“Hawaii” Mike Salman is a legend of sorts – a private curator of cannabis-infused meals across the globe. As the co-founder of Chef for Higher, a dynamic community of individuals united in oneness celebrating culinary creativity in cannabis, Mike has grown his business to new heights he never thought could be possible. In this month’s Azuca newsletter, we explore Mike’s story of creating cannabis-infused food in social clubs around the world. Additionally, we showcase the wonderful time we had at MJBizCon in Las Vegas and share some important legalization updates in regard to the latest election.
Chef for Higher was born in 2015 through two of your biggest loves, cannabis and food. What were the biggest challenges when you started in the industry, and how have you been able to overcome them?
I’d say the biggest challenge was just explaining what the hell we were doing with these supper clubs and infused dinners. Starting out, we would hear a lot of comments wondering what was going to happen at an event and what you can expect, so we put a lot of emphasis on developing our pillars of entertainment, education, and empowerment, because it’s hard to educate people when you don’t have their intention. The entertainment part was easy: our food, our experience. Then the education component came from bringing people together with intentions – whether that was talking about dosing, strains, the process – we could inform them once we had their attention. After that, people would leave feeling empowered because now they have some experience and understanding in eating infused food.
The other big challenges were finding venues. Most restaurants weren’t open to it, so I started off in friend’s communal areas in buildings doing dinners very low-key. Then, when rentable places like Peerspace and Splacer started popping up, it was a little easier to find venues.
Through carefully crafted menus, you are known for your curated cannabis dishes at cannabis-infused supper clubs. Who have been the biggest influences in your career and how would you describe your culinary style to someone first learning about Chef For Higher?
