Papers - Issue 1

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Russell Peters DISHES ON LEGALIZATION, PARTYING WITH EDDIE MURPHY AND AFTER HOURS ON HALF BAKED WITH DAVE CHAPPELLE P. 1 0

Alison Becker 25 THINGS I LEARNED SMOKING WEED AND RIDING MY BIKE ACROSS CANADA—TWICE P. 1 7

Brendan Fallis TALKS ONTARIO ROOTS, DJING JERRY SEINFELD’S BARN AND WORLD TRAVELS P. 2 1

+ AN HOMAGE TO HIGH TIMES

The 411 on All Things Cannabis EDIBLES, PRE-ROLLS, SAFE VAPES AND CHILL YOGA

KARINA VEE ON GOOD HABITS AND HEALTH 20/20 VISION: 20 ARTISTS TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2020

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PUBLISHER'S NOTES

FIRST HIT

FIRST HIT: ISSUE Nº1 — FEBRUARY 2020

PAPERSMAGAZINE.CA

W E L C O M E T O PA P E R S M A G A Z I N E — P R I N T E D O N 1 0 0 % P O S T- C O N S U M E R W A S T E PA P E R !

PUBLISHER Joshua Nagel

If you are picking up this magazine, it’s because you’ve been in a dispensary.

Everyone that reads this is connected in that respect, and we wanted to create a lifestyle magazine for the entire cannabis community. Something all-inclusive— for straight CBD users to first-time THC consumers, all the way to the connoisseur.

Content that is cannabis-forward, but not all-encompassing. To start, we created five basic pillars to build this magazine from the ground up: Food/Drink, Music/ Culture/Arts, Health/Wellness, Travel/Adventure and Cannabis.

EDITOR Ben Kaplan

papers will try to bring something to the table for everyone in each edition.

If you enjoy reading, here is a long format interview and short essay. If you want to just breeze through and pick up a couple health tips, food tips or TV/movie reviews, or just enjoy some epic photography—we got you! If you want to learn a little more about cannabis or about new products featured in stores—perfect.

CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHY Tyler Anderson PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Roma Ahi Vanessa Dumais DESIGN DIRECTOR Chadwick Lesch Kyle Nielsen

But let’s build and grow this magazine’s direction and purpose together as a community. We want to hear from you and we want your feedback! You can communicate with us on our website, papersmagazine.ca, or @papersmag on Instagram. Send editorial ideas, epic photos, questions, retail reviews, interview suggestions etc.

DESIGN Brenna Preston Dominic Guertin Shafaq Fatima Raya Pomelkova

For our first article in our first edition, our editor-in-chief Ben Kaplan interviews the former head of production of High Times (also his uncle). We thought nothing would be more fitting then paying homage to the group that started it all in North America—and boy did they pay it right back with an awesome interview.

CONTRIBUTORS Madison Makepeace Joshua Ostroff Alison Becker

Incredibly special thank you to Russell Peters for inviting us into his house, giving an epic interview, his kindness, hilarity and just complete generosity of spirit.

Lastly and most importantly, thank you to all the amazing entrepreneurs and businesses that operate recreational dispensaries. I’ve met almost all of you in Ontario and what an incredibly fearless, talented, crazy hard-working and completely passionate group of Canadians you all are. Without you, none of this would be possible for consumers and for us at papers. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for believing in our vision and for your support.

FOOD & DRINK Alex Baird Anna Lee Boschetto Adam McDowell HEALTH & WELLNESS Karina Vee CANNABIS Nicolas Araya Eldon Mascoll

To everyone that helped make this first edition possible— you know who you are—you have all of our love, respect and appreciation.

Enjoy, JOSHUA NAGEL, CEO/PUBLISHER PAPERS MAGAZINE

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For advertising inquiries, please contact advertising@papersmagazine.ca For editorial inquiries, please contact editorial@papersmagazine.ca

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K A P L A N

High Times started in 1974 and papers editor-in-chief Ben Kaplan’s uncle was the original head of production. Why one family continues to work in weed, enjoying the job of a lifetime while documenting the end of a plant’s prohibition.

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What was the culture like when you sensed weed needed a magazine, and why?

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Was he stoned at the time?

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When did the head shops start carrying the magazine?

Ben, we all were. This was the early 1970s.

Tom Forcade was the president of the Underground Press Syndicate and I was a member. If I remember it correctly, he was also a big pot distributor, and we were all part of the same scene. He had a smoke-easy and it made sense to promote.

A smoke-easy? Like a place to come and get stoned?

It was an apartment in New York. Make no mistake, he wasn’t just buying ounces, he was buying very large quantities, and not just anyone could come in and consume.

There were no cell phones. You had to walk around the block and there were signals and passcodes and a whole routine, but if you got in there, there was a menu of different types of marijuana to choose from. We’d never seen anything like that.

So tell me about the dawn of the new day.

On the cover of our first issue was a woman eating a mushroom. It wasn’t a marijuana magazine, it was a magazine of “high society”—I think that’s what our tagline said. It was a magazine dedicated to getting high—really high. Like sexual highs, various highs, tantric sex, the whole thing.

Hard to imagine that on the newsstands in Walgreens.

We had to invent our distribution system, the big guys wouldn’t take us. The newsstands wouldn’t take us.

Then what happened?

How’d it work?

We thought that, since it was making money, having a marijuana magazine—a magazine about getting high—would be a great business decision. We saw an opportunity.

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A couple of bodegas agreed to take it and places like the candy shop on the corner. I don’t think there were a dozen stores at first who had the magazine. We printed 10,000 copies of that first issue and most of them were sitting boxed in a basement in an office in the Village.

Right around then, we hooked up with the world of head shops and shops that sold paraphernalia, and that became our main distribution point. Those, and places like record stores and clothing boutiques.

Everything wasn’t yet department stores, so you could pick up High Times at places that sold jeans.

And would you write about groovy strains of marijuana, is that how you spoke back then?

We may have, and those groovy strains of marijuana really did help launch our magazine, because Tom let it be known to his distributors around the country that if you bought 100 pounds of pot, you got 500 magazines, and you could give them away and distribute them to your customers. Of course, it wasn’t quite that organized. But pot distributors around the country would get cartons of High Times.

Buy 100 pounds, get 500 free magazines.

People all over the country started finding the magazine and the reaction was always

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the same: “Holy shit!” When we got the magazine into stores, they’d put out a stack of 20 copies (a buck apiece) and a person would buy all 20 to give to their friends.

