Hey everyone,

Spring is here, but the seasons—and everything else—feel a little off. Normally, this would be the time I’d wax poetic about cherry blossoms and spring produce. Maybe even channel my inner Gwyneth circa 2011, skipping past a flowering zucchini plant like it’s a religious experience.

Back then, she got dragged relentlessly for that line. But now, in 2025, we don’t even know when the zucchini blossoms will come, how much they’ll cost, or if the farmers market will have anything that doesn’t feel out of reach. The idea of stopping to feel something? That’s actually beautiful now. In a world increasingly dominated by brutalism—of design, of policy, of emotion—the rebirth of spring reminds us that nature inevitably prevails.

This is also the time of year I usually start making the case for why cannabis should be part of the larger sustainability conversation. I’ve always loved that 4/20 and Earth Day are just two days apart—a coincidence I’ve always found oddly poetic. If there was ever a time to draw the connection between thoughtful agriculture, sustainability, and cannabis, it’s now. A reminder that the things we consume should be rooted in something deeper: the land, the labor, the care.

But I haven’t felt inspired to hype any particular products, events, or celebrations this year. Climate change has made irregularity the new normal, and cannabis is about as GMO as it gets. I’ve found myself pulling back from the rituals that once brought me real joy. I hate that, and I don’t want to become entirely jaded, but I think it’s important to be honest about it.

It isn’t to say that there isn’t still goodness in the world, or affordable ways to bring people together, reconnect, or get creative with DIY. But I think I just speak for a lot of people who aren’t interested in encouraging spending for the sake of it. Especially when even those with good intentions and shared values seem to be cutting each other off entirely, and recent news is giving plenty of reasons for people to hold onto whatever they have while some could use a community more than ever.

Values have been on my mind at a time when everything feels fragmented. I think its natural to label ourselves to signal what we stand for—but what do those signals even mean anymore when the whole country feels like it’s coming apart?

Overall, I think the intention of this newsletter has always been to highlight people and products that speak for themselves, where the values are baked into the process. And while not everyone can or wants to pay for certifications, I still think efforts like Sun+Earth certification deserve credit for trying to make better farming more visible. Same goes for the dispensaries and farmers out there quietly doing the right thing without making it a brand strategy.

Maybe it seems a little too obvious, if not outdated, to be pushing this very straightforward agenda, but frankly I feel like sometimes in the pursuit of furthering discourse, we’ve abandoned a very fundamental principle that could benefit all.

Even before I became a journalist, food meant something to me. It felt like a shared language, something both personal and universal. I used it as a lens for self-expression, questioning outdated gender norms, exploring social inequity, digging into rituals, culture, survival. But when I needed a job, I played the part. Everyone wanted to know: "Where can I get a sandwich?" So I told them—where to find the best sandwich made with the best practices and hoped they’d taste the difference and carry those values with them beyond lunch.

That’s why, before it became an empty buzzword, “farm-to-table” was pretty brilliant concept in its simplicity. It asked people to think about how their food got to their plate. It asked people to care. Today, “food culture” is collectible clout: which line did you stand in this week? If there’s no pic, did it even happen? Authentic cannabis culture with values is as rare as a B-side in a dusty record bin. Sustainability discourse rarely hits when the main concern is whether the weed is “fire” and the vibes are on point—and that’s most of what 4/20 has become. People rarely think of the medical users until they become one.

I didn’t come from an academic family, but I came from smart people—social workers, nurses, electricians, builders. Nobody gave me a nepotistic handshake or promised me my art would change the world. Journalism was the pragmatic path for someone with Midwestern work ethics: someone would always need a writer who could “figure it out.” I didn’t have the business acumen to go into business, and "cultural anthropologist" wasn’t exactly a growth field. So I worked. I wore too many hats. I covered front-of-house and back-of-house, consumer and trade, always splitting myself to meet a need until I finally split in half.

Restaurants were the intersection: they fed people, created jobs, and gave back as one of the last places where you could see the full spectrum of a community. Soon, technology stormed in, led by people who had no idea what it took to build something of value but felt like they were the saving grace of problems that no one had. Every “disruption” was about serving the consumer and lining the pockets of founders, not making the operations run more efficiently or empowering workers. When I tried to speak up about it, I got brushed off with “whaddya gonna do?” And when the pandemic hit, it was clear: the industry wasn’t built to protect the people who cared about it most.

Yes, food is political. It’s also one of the only places I ever saw bipartisan action that actually felt useful. Supply chain issues have been a problem since the Industrial Revolution—particularly bizarre in places like the Midwest that are surrounded by land, but still filled with food deserts. It made me want to do everything: tell stories, build bridges, work on both sides of the kitchen door. In places that lack celebrity culture, restaurants are the culture. But there’s only so much splitting one person can do before the pieces stop fitting together. Plus, I was trying to address cannabis in all of this.

