kind of like my Beyonce. Like, I love her. She's a researcher. She owns an edibles company. She's spoken all over the world about infusion and absorption and she's an engineer who came into this space because she couldn't find what she wanted and basically made it.

She's done so much research over the years that's been really helpful for me in learning about absorption. I would love to meet her and sit down with her. We, we followed each other on Twitter, but I deleted my Twitter. So, like, like, I hope I find my way back to Mara, but she is incredible.

Host: Well, what happened if you just called her up?

Liv: Haha Just call Taylor up? Just swoop into her DMs and be like, ‘We followed each other on Twitter, um, Can we continue that over here?’ She would, she would, she's like so great. But I have like nothing to formally invite her to. I'm like, I'll have to start a podcast just to like, have her on.

Host: What did you do for this month's Patreon infused cooking class?

Liv: This month we did two dips because people love my infused grazing boxes. So, I did two dips that I used for grazing boxes that people can make their own grazing tables or platters with. We did a vegan spinach dip and a vegan buffalo tofu dip but both did not taste vegan. I always take recommendations from people who take my classes, if you're a long-time Patreon and you're like, ‘Oh, I've always wanted to make XYZ’, then I usually work out a recipe to include it in the next class.

Again, it's 30 bucks and it's per login so you can invite as many people into your kitchen to cook with you. So it's really fun because people do it for like a date night or like a friend’s sleepover, things like that. I have one family where the whole family is over 21. They're adult kids with their mom and they all do the cook-along together. So you just pay for one login and then you can invite as many people to have an infused meal with you. Then you log off and you have this great infused meal that you can all enjoy together!

Host: Thank you so much for joining me! Where can people find you online and book your services?

Liv: You can find me at my website, LivvieSmalls.com. I am @LivvieSmalls Instagram and on TikTok, I'm @ChefLivVazquez.

On Patreon, I teach monthly live virtual classes that people can come to. You can invite as many people into your kitchen as you like. It's just 30 bucks and you also get access to a back catalog of classes, videos, recipes, and worksheets that have to do with terpenes and cannabinoids. There's a lot of great stuff on my Patreon.

My E-book you can find on my website as well.

This is just an excerpt from Liv’s episode on Work Sesh. Listen to the full episode by following the links below.