Stores had to start carrying 100 or more. We had to reprint the first issue multiple times and there were large reprints for issues two and three.

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Why was it important to make something like High Times?

What would make the perfect High Times centrefold?

Before High Times, the only time anybody spoke about marijuana was when there was a bust. The only stories of any kind were about criminality, except once in a while Life magazine would run something like: “Look at these hippies, they smoke marijuana!”

Pot, or whatever happened to be that month’s drug of choice—mushrooms, cocaine. Of course, our drugs had to be beautifully shot.

What was the cannabis culture like around that time?

Our office didn’t have much more pot than Chase Manhattan Bank at the time. I mean, every office had pot. Maybe not as much as we had, but pot was everywhere in the early 1970s. You folks haven’t invented this stuff up in Canada recently, you just did the smart thing and finally made it legal.

I would have loved to have been able to intern for you back then.

I always pitied the people who had to come into our office to do business with us. Our offices reeked of pot and you had to go through clouds, especially to get to my office, because I worked in the back. You’d walk through the marijuana clouds to come find me, then walk into a marijuana cloud in my office when you did.

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You guys provided vantage points into weed.

Media coverage was all negative, but we came from the culture. There was another side of the story and—look, man, it could be dangerous, but it could also be beautiful.

We felt like it was important and thankfully, there were other people like us.

I recently read an interview with Bob Marley from an early High Times.

Who else did you interview and who were your star writers back in the day?

Hunter S. Thompson, Tim Leary. Tim Leary wrote for us and we did a thing on Mick Jagger, but Jerry Garcia wouldn’t sit for an interview. He was pissed because we wrote about the LSD producer who traveled with his band.

1974 was a heady time for publishing magazines. Is it true you launched at the same time as Hustler?

I can only imagine what your parties must have been like.

Hustler and People magazine both launched at the same time as us! But yes, that’s true, and there is some connection with the skin trade. High Times was very purposely modelled after Playboy, with the centrefold every month.

Great big tanks of nitrous oxide. We were just spending money stupidly and you’d have all these dope dealers and distributors. This is New York in the 1970s. I recall one guy walking around in a straitjacket, a woman in a chain-link dress.

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High Times, of course, would always be political, even if implicitly, because it was radical to celebrate pot. Can you talk about the ethos you embodied at the time?

Our politics were extremely liberal, but it seemed obvious: equal rights, legal drugs, no wars, no police brutality, no crooked cops, equality for women and a really, really good time. Obvious shit, right? But it wasn’t. Not until High Times.

Canada, as you know, legalized cannabis October 17, 2018. What does it mean to you to see pot legally available in stores?

My reaction is, “Why did it take so long?” We thought it would be legal in the US by 1980.

But after all the sit-ins and protests and funding NORML and doing all the things and

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finally being accepted—it feels good to have come this far. We always knew we were right.

How did you guys get your weed?

At some point, everybody would approach us! They wanted their pot in the magazine.

Finding pot was never really our problem.

We had a pretty heavy-duty network back then. We once did a photoshoot with 50 pounds of pot. A lot of the large-volume photo shoots were in our office.

What about the cops?

Less concerned than you might think. One time they came to bust Tom, but he wasn’t talking. He held out his wrists for the cops to arrest him, but they didn’t. It was our distributors who really faced the heat. In the

age of Edward Meese, New York’s attorney general, things got bad. He was the one who pulled Playboy and Penthouse out of the convenience stores, and they threw High Times in the mix.

Well, you and your colleagues did your thing and made history. What advice would you give me and my team?

Make it up as you go along. We didn’t have a plan, but it evolved because we created the rules and were in the right place at the right time with the right collection of people. Our art was beautiful. It was well written and a really good product.

Thanks for your time, man.

Have fun with it.

Things change when you’re high.

So you shouldn’t be driving.

Find a different way home instead.

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RUSSELL PETERS BURNING S E N S AT I O N B Y B E N K A P L A N P H O T O G R A P H S B Y C H R I S T O P H E R

Russell Peters doesn’t smoke weed in his mansion in Etobicoke, but he doesn’t have any problems with his friends getting high. After a show in Los Angeles at the Comedy Store, all of the comics were gifted big bags of cannabis and Peters gave his to his friends.

“It already seemed like weed was legal in Canada so when they changed the laws, I was like, ‘Really? That’s against the law, why?’” says Peters, capping off his 30 years in comedy with a special that aired last month on Amazon called Deported. “The thing I don’t get about the stoner culture is why does everything need

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a weed leaf on it? Even if you really, really love liquor, you don’t walk around with a Ciroc bottle on your shirt. Nobody wears the colour of their beverage. Why do you always wear apple green? I’m really into Appletinis. This guy is always wearing yellow. He loves Lemon Drops. But you people, you really do love your fucking weed.” Peters' close friends include Dave Chappelle and Tiffany Haddish and he made the stoner comedy classic, Ripped. papers editor-in-chief Ben Kaplan sat down with Peters and, while neither men got high, they certainly swapped plenty of stories.

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COVER STORY

RUSSELL PETERS

“ Being onstage is like therapy: you say anything that you want to say, especially in the clubs. So I’ll say some things that will never get in my act but once I say it, I feel better. I get it off my chest.”

BK: You’re wearing a Tyson Ranch sweatshirt and I loved your appearance on Tyson’s podcast, Hotboxin' with Mike Tyson, When did you first meet Tyson?

RP: I’m an investor in his company.

BK: So you don’t think cannabis stocks have hit a bubble?

BK: But you’re not much of a smoker.

RP: I’ve tried it. At The Comedy Store in Hollywood, they give you free weed all the time.

They have it set up and ask you if they can make you a bag, so, yeah, sure, and they make me a bag of weed and people come to my house and if they want to smoke something, go enjoy yourself. Here’s a nice little sack of weed, I took these CBD drops with THC in it to help me sleep but I took too much and got high in my sleep.

RP: I don’t know about that. Mike gave me the shares, so it was an easy investment.

BK: How do you get high while you’re sleeping?

BK: You didn’t realize pot had been illegal until last October?

RP: Seems to me it was just a formality. Like, even in the 80s and 90s, the police would find you with weed and just throw it away.

So yeah, I was shocked when it was actually legalized to find out it wasn’t legal all this time. The way people had been smoking, I could’ve sworn it was legal all this time.

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RP: It was like my body was high. I could feel everything, but it was more than I was expecting. I was like, let’s just lay here until this goes away.

BK: I’ve actually seen you smoke a blunt before. On the rapper N.O.R.E.’s show, Drink Champs, with the rapper Freddie Foxx.

RP: Drink Champs, basically you sit down with N.O.R.E. and get drunk with him and Bumpy Knuckles, he’s one of my good friends, the rapper Freddie Fox. But Bumpy’s not a big drinker and so he asked me if I’d go on with him and I said, of course. Don’t worry about drinking and I’ll pick up the slack. I’ll drink whatever shots they bring and take them all— and I get fucking hammered. Then, N.O.R.E. is sitting there and lights a big blunt and he doesn’t know I don’t smoke, so he said, “want this?” And I said no, but then I said, “actually, give me that thing, and I hit it hard.” Everyone in the room thought I smoked because of the way I hit that thing, and I hand it back to him, and lights up another one! I’m drunk and I go, give me that thing, and this one was stronger and I hit it just as hard and you saw it, While he talks to Bumpy I start falling asleep and just nod off. I wake up and as soon as we’re done I go outside and the fresh air hits me and I puke my lungs out. I felt 100% again right after that, but goddamn, that’s not the way someone who doesn’t smoke should be on television experimenting with weed.

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COVER STORY

BK: You were one of the first standups to take comedy into stadiums.

When you did it in 2018, it was novel.

Now, it feels like there’s a slew of people demanding crowds that sized.

RP: There’s a renaissance happening. Back in the day, to fill an arena you were one in a very small few. Now it feels like every comic is doing an arena run. I’m not saying I’m the guy who opened it up, but I maintained it. I kept the dream alive and now you have Joe Rogan, Sebastian Maniscalco, Gabriel Iglesias, Chris D’Elia seems like he’s on that path.

BK: Seems like the hardest thing to do, to entertain a room that big full of people with words.

RP: Making everybody in on the jokes is hard in a room with 16,000 people, but after doing this for 30 years, I have little ways to ensure that everybody is in on the joke.

say it, I feel better. I get it off my chest. Like, I’m not going to keep complaining about a thing after I say it out loud to a group of people—it’s good for me, I say something and it’s gone now.

BK: Being a dad in the age of cannabis legalization, what will you say when your little girl tells you she wants to smoke weed?

pictures of her with my mom. We’ve been friends for a long time and the next night, I’m sitting at dinner and I send the pictures to Tiff, and she says, “I’m on my way to Eddie’s house.” I go, “Murphy?” I’d only met him once for a minute. She goes, “Want to come?” I was at dinner with my girlfriend, who was pregnant at the time, and my mother, and I go: “Can I go to Eddie Murphy’s house?” She goes, “Yeah,” thank God.

RP: Go for it.

BK: This could be your big Eddie Murphy transition, from saying dirty jokes to making films like Daddy Day Care.

RP: Eddie got to do a bunch of great movies before he did all that stuff. Actually, I have a great Eddie Murphy story if you want.

BK: Who, your mom or your pregnant girlfriend?

RP: Both. So she comes and scoops me and we get to Eddie Murphy’s house and walk down the stairs and the first person we see is Jamie Foxx. He gives me a hug and then I hear, “Yo, is this what you comedians do, you all get together like this and hang out?” It was Q-Tip.

I look at the bar and it’s Sasha Baron Cohen, then I see Bill Hader, then Patton Oswalt, then Neil Brennan. Then Eddie Murphy is RP: I had done a thing at The Laugh Factory like, “Thanks for coming, Russell.” Wow, I said, and Tiffany Haddish was there, and I got some “Thanks for letting me?”

BK: Yes, please.

BK: What have you learned after 30 years?

RP: There’s no stopping. It’s all I know how to do. When I get time off, I get freaked out.

What’s happening? What’s going? They’re going to forget about me. Also: it’s a legit reason to be out of the house. I have to leave.

Where are you going? I’m going to work. And you can’t get mad at a guy for going to work.

BK: Were you recently married?

RP: No. I recently had a kid. So that’s two kids now with two different baby mommas. I try and do what I can.

BK: Does being a father again change your approach to the material?

RP: Since I write the way I feel, of course it changes the direction I take. Being onstage is like therapy: you say anything that you want to say, especially in the clubs. So I’ll say some things that will never get in my act, but once I

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R I E N D S I N H I G H P L A C E S : PA P E R S P U B L I S H E R O S H U A N A G E L , I N R E D, W I T H E D I T O R B E N K A P L A N N D R U S S E L L P E T E R S, W H O W O R E H I S B AT H R O B E O O U R P H O T O S H O O T I N H I S E T O B I C O K E H O M E .

RP: I guess so. Then I hear, “Oh shit, Russell Peters, man.” It was Chappelle walking down the stars and I’m like, what the fuck have I walked into? And Jimmy Kimmel is there, then Ali Wong, then Tig Notaro, then Jeff Ross, and I’m standing there and see this black guy coming down the stairs with blonde hair and I’m like, who is this? Sisqó? He’s like, “Russell Peters,” it was Chris Rock. Wow, what the fuck am I in right now?

BK: Is everyone drinking, smoking weed?

RP: It’s funny because I went to grab a drink then I put it down. Like, I don’t want to not remember this night. And Leonardo DiCaprio was there and his girlfriend was young and she wanted to leave. He goes, “This is the best fucking party I’ve ever been to in my life and she doesn’t know who anybody is!” I go: “That sucks, dude.”

my ride home.” I don’t want to overstay my welcome at Eddie’s, but I don’t have my car here and it’s 3:45 in the morning and all I’m thinking is: “Am i going to sleep over at Eddie Murphy’s house?” I mean, what’s the protocol?

Do I say: “Hey Eddie, can I get your address so I can call an Uber?’’ I don’t know the protocol for leaving this party. I was already not invited.

And now I’m the last one there.

RP: I would have but then Arsenio said, “Alright guys, I’m going to leave.” I’m like, “Hey, Ars, which way you going? Can I get ride to Ventura?” And Arsenio Hall just drives me home, so Tiffany Haddish took me to Eddie Murphy’s house and Arsenio Hall drove me home. And this was one of the best nights of my life except when Kimmell had Eddie Murphy on, he was talking about the party and named all the names and I didn’t hear my name mentioned, so it was one of the best nights of my life, but still... couldn’t someone talk about me?

BK: So, how did you come to know Mike Tyson.

BK: Tiffany left you?

RP: It’s kind of an L.A. thing to do, to just be like: I thought you’d be OK. I mean, either way, she took me to Eddie Murphy’s house, you can leave and I won’t be mad, but one of Eddie’s kids takes me to Eddie’s private living room, and it’s Dave Chappelle, Tiffany and Arsenio Hall, and Eddie pulls up the remote from his TV and starts playing YouTube videos and Tiffany is at the end of the couch nodding off.