When food media isn’t chasing trends, it’s wringing hands over romanticized visions of what culture is supposed to look like if colonialism or capitalism never happened, or omitting the benefits of a more globally-connected community to only highlight its failures. Do we chastise America for loving its low-quality, quick-serve restaurant chains or pander to them as lovable hallmarks of American culture? Are the fused inspirations of third-culture, multigenerational Americans not “authentic” in their own right? Is not everything “derivative” of something else since the dawn of the Spice Route? What is authenticity in an always-evolving world, and how do we balance the lessons and well-crafted innovations of the past while embracing new ideas and technologies? Who can we trust as a moral and ethical compass? What am I eating for dinner and how many people and animals did I oppress today? All good questions—just not any with neat or useful answers when they’re all being asked at once and everything is on fire.

Given that everyone is shouting into the void and the proliferation of AI is outpacing human nuance, everything feels hollow. I don’t need to sugarcoat the uphill battle of being a smaller voice among a sea of louder, more effective ones. However, I will say that in the food media has devoured itself, wiping out knowledge, context and mentorship in favor of new tastemakers. And this is what we have to show for it.

Publications like Eater turn chefs into saints, then drag them for clicks, paying writers starvation wages while pushing hot takes on labor equity. And somehow the writers still have to sit on panels apologizing for their own privilege and lack of influence over Vox Media's policies. In the cannabis world, the only publications remaining are mostly business trades whose mastheads are almost entirely male and pale. I don’t know if people fully recognize how essential magazines once were as cultural escapes and sources of inspiration for those living in broken places. Now the only thing left is to read about how problematic they are, or why they should care about MSOs and $500 meals accessed through secret apps at elitist restaurants they can’t afford—where they’re still tipping wrong and no one has the right answer.

It’s no wonder I struggle to name food and cannabis writers I still respect. Even the smartest ones have torched their own allies in the name of moral perfection or left their fields entirely. I don’t think most of them realized that nuance and collaboration were the actual tools of progress. Instead, they fed the 24-hour outrage cycle and left the rest of us to wonder what the hell we were doing it all for.

And if you thought breaking into this industry was hard before, now that DEI programs are being dismantled across the board, the gates are closing faster than ever. The same institutions that once waved the flag of inclusion are back to business as usual—just with more polished optics. Meanwhile, the folks who decided not to rock the boat are still enjoying the spoils of the luxury economy without adding very much to the conversation or being entirely honest about this transaction.

There’s a real disconnect in how we talk about smart consumption. On one side, the unabashed product pushers; the other, finger-wagging academics whose attitude is basically, "I went to university and know better, so why am I still broke and unrecognized?" Nobody has time to cook, let alone swing by the farmers market three times a week to pluck picture-perfect produce. Store-bought isn’t just fine—it’s often survival.

Exposure to new foods and cultures should be a gateway to more empathy. But in New York media circles, people forget how much of a privilege that access really is. Instead of education, we get shame. Instead of meeting people where they are, we call them out and leave them there. And if we can’t achieve that basic ethos for something as universal as food, it’s a real stretch to push for ethical cannabis consumption to go mainstream. Still, that’s not why we do any of this—it just makes it 10x harder for those of us who already were.

Yes, rural communities can be full of ignorance and bigotry. But they’re also full of people who have been left behind, ignored, shut out. It’s always been this way, we’re living in a time of extreme polarization. The "us vs. them" is exhausting and I worry that we’re not moving toward anything more salvageable—not in food, equity, or basic human respect and dignity. Information has never been more abundant—and more unequal, misleading, and disappearing by the day. Again, where are the values? When everything demands your attention, nothing gets your care.

As a food and travel writer, my role should really be to inspire people to be curious. To take a step outside the comforts of their home and community to try something new, take a different road outside their regular routine, to use their imaginations to envision themselves somewhere else, and empower them with the knowledge that can help them do this as safely and easily as they can.

Since the pandemic, however, I’ve had a hard time doing this work—which is becoming even more challenging the longer I have been removed from it and content is rapidly commodified through user-generated content and quick-turn amateurs. When I travel, I encounter new problems I can barely keep up with or know how to mitigate. It’s not that I’m cynical, but realistically, we collectively lit a match to bridges that were just starting to feel solid—between people, industries, and ideals. Now, restaurants feel transactional, travel feels masochistic, and consumption often feels more like coping than joy.

As spring rolls in, I feel somewhere between excitement for the anticipation of color, warmth, and sunshine, while saddened by how fleeting it is and concerned about what that means for the summer ahead. Will we ever have four normal seasons again? Will anything ever feel “normal” again—or are we just learning to live with the reality that change is the only thing that’s consistent?

Maybe we’re not supposed to go back and “normal” was just a marketing term anyway. I’d still like to believe in seasons, and stories, and small joys that don’t need to be bought, posted, or sold. If nothing feels normal anymore, maybe it’s time to stop chasing what was and start creating what could be. Something with better roots. But there’s still something to be said for stopping, seeing what’s in front of you, and giving a shit.

MORE FROM PIPE DREAMS BY THE WEED WITCH

Why Do People Still Think They Can "Make It" in Food and Travel Writing?

Why Does Modern Hospitality Suck So Much?

How A Biodynamic Weed Winery Inspired a Transatlantic Journey to Net-Zero