In May 2019, we teamed up with Healthyish, a site from Bon Appétit about feel-good food and living, and Broccoli Magazine, an international magazine for cannabis lovers, to host a New York City breakfast with 2019 James Beard Semifinalist Chef Kyo Pang and Moonlynn Tsai of Kopitiam and a panel of women working at the intersection of cannabis and food.
Last Wednesday, fifty women from across New York City and from a range of industries - from fashion to journalism to design to public policy to culinary arts - joined us at Kopitiam, a daily gathering space introducing visitors to Nyonya cuisine, primarily a hybrid of Chinese and Malay flavors that draws ingredients and techniques from both cultures along with sprinkles of influences from the Portuguese, Dutch, and British.
We hosted breakfast in collaboration with Kyo Pang, a third-generation Baba Nyonya, and business partner/restaurateur Moonlynn Tsai. Their goal is to continually carry forward Pang’s family's recipes and to preserve the fading tradition of cooking dishes the way her ancestors did.
Chef Kyo Pang treated us to some of her favorite dishes, teaching us about their ingredients and preparation: Kaya toast (vegetarian), Milo french toast (vegetarian), Nasi Lemak, Soft boiled egg (vegetarian), Fish ball noodle soup (gluten free), Pulut inti (vegan), Kuih Lapis, Hot Kopi and Iced Kopi, Iced Teh-O and Hot Teh-O, and Iced White Coffee and Hot White Coffee.
We spoke with women in the cannabis industry, learning about the inspiration for their work and discussing the intersection of food and cannabis culture.
Bon Appétit Deputy Editor, Julia Kramer, moderated a heartfelt and thought-provoking conversation with our speakers:
Julia Kramer is the Deputy Editor at Bon Appétit.
Shanelly Pena is a New York native, mother and co-founder to Higher Dining, a brand that represents the luxe dining and smoker centric experience. They create products and experiences for cannabis consumers with the intention to enhance your euphoric experience all the whilst building community. Alongside her sister Danisha Pena, they fashioned the ownership of the Higher Dining experience by reflecting on their rich heritage and family tradition; their eagerness to travel and engage in new cultures. Since it’s launch in 2017, Higher Dining has hosted over 40 private dining experiences and Higher Yogas. Shanelly is devoted to building community through her passion of two of the most communal things in the world— Food and Cannabis.
Mary Pryor is a passionate and vocal media expert currently based in Los Angeles and New York. Raised in Detroit, Michigan, Mary received exposure to automotive design, electrical engineering, music, digital arts and marketing at an early age. Today, Mary is a powerful and accomplished Digital and Marketing Specialist who has worked for major brands across the music, media, technology, and marketing industries including Sony Music Group, Viacom, Attention PR, City Parks Foundation, Mirrorball, Black Enterprise, CBS News, Ebony Magazine, Essence Magazine, Rolling Stone, VaynerMedia, Mindshare, SheKnows Media, McCann XBC, McCann Health, Byron Allen Group, Sean Combs Enterprises, and McGarryBowen. Having realized there was a pressing need for agencies that catered to culturally rich and niche audiences through digital and social marketing integration, Mary founded her own firms, WeFancy (consulting) and UrbanSocialista (digital marketing consulting). In 2014, Mary was recognized as SXSW’s Innovator of the Year. Mary’s goal is to provide online branding and digital trend-forecasting for the general market by empowering communities through the utilization of digital tools. She is the co-founder and CEO of Cannaclusive, a collective focused on inclusion in the cannabis industry, New York Chapter President of Minorities for Medical Marijuana, and she serves as the current New York advocate for The People’s Dispensary.
Olivia Harris is the Head of Brand at LEVO, a patented kitchen appliance designed for creating herbal infused oil, butter, and honey for cooking & skincare. Launched with founder Chrissy Bellman in Fall 2016, LEVO is now available in over 1,000 retail locations throughout the US and Canada. Prior to LEVO, Olivia worked as a Brand Strategist & Creative Director, founding a boutique agency for creative services. Olivia is passionate about empowering consumers to have access to healthier lifestyle choices and wellness routines.
Charlotte Palermino is the co-founder of Nice Paper, a high-design publishing platform that makes weed as nice as you are. In addition to brand consulting cannabis companies in Canada and the US, Nice Paper publishes a weekly newsletter that explores the people and products behind weed in addition to experts in the space that are on the frontier of what’s to come. In addition to Nice Paper, Charlotte is the CEO of Dieu X, a cannabinoid skincare line set to launch in early 2020.
We teamed up with women-founded partners in the cannabis space to explore the variety of products being produced: Sweet Reason, CBD-infused sparkling water made to help you slow down, relax, and pursue a life well-lived; Vertly, handcrafted CBD-infused clean skincare; GO BASIC, CBD edibles; Potli, the premium purveyor for the modern, CBD-enhanced kitchen pantry; Fine Healing Goods, a line of full-spectrum hemp healing goods; LEVO, a patented kitchen appliance designed for creating herbal infused oil, butter, and honey for cooking and skincare; and Come Back Daily, a curated CDB space to educate the public and shape cannabis policy.
The breakfast coincided with Healthyish’s launch of a their Women in Cannabis collaboration with Broccoli:
Healthyish Editor, Amanda Shapiro, who joined us for the Los Angeles breakfast, writes, “This guide, which we put together along with our friends at Broccoli, is meant to ease you into the world of cannabis and food with everything you need to get started: simple advice (finally, a super-straightforward way to infuse butter), hyper-specific recommendations (the CBD salt we're sprinkling on everything), truly delicious recipes (duh!), and some Ethics 101 to help you buy weed you can feel good about...while it makes you feel good too.!”
This breakfast was part of a two-part Women in Cannabis series. On April 29, we teamed up with Healthyish and Broccoli Magazine to host a Los Angeles breakfast with Chef Minh Phan of Porridge + Puffs and a panel of women working at the intersection of cannabis and food. Recap here!
From left to right: Olivia Harris of LEVO, a patented kitchen appliance designed for creating herbal infused oil, butter, and honey for cooking and skincare; Shanelly Pena of Higher Dining, a brand that represents the luxe dining and smoker-centric experience; Hallie Applebaum, Founder of Future of Women; Julia Kramer, Deputy Editor at Bon Appétit; Mary Pryor of Cannaclusive, a collective focused on inclusion in the cannabis industry; and Charlotte Palermino of Nice Paper, a high-design publishing platform that makes weed as nice as you are.
FUTURE OF WOMEN is a unifying platform that creates original multimedia content and programming by, for, and about women around the world to openly look at the pursuit of being a modern woman. In 2018, we began collaborating with award-winning female chefs worldwide, from Los Angeles to Mexico City to Tel Aviv to Tokyo, to host a monthly women's breakfast series featuring game-changing women such as Olympic athletes, Emmy-winning producers, top Billboard musicians, and New York Times journalists on topics including architecture, sports, art, music, journalism, and human rights.
A Special Thank You To Our Co-Hosts
and partners
and Chef Kyo Pang for a delicious breakfast, our moderator and panelists, and our photographer Elena Mudd for these beautiful photographs.
Join the conversation at @futureofwomen