This is very elite company but I’m like, “She’s

BK: Is your big vice booze?

RP: I don’t drink too much anymore, but if I do anything it would be drinking. It depends on the mood. I like Cosmos because it’s all alcohol—vodka, Cointreau, something else.

Just a glass of liquor that tastes really good.

BK: Did you do it?

BK: So who’d you hang out with?

RP: I’m standing in awe of everything happening around me and I’m in a footway with Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Neil Brennan and Jamie Foxx, standing around talking about comedy and I’m not saying anything.

They’ve included me, but I’m in complete awe until I realize it’s getting later, everybody is starting to leave and I realize I’m the only person left in Eddie Murphy’s basement with like eight of his kids.

a month and even though he grows his own, that’s too much pot.

RP: Remember Eric B. and Rakim? Eric B. and I are good friends and Eric needed a car in Los Angeles and I said take my Bentley. He was coming over to drop it back off at my house and said he had the Cave Man with him. He pulls up and I see Mike Tyson, he calls Mike the Cave Man because he used to be in his house with the lights out. So Mike comes over, this was in 2012 and we were hanging out, and I told him I grew up with Lennox Lewis.

My mom was there because she was in town and she says, “You know Mike, Lennox used to come over for lunch all the time.” He said, “I didn’t know you knew him like that.” And we just basically stayed in touch.

BK: Does Tyson really smoke that much?

RP: He smokes all the time. He goes, “It’s not drugs, Russ. It’s just weed.” He’ll always offer it to me but I’m like, “I’m good.” He said in an interview he smokes $40K worth of weed in

BK: Can you take us up to date with the Indian Detective?

RP: I’m going to film the movie in the later part of this year and we just received a revised two-page treatment. 2020 is busy for us, touring through September, and filming.

It’s a real busy time.

BK: To our readers, you may be most famous for Ripped—which has become a stoner classic.

RP: Oh yeah. People come up to me, Oh man, I loved Ripped. I don’t even have to say, Are you a stoner? They like that movie, I already know.

BK: Tell the uninitiated about it.

RP: The story is set in 1986 and Faizon Love and I are on our way to a big rap show. We’re 16 years old and we smoke a big joint and fall asleep in the back of the van, wake up and it’s 30 years later. It’s a good movie. I like it, but the movie didn’t have an ending.

BK: I read that when Method Man and Redman made their weed movies, they smoked all the time onset.

RP: I smoked fake joints all day on set and looked paranoid, because I didn’t know if I looked stoned or not. But everyone was like, “Yo Russ, you look perfect—you look paranoid.” I was paranoid that people wouldn’t think I looked high but it turned out that was the exact right look.

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BK: He knew who you were.

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RUSSELL PETERS

COVER STORY

RUSSELL PETERS

“ The thing I don’t get about the stoner culture is why does everything need a weed leaf on it? If you’re an alcoholic, you don’t walk around with a Ciroc bottle on your shirt.”

BK: I love that film.

skinny.” I’m like, “He’s Dave Chappelle—he’s a brilliant comic, he’s shooting a movie.”

RP: Well, if you watch it and you’re not a stoner, you think this is the dumbest movie I’ve ever BK: He wasn’t her type. fucking seen. But stoners come up to me all the time, “Yoooooo, this is my favourite movie.”

RP: Back then he wasn’t. I’m sure he’s probably a little more appealing now. One night, it was me, my girl, Dave and my girl’s BK: It’s not that bad... sister and Dave had a little white Pomeranian with him named Thelonious and we’re RP: It’s become a cult classic, like Half Baked. hanging out, laughing and making jokes, the But at least Dave’s film came out in the dog is barking and we hear this aggressive theatres, we didn’t do that good. knocking on the door and Dave goes to open it and I lean in to see and this lady’s like, “Will you keep it down in there!” Dave says, BK: I have to backtrack to you being “Sorry, miss.” And Dave closed the door and on set with Dave Chappelle when he it was Esther Rolle, the mother from Good filmed the stoner classic, Half Baked.

Times, Florida Evans. We were dying, “Oh shit, Miss Evans just yelled at us!”

RP: Dave and I have been friends for a real long time and when he’s shooting in Toronto, we hang out. Back then, I remember we were BK: Chappelle must have been smoking. in his hotel room at the Sutton Place and I was dating this girl who had a hot sister and I was RP: He smokes, oh yeah. But I remember trying to hook her sister up with Dave. She most about hanging out with him was that wasn’t really into him. I’m sure now she would he was in a different financial bracket than be, but back then she was like, “He’s really I was. He said, “I think I’m going to treat

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myself to a car after this,” meaning after wrapping Half Baked. I was like “Damn, I wish I could make a statement like that someday.”

BK: You’ve had all these stoner wishfulfillment moments wasted on you because you prefer Cosmopolitans to joints. I wish I could smoke with Dave.

RP: Dave goes through phases: he smokes, he doesn’t smoke, he drinks, he doesn’t drink, sober, not sober.

BK: Which Dave do you prefer?

RP: Not sober. He’s great sober too, but not sober Dave is fun Dave.

BK: People are going to pick this up in a licensed dispensary. What do you want to tell them as they pick up this magazine with their weed?

RP: Enjoy.

ADVENTURES

25 THINGS I LEARNED

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25 THINGS I LEARNED SMOKING WEED & RIDING MY BIKE ACROSS C A N A D A —T W I C E .

B E C K E R

When I left on my first cross-Canada bike trip, I was overweight, out of shape and in way over my head.

Luckily, I was also stubborn, adventurous and oblivious, but also well-equipped with an incredibly positive and extremely patient partner-in-crime, my boyfriend Mat. I was also packing another secret weapon—my good friend, cannabis. Our waterproof pannier bags were chock full of weed in every form imaginable: oils, tinctures, capsules, edibles, dried flowers and concentrates galore. It was like a PG scene out of Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.

We were ready for a four-month, 9,500-kilometre bike adventure—a journey that would undoubtedly change the trajectory of my life, forever and for the better.

But first, I had a few things to learn.

turn that frown upside-down.

I’ve come to learn that not only does smiling (even if it’s forced) induce more positive neurochemistry for yourself, it’s a great gift to give to pouty passersby (because smiles are contagious).

