Life in Wonderland: On Growing Up in My Parents’ Cannabis BakeryApril 20, 2021 I was born in Wonderland: San Francisco, 1977. My parents operated a cannabis bakery out of our warehouse home, producing thousands of magic brownies each week and distributing them throughout the city—decades before it could be done legally. Saturdays, my parents and…
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My mom Meridy was a cannabusiness pioneer, the driving force behind San Francisco’s first high-volume edibles business. For more than twenty years—from the frothy 1970s through the AIDS crisis and the dawn of medical marijuana—Sticky Fingers Brownies produced up to 10,000 potent magic brownies per month in an underground bakery, long before it could be done legally.
I grew up embedded in deep cannabis culture. Of all the stereotypes I’ve encountered, the one that bothers me the most is the notion that cannabusiness is a man’s world in which women are now beginning to claim space. At least here in northern California, the frontier has been female.
Read the interview with Marion Winik on why the committee selected Home Baked and the other NBCC finalists.
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“Alia Volz was raised by parents who made their living selling weed. Her mother, Meridy, was the heart behind Sticky Fingers — an illegal Bay Area brownie operation that for decades brought joy and vital medicine to patients, especially those suffering from AIDS, at a time when all other shoulders were turned away. When we…
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“The history of the medical marijuana movement is paved with untold stories like this one author Alia Volz has now brought to light with her new memoir Home Baked.” – Zack Ruskin for LEAF.
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Friends, I am STUNNED!!! The other books nominated for Autobiography are tremendous, and I’m deeply honored to be in such fine company. The committee truly cannot go wrong. What a marvelous turn of events for HOME BAKED! I am also certain that this is the first cannabis book to be considered for one of the…
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HAPPY PUB DAY TO US!!! Overjoyed that my essay “Finding El Saez” has been selected for The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Vol. 12 from Travelers Tales Books. As Andrew McCarthy wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “For more than 20 years, Travelers’ Tales has been publishing books that might best be described as the…
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I’m floored to learn that HOME BAKED won the 2020 Golden Poppy for nonfiction! Recent recipients include Julia Flynn Siler and Michael Pollan, so I’m in ridiculously fine company. In normal times, this would have involved a fancy lunch, a special dress, and shaky hands. But it’s 2020 so I’m chomping on Krispy Kreme delivery…
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A family of deer exploded out of the forest. I must have been 6, squatting in the dirt driveway with my model horses as the animals dodged around me, eyes bulging. Then a helicopter emerged from behind the trees, its body like a giant insect, loud as a machine gun. It hovered low overhead, sending debris whirling into my face. My mom rushed out of the house and pulled me close to her body. The chopper moved on toward the next ranch.
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On one of her monthly brownie runs, my mom caught her first glimpse of the monster coming our way.
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Alia Volz 