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Cooking In The Weeds: 4/20 Cooking With Chef Derek Simcik
April 20, 2022 @ 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm
$150
An evening with Chopped 420 champion Derek Simcik teaching his delicious infusion techniques into a three course Italian dinner.
What to expect!
Step-by-step, interactive demonstrations of cutting-edge infusion methods.
Learn how to infuse a three-course meal to spice up your next dinner party.
Meet & ask questions with chef Derek, and some of Washington’s finest vendors.
Takes place from 6-10PM in a modern loft space, just blocks away from Lux Ballard
Cannabis and cuisine are no strangers to one another. In fact, their histories are richly intertwined.
In 79 A.D., Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder wrote about a tea made from the roots of the cannabis plant in his hugely influential Naturalis Historia.
When Marco Polo told the world about the coveted culinary delights he encountered while traveling the Silk Road, he described a hashish-infused confection called Majoun, which was thought to be the reason behind the military prowess of the Persian Empire.
And in the pages of the oldest printed cookbook on record, On Honourable Pleasure and Health by Bartolomeo Platina, what can you find? A recipe for “a health drink of cannabis nectar.”
The concept of cooking with cannabis is as steeped in tradition as cooking itself. But despite being an age-old process, decades of prohibition mean most of us have no connection with this universal facet of human history.
Chef Derek Simcik wants to change that.
With an impressive resume that boasts a litany of awards, prestigious executive chef roles, and Food Network appearances to boot, Derek Simcik is well-versed in many different areas of cuisine. Creative and resourceful, he finds ways to bring his personal passions into the food he creates whenever possible: some of his notable projects include a tattoo-themed dinner party (complete with a pop-up tattoo studio), and a one-night-only menu inspired entirely by old-school hip-hop.
But throughout it all, cooking with cannabis is where Simcik continues to shine.
To see this in action, look no further than his 2021 stint competing on the Discovery+ original cannabis cooking show Chopped:420. He didn’t just compete with other top cannabis chefs from around the country…he won the whole thing.
Possessing a unique understanding of the particulars of using cannabis in food, as well as a robust fine dining background, Derek Simcik has invaluable insight as to how to bring cannabis infusion into a contemporary context…and how all of us can bring this long-revered tradition of cooking with cannabis into our day-to-day lives.
In this April 20th infusion workshop, Chef Derek Simcik will teach you everything you need to know to add Mary Jane to your herb and spice jars.
