Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A blazingly funny, heartfelt memoir from the daughter of the larger-than-life woman who ran Sticky Fingers Brownies, an underground bakery that distributed thousands of marijuana brownies per month and helped provide medical marijuana to AIDS patients in San Francisco--for fans of Armistead Maupin and Patricia Lockwood During the '70s in San Francisco, Alia's mother ran the underground Sticky Fingers Brownies, delivering upwards of 10,000 illegal marijuana edibles per month throughout the circus-like atmosphere of a city in the throes of major change. She exchanged psychic readings with Alia's future father, and thereafter had a partner in business and life.
Decades before cannabusiness went mainstream, when marijuana was as illicit as heroin, they ingeniously hid themselves in plain sight, parading through town--and through the scenes and upheavals of the day, from Gay Liberation to the tragedy of the Peoples Temple--in bright and elaborate outfits, the goods wrapped in hand-designed packaging and tucked into Alia's stroller. But the stars were not aligned forever and, after leaving the city and a shoulda-seen-it-coming divorce, Alia and her mom returned to San Francisco in the mid-80s, this time using Sticky Fingers' distribution channels to provide medical marijuana to friends and former customers now suffering the depredations of AIDS.
Exhilarating, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartbreaking, Home Baked celebrates an eccentric and remarkable extended family, taking us through love, loss, and finding home.
Synopsis
Winner of the California Bookseller Association's Golden Poppy Award for Nonfiction
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography "A portrait of a heroics, innovation, grit, and pot-baking . . . strikingly relevant . . . beautifully written."
--Entertainment Weekly
"A raunchy and rollicking account of a vanished era told by someone who paid very close attention to her larger-than-life parents. I gobbled it up like an edible."
--Armistead Maupin
In the 1970s, when cannabis was as illicit as heroin, Alia Volz's mother ran Sticky Fingers Brownies, a pioneering underground bakery that delivered ten thousand marijuana edibles per month to a city in the throes of change--from the joyous upheavals of gay liberation to the tragedy of the Peoples Temple. Dressed in elaborate costumes, Alia's parents hid in plain sight, parading through the city's circus-like atmosphere with the goods tucked into her stroller. When HIV/AIDS swept San Francisco in the 1980s, Alia's mom turned from dealer into healer, providing soothing edibles to those fighting for their lives at the dawn of medical marijuana.
By turns heartbreaking, exhilarating, and laugh-out-loud funny, Home Baked celebrates an eccentric and remarkable extended family, taking us through love, loss, and finding home.
Now with extra material, including a reading group guide, author Q&A, and additional photos
Synopsis
Winner of the California Bookseller Association's Golden Poppy Award for Nonfiction
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography
A San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller "A portrait of a heroics, innovation, grit, and pot-baking . . . strikingly relevant . . . beautifully written."
--Entertainment Weekly
"A raunchy and rollicking account of a vanished era told by someone who paid very close attention to her larger-than-life parents. I gobbled it up like an edible."
--Armistead Maupin
In the 1970s, when cannabis was as illicit as heroin, Alia Volz's mother ran Sticky Fingers Brownies, a pioneering underground bakery that delivered ten thousand marijuana edibles per month to a city in the throes of change--from the joyous upheavals of gay liberation to the tragedy of the Peoples Temple. Dressed in elaborate costumes, Alia's parents hid in plain sight, parading through the city's circus-like atmosphere with the goods tucked into her stroller. When HIV/AIDS swept San Francisco in the 1980s, Alia's mom turned from dealer into healer, providing soothing edibles to those fighting for their lives at the dawn of medical marijuana.
By turns heartbreaking, exhilarating, and laugh-out-loud funny, Home Baked celebrates an eccentric and remarkable extended family, taking us through love, loss, and finding home.
Now with extra material, including a reading group guide, author Q&A, and additional photos