Just do it. If you wait until you’re “ready,” you’ll never go, because you’ll never feel “ready.” I didn’t even know if I could actually ride my bike across Canada, but I decided to jump in wholeheartedly— bootstrap my fitness and learn on the fly—and it worked! If I would have waited until I was just the right amount of “ready,” I’d still be waiting to go.

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Life on a bike gets messy—it’s best to bring some Wet Wipes.

Be flexible. Over-planning and rigid schedules are the nemesis of spontaneous encounters with magical people and places that weren't “part of the plan.” I believe these impromptu moments are what make life worth living and you might miss out on them if you’re too uptight.

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Cannabis + Coffee = The Hippie 5 Smiling is contagious, but it also keeps Speedball. Nothing gets me going in 1 you safe. Riding bikes almost always the morning like the blissful blend of mother generates a perma-grin, but sometimes after nature and brew. A little something extra in a long day or a challenging climb, it's hard to your java will help the good times roll!

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ADVENTURES

Resistance builds resilience. If you decide to ride your bike across Canada, you will face swarms of mosquitoes, massive mountain climbs, wild weather and nutso drivers. But every adversity you overcome makes you that much stronger, smarter, fitter, faster and well-equipped to face the plethora of challenges that life will throw your way.

As the semis took to the right lane, their giant tires sprayed us with heavy showers of groundwater as we white-knuckled our way up the climb, yelling profanities while knowing they (most likely) didn’t mean to soak us. The rain had become a flash flood, creating massive puddles and hydroplaning vehicles. I reached for my phone to check Google Maps for an alternate route, but giant raindrops kept There is no substitute for experience. hitting my screen and closing the app. At the 7 No matter how thoroughly you scoured exact moment of shoulder-sinking defeat, an the opinion-riddled forums of the internet, angel appeared in the body of Paul Bunyon, chances are you won’t have everything you wearing a plaid Carhartt jacket and oversized “need” when you leave. Rest assured that if jeans, driving a Ford F-150 as his chariot. you have something to ride, something to eat Without saying a word, he grabbed Mat’s bike and something to smoke, you’re going to be as if it were a child’s toy and placed it gently in just fine. Everything else you can pick up the back of his truck. “Get in,” he said kindly, along the way. but firmly. And we did.

We’re often too proud to ask for help and too It’s okay to accept help. There’s a very stubborn to accept it, even when our lives are in 8 busy section of highway that passes danger. I’m pretty sure that Carl saved our lives along the majestic and undulating northern that day and I am eternally grateful that he shores of Lake Superior in Northern Ontario. never gave us the chance to say no.

Of all the Trans Canada Highway sections, this corridor has the worst shoulders for It’s good to have a first-aid kit, but it’s 9 cycling, varying from extremely narrow to even better to know how to use it. non-existent.

On our last of seven days pedalling along No matter how hardcore you are, there 10 Lake Superior, we rolled out of Pancake Bay on will be days when your legs ache, your a foggy morning mission to make it to Sault Ste Marie. The road was eerily quiet. We hadn’t seen a car in miles, but we chalked it up to good luck and an early morning departure. As we crested a small hill, an endless lineup of westbound cars parked bumper to bumper appeared in front of us. A fatal car crash further up the road had stopped them in the wee hours of the night, piling up traffic on both ends of the accident. As we cycled the day away, we kept mentioning how #blessed we were to get this otherwise harrowing stretch to ourselves, especially since the weather had turned and it had begun to rain.

As we neared The Soo, the famous Mile Hill climb appeared in our periphery, a final burst up a narrow piece of shoulder that threads the needle between a long overdue passing lane and a restrictive steel guardrail. As we began the climb, the skies parted and giant raindrops poured down upon us as the first surge of tired, impatient, delayed drivers appeared in the corner of my handlebar mirror. It was too late to stop and there was nowhere to go but up.

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butt hurts and your arms are sore. You’ll miss the comforts of a soft bed, a hot shower and clean clothes. These days are good days to remind yourself that while complaining is not a solution, maybe a little something else might be.

Let your faith be bigger than your fear.

I have come to learn that that which you worry about will come to be, because...

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Worrying is betting against yourself. It became undeniable to me that when I worried about something, I brought it into existence. On a pass through the prairies in the scorching summer heat, miles from anywhere on a backroad path, I started to get concerned about how much water we had. Instead of imagining us finding a spring of drinking water, or a lake to filter from, I began to envision worst case scenarios: dried up ponds, green algae lakes, desolate rural drought and me, thirsty as can be. Which is precisely what I got.

With much coaxing from Mat, I finally convinced myself to release the worry and we pulled over on a random roadside to collect ourselves (read: have a puff). The very moment I began to drum up some faith, the universe showed up with gifts aplenty: distilled drinking 12

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water and ice cold lemonade from a nearby rancher who happened to be riding up the road. Had we not stopped, he would never have crossed our path. If I had a dollar for every

“ It’s okay for life to be out of balance sometimes.” time a similar situation has happened, I’d have a lot of dollars.

You get good at what you do, so choose wisely. If you ride your bike for 120 days, you’ll get really good at riding your bike, but don’t be surprised that your upper body shrunk, your arm muscles deflated and now your push-ups suck.

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On a hot summer’s day, your cannabisinfused gummies and weed-laden chocolate bars will almost certainly melt into have, it’s about how you feel and what you a giant pile of unrecognizable and extremely do with it. potent goo. In scorching conditions, cannabis travels best in flower, capsule, oil and Bike shorts are awesome and so is 17 extract form. washing them regularly.

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Don’t take other people’s word for it. I was originally inspired to cycle across the country after Mat shared a journal he kind-of kept on his first solo cross-Canada bike trip. His stories were so electric, the synchronicities of his experiences were like movie moments; the connection he felt with himself, nature and others was so profound that it sparked something deep within me.

Alas, these stories were secondhand stoke and I knew if I wanted to experience life-changing moments and make fond new memories, I would have to go out and create these moments for myself—so I did.

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The first time I biked across Canada, I was insecure about being a rookie, so I scoured the forums, bought a fancy bike and all the best gear and had a great time.

The second time I biked across Canada, I learned to trust my gut, spent $300 on a used bike, bought secondhand gear and had an awesome time. It isn’t about what you 16

Saddle sores are just a cute way of saying butt boils and having the wrong size saddle will make them so enraged that your booty will look like a battleground. I recommend having tea tree oil on hand at all times, wrapped in a plastic baggie, because it will almost certainly spill.

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It’s okay for life to be out of balance sometimes.

There’s no such thing as bad weather, just a bad attitude towards it. If you can embrace the weather, you will find that you'll have way more fun.

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and energy to try and convince others to share your point of view. Better instead to open your mind, heart and ears and allow others to share their perspectives with you—you might just learn something you never knew. Save your energy for the hills.

Technology can (and most likely, will) fail you. Knowing this ahead of time will make it easier to accept when it happens. You will probably drop your phone, break the screen and no longer be able to take photos or access Google Maps. Paper maps make for good backup, but asking people for directions is way more fun. Chances are good that you’ll find out about a locals-only shortcut or a great little swimming spot, or maybe even make a new friend.

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It’s okay to meet someone, have an amazing interaction, stimulating conversation and a profound, heart-felt Smoking weed and riding your bike for connection and then say goodbye, knowing 21 six hours a day, every day, for four you’ll probably never see them again. Allow months, will give you plenty of time to these moments of spontaneous connection contemplate the entirety of your existence. to happen and be okay to move on.

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There is no consensus in life and it can be a huge waste of precious time

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Drink more water.

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BRENDAN FALLIS

I N S P I R AT I O N

I N S P I R AT I O N

INTERVIEW WITH GLOBAL DJ, INFLUENCER, A N D O N TA R I O N AT I V E —

BRENDAN FALLIS B Y

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We sit down and talk humble beginnings, some of his most memorable experiences and how a DJ from Durham, Ontario found his groove again in Jerry Seinfeld’s barn spinning tunes for Howard Stern.

Brendan Fallis knows life is good. As an influential DJ and scenester, Fallis uses his vast platform to promote the causes he believes in and the lifestyle he loves. Whether he’s promoting good health, happiness or just music he adores—or cruising around in a 1967 Lamborghini 400 GT—the affable Ontarian, who once opened for Marley Marl, is just trying to lead his best and most well balanced life possible. Joshua Nagel, the publisher of papers, reached Fallis as he traveled to a gig in Dubai.

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JN: Happy New Year, brother! To start, what does a professional DJ and social media influencer, that gets to travel to the best hotels, drive the best cars and enjoy the greatest experiences for a living get up to over the holidays?

BF: Ha, well damn, life sounds ok when you frame it that way! This year for the holidays my wife and I took a trip to Japan, Australia, Indonesia and Hong Kong. We spent last year with both of our families doing a joint Christmas, so we figured we’d do our own thing this year. It was one hell of a trip, actually still on it as we chat, but now heading to Dubai to DJ the opening of a new club.

JN: Brendan, you’re an Ontario boy, and this is the first and only magazine in Ontario cannabis dispensaries. What are your thoughts on legalization?

BF: I grew up in small-town Ontario—the town of Durham, not the region. Always need to clarify that fun fact. Things have changed so much since the 90s and there’s now so many benefits to legalization and I’m all for it. I think it’s an important step to take for Ontario, for sure. I believe the research on the plant is still just in its infancy and that over the next decade they will find so many more uses for it. I’m not super well-versed, but from what I have been able to learn so far, it should have an overall positive impact.

I would hope, anyway.

JN: This feature is our inspiration feature. Can you share your story of how you got started and the work you put in all the way to your first big break?

BF: I got started DJing after moving to New York to work for a friend I used to ski with.

He hired me at his start-up company, but didn’t have much of a salary to pay me. I was moonlighting as a caterer/waiter for the first year and then I fell into DJing. A friend of mine worked managing a restaurant, so he would invite me to come eat for free (super helpful and needed). It wasn’t busy

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on Mondays so I would bring my laptop and we’d teach ourselves how to DJ. We played there for a bit and the owner heard me one night and moved me to Friday nights, opening for DJ Marley Marl (who you may recall as referenced in Biggie’s track Juicy). It was wild to be opening for him and I started to take it way more seriously from that day onward. From there, I just treated it like a business rather than a hobby and started to grow my network, DJ for free just to prove myself and keep perfecting my craft.

JN: When did you know it was working?

BF: I don’t really have a clear “big break” moment that stands out. It’s been a constant grind with a ton of milestones along the way, including playing the main stage of Coachella while DJing for Theophilus London, which was wild. But as I write this from 40,000 feet en route from Hong Kong to Dubai, it’s crazy to look

back and think that a free meal and desire powered this journey.

JN: What have been your most memorable moments?

BF: You know, Coachella. Met some icons along the way, played some incredible parties all over the globe, forged relationships with some of the most amazing people that I call friends, but most of all I have just had an absolute blast doing it. Don’t get me wrong, like any job you fall out of love with it from time to time and need to fall back in love with it, but when you find it again, it’s amazing. I remember starting to think I was over it a couple years ago.

JN: What happened?

BF: I was ready to hang up the skates for good when the Seinfelds hit me up to play Jess Seinfeld’s Good+ Foundation Charity

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annual summer party at their house. I went there excited to shake some hands with the guests, but ended up playing a super fun set which had their chic AF barn party going wild. Even had Howard Stern out there showing off some moves! They said that for the past five years no one had ever danced at that event and thanked me so much. Obviously there are a bunch of factors in making a good party, but I like to think I was one of them in that instance and it reminded me that I not only love my job—I’m good at it.

JN: Instagram, YouTube—when did this all start and when did it become a business/rev channel for you?

BF: I joined Instagram shortly after it came out. In its infancy, it was just a place to post cool-looking pictures, as we know. Slowly it grew and so did I. It became a calling card for everything I was up to. I realized pretty early on that handled correctly, there was a business to be built around it. Wish I'd thought the same thing when YouTube first

dropped, but instead I’m just getting my feet wet now and absolutely loving it. It’s way more of a grind than Instagram, but I enjoy the storytelling aspect of it. It’s starting to take form and the business side of it is ramping up. Excited to see what the effort I put into it this year brings!

JN: This magazine is all about living your best life and we want to provide readers with tips every edition to help them achieve that. So here are some rapid fire questions for you.

BF: Shoot.

JN: What have been some of the best experiences that have come out of being an influencer? Don’t be modest, what’s been the most ridiculously lavish experience and what’s been the most enjoyable?

BF: For teenage me, it’s the cars. I’ve driven nearly everything it feels like. Obviously, there are a ton I haven’t, but it's just super fun to have access to all that stuff. But honestly, travel is so important to me—it’s so inspiring on so many levels. And to be able to leverage Instagram to do it alongside my wife—there’s just nothing better. We have been to so many crazy places, seen so many beautiful beaches, hotels, mountains, waterfalls. Truly blessed.

JN: Three books that have greatly impacted your life?

BF: Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff, Richard Carlson The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker, PhD

JN: Best financial advice you ever received?

Best financial advice you can give?

BF: Put a little money away every month in a high interest account and don’t touch it. Compounding over the next 50 years of

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your life will be worth it, even if it’s $20/ month. Also, be happy with what you have, there’s always someone with less.

JN: In the last few years what new habit(s) has most improved your life?

BF: Meditation 1000%. Highly recommend.

JN: Three favourite in-home exercises.

BF: Burpees, push-ups, lots of stretching.

JN: Three most frequently played artists on your February playlist.

BF: Drake, Lord Echo, Camelphat.

JN: Best dish you make at home.

BF: Pad Thai, but damn, it’s been a minute...

“ We played there for a bit and the owner heard me one night and moved me to Friday nights, opening for DJ Marley Marl (who you may recall as referenced in Biggie’s track Juicy).”

JN: Three things that make you happiest in this world.

BF: My home, my health, my wife.

JN: I know you’re a car guy, so last one, for fun, three favourite rides.

BF: Ferrari GTC4 Lusso. Lamborghini 400 GT 1967. Vintage Land Rover Defender—custom built, and coming soon!

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20 ARTISTS TO W AT C H F O R T H I S SPRING B Y

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C H K O N I A In 2016, he self-released an EP titled Little Mess, and followed with a single, “Miami,” which garnered attention online and led him to connect with producers Luyo Mario and DVLP, who saw Jake’s true potential for stardom. BabyJake’s strong songwriting mixed with his love of hip-hop is evident in his singles released in 2019, including “Cigarettes on Patios” and ''Blue Cellophane,” a song with euphonious vocals, showcasing the depth of talent he possesses.

AMAAL RnB singer/songwriter Amaal is just getting started. Amaal released her highly personal debut EP Black Dove earlier this year. The album resonated with listeners, receiving a total of 5 million streams across all platforms, and was critically acclaimed by Noisey, Coveteur, Red Bull + Complex, among others. Not one to take a break, Amaal is back on the studio working on her next mixtape, due for release early next year.

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THE BEACHES JUNO Award-winning rock band for Breakthrough Group of the Year (2018), The Beaches are only just getting started. The Toronto-based quartet dropped their new single, “Want What You Got,” off their latest EP, The Professional, this past November, and they have a cross-Canada headline tour starting in February which will culminate in three sold-out shows at The Danforth Music Hall in Toronto. The Beaches have previously supported the likes of The Glorious Sons, The Rolling Stones and Foo Fighters, and recently announced dates with AWOLNATION. In 2020, we can expect a sophomore album from The Beaches, a follow-up to their debut album, Late Show (2017).

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BAD CHILD

B A B YJ A K E BabyJake is a Fort Myers, Florida native whose offhand pop melodies laced with hip-hop recently garnered him a spot on Vevo’s “DSCVR Artists to Watch 2020” list.

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BAD CHILD is an artist looking to come to terms with his childhood. After losing his mother at a young age and dealing with heartbreak, he sought refuge from the world in music. Since then, he's been breaking new ground with his genre bending and distinguished sound palette. Last summer, BAD CHILD hit the festival circuit, landing himself sets on some of the world’s most prestigious lineups including; Lollapalooza, Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds and Osheaga.

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BENEE Carving out a space between indie pop and R&B, New Zealand-born singer BENEE deconstructs modern “pop music” to create a sonic landscape all her own. In 2018, the 19-year-old pop visionary delivered her Platinum-certified single “Soaked,” which gained support from Zane Lowe and Apple’s Beats 1 radio, and saw her jump from playing her first small club gig to her first arena show

(opening for long-time role model Lily Allen) in a matter of months. BENEE recently made her mark with her critically acclaimed Fire On Marzz EP (June 2019), which has been praised by Billboard, NYLON, Marie Claire, Clash Magazine, Vice’s i-D, Idolator and more.

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breakthrough single, “Your Shirt,” in 2017.

The track amassed over 50 million streams on Spotify and hit #1 on the HypeMachine charts. The song became the lead single off her debut EP, Snow In October, which released in the fall of that year. In the years following, she released her next three projects: Sleeping With Roses, Sleeping With Roses II and brent in collaboration with Jeremy Zucker. Most recently, Chelsea has released “Lucky,” “How to be Human” and “You Are Losing Me” from her highly anticipated debut project set for release in the new year.

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CELESTE A brilliant, young singer from Brighton, England, this Anchor Award nominee has drawn comparisons to Amy Winehouse and has received universal praise from the likes of Annie Mac, Clara Amfo, Julie Adenuga, Elton John and more. Described as a “once-in-ageneration talent… the finest British soul singer to emerge in years” by NME, Celeste was recently announced as the winner of the BRIT Rising Star Award for 2020. Following the March 2019 release of her debut EP, Lately, we can expect new music from Celeste in early 2020, including a brand new single in January and a debut album later in the year.

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C O N A N G R AY Conan Gray continues to make major waves on his own terms. A string of hits has vaulted him to the forefront of modern pop. It all started with nothing more than Garageband and a cheap microphone taped to a lamp.

Conan Gray released his viral sensation “Idle Town” on his YouTube channel as an ode to his hometown of Georgetown, TX. Conan’s debut EP in November 2018 to widespread critical acclaim from The Fader, Billboard, and Ones To Watch and has announced his debut album, Kid Krow to be released in 2020. Conan has sold out two North American headline tours, played Lollapalooza and Life is Beautiful music festivals and has been featured in Paper Magazine, i-D Magazine and The Sunday Times.

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CHELSEA CUTLER 21-year-old, indie/pop singer, songwriter + producer Chelsea Cutler released her

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20 ARTISTS

CROWN LANDS The group’s name is indicative of their substantial ambitions: “Crown Land” is territorial area belonging to the monarch—or, as Bowles (whose own heritage is half Mi’kmaq, an indigenous tribe from Nova Scotia) puts it, “Crown Land is stolen land and we are reclaiming it.” The release of Crown Lands’ upcoming, self-titled debut album—produced by six-time Grammy winner Dave Cobb— marks the arrival of a major new force. Raised in Southwestern Ontario, Comeau (guitar, bass and keys) and Cody Bowles (vocals and drums) bring together a range of influences from folk and blues to psychedelic to prog rock and, drawing on their own intense personal chemistry, create something unique and startlingly fresh.

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EASY LIFE This Leicester five-member band is quickly making waves to become the essential new act with a genre-busting attitude that, like many of their generation, draws no line between a love of US rap and British storytellers in the pursuit of creative freedom (and emotional honesty). Easy Life’s recent single, “Nice Guys,” premiered as “Annie Mac’s Hottest Record in the World,” and their brand-new

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song, “Sangria,” (ft. Arlo Parks) unites two of the most exciting acts breaking out of the UK. Both tracks form part of the band’s mixtape Junk Food.

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been heralded as an Artist to Watch by Wonderland while simultaneously earning praise from Paper Magazine, Time, Nylon, Harper’s Bazaar, Interview Magazine, Entertainment Weekly and others. FLETCHER has earned impressive slots on Wango Tango, The iHeartRadio Music Festival and Z100’s Jingle Ball at Madison Square Garden. Following her sold-out 2019 headline tours of North America and Europe, FLETCHER will join Lewis Capaldi on Niall Horan’s 2020 Nice To Meet Ya tour.

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Jade Eagleson’s voice takes listeners back to the days of Johnny Cash, George Jones and Randy Travis, in that it is unmistakably country. In August 2017, Eagleson was crowned the winner of the Boots & Hearts Emerging Artist showcase and shortly afterwards signed with Universal Music Canada. Jade was featured as YouTube Trending’s “Artist On The Rise” and appeared on the website’s homepage (the first time ever for a Canadian-signed artist). Eagleson took home the Rising Star Award at the 2019 CCMAs. Eagleson’s new single “Lucky” is on the radio now, and in the spring Eagleson will be joining High Valley, Eli Young Band and Lindsay Ell on the road for 10 tour dates across Western Canada.

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ELI ROSE Accumulating 10 years of musical experimentation, Eli Rose marked 2019 with new music, a self-titled, urban, pop-leaning album. The album is the debut record on the newly established Maison Barclay Canada, a label imprint via Universal Music Canada. Leading up to the release of the uber personal 10-track album, which chronicles a tumultuous two-week romance, Eli spent 2019 playing festivals and shows in France and Canada. The combination of her angelic voice over urban and electronica beats produces a very contemporary sound rarely heard in francophone pop and Eli is ready to share it with the world.

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GRACIE ABRAMS L.A. native Gracie Abrams began composing her own songs on a piano in the fifth grade, taking her diary entries and turning them into songs. Prior to signing with Interscope and releasing an official single, Gracie built a following of over 200,000 on Instagram through posting intimate performance clips of the music she was working on. This past fall, Gracie released her first official single titled “Mean It,” followed by the very recent “Stay,” and will release more full-length versions of her already fan-favourite songs in 2020. Gracie was named as one of Pigeons and Planes’ “Best New Artist of the Month” in October 2019.

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FLETCHER Across all of her songs, FLETCHER has racked up more than 200 million combined global streams. Released in August 2019, the EP you ruined new york city for me is a highly personal story of first love and heartbreak, featuring the smash hit, “Undrunk.” FLETCHER has

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JEREMY ZUCKER Singer, songwriter, producer and former molecular biology student Jeremy Zucker currently has over 950 million Global Artist Streams and his hit single, “comethru,” has over 140 million Spotify streams and 100 million video views. Last May, he graduated from Colorado College and put his degree aside to finally pursue his dream of making music, which resulted in his latest EP, summer, and biggest song to date, “comethru,” which has reached over a staggering 140 million Spotify streams and 100 million video views. Jeremy’s first taste of success was with his 2017 single “talk is overrated,” featuring Blackbear, 2018’s intensely personal EP glisten delivered the groundbreaking song “all the kids are depressed,” the first widespread glimpse into Zucker’s songwriting ethos.

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and completing his first tour in support of Ski Mask the Slump God. L A B E L R E P U B L I C

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followed up by his independently released EP made up of six original songs. Singles off the EP included “Emma” and “Julia,” which quickly garnered a few million streams and earned him a loyal fan following. With Soran’s brand new single “Stop Myself” out this month, and with more new music on the way, Soran will be one to watch in 2020.

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PA R K E R M C C O L L U M A singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and dedicated road warrior, Parker McCollum began building a following in his native Texas with 2015’s The Limestone Kid, but it was the album’s widely-acclaimed follow-up, Probably Wrong, that helped Parker find national success. Compared to John Mayer and Jason Isbell by Rolling Stone, Parker supported the album with a string of sold-out shows, bringing record-breaking crowds to venues like San Angelo’s RiverStage and a sold-out Billy Bob’s (May 2019) along the way. Fans can stay tuned for more new music from Parker in 2020.

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RYLAND JAMES 2019 has marked the biggest and boldest chapter of Desoronto, Ontario native Ryland James’ career. The singer caught everyone’s attention with his single “In My Head,” which was co-written amidst trips to Stockholm and London. It was also the year Ryland joined a personal hero—Alessia Cara—on tour throughout Canada and the US. His talent and on-stage presence has earned him praise and attention from media with critics calling him “one to watch.” With new music coming in the new year, it’s safe to say Ryland is just getting started.

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POP SMOKE Brooklyn-based artist Pop Smoke made waves this summer with his viral single "Welcome to the Party," which on-boarded remixes with international superstars Skepta and Nicki Minaj. Following the success of his single, Pop Smoke released his debut nine-track project, MEET THE WOO. His unique sound is being credited with creating an entirely new sound and sub-genre of rap with elements from the UK grime scene and the Chicago drill scene, and of course is heavily inspired by New York rap music.

Pop Smoke is in the process of recording his debut album, which fans can expect in 2020,

Z A C H Z O YA At just 21 years old, Zach Zoya is one of the most buzzed about artists in Montreal’s vibrant music scene. A second-generation French-Canadian immigrant, Zoya’s musical style and artistic message is uniquely his own.

His natural ability to flow between rapping and singing is a testament to his creativity and versatility as an artist. Over the past couple of years, Zach Zoya has been championed by Montreal tastemakers and has performed at prominent festivals including Festival de Été (where he was a finalist for the Prix Espoir FEQ), M For Montréal, Montréal International Jazz Festival, Metro Metro and more. Zach is now hard at work on his debut project with Universal Music Canada, which will be released in 2020.

L A B E L U N I V E R S A L M U S I C C A N A D A 7 T H H E AVA N R E C O R D S

SORAN Singer-songwriter Soran grew up on Montreal’s south shore surrounded by his father’s numerous instruments. From a young age, Soran has been experimenting with music and writing catchy lyrics and in 2016, he released his very first single “I Wish,” which was

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FOOD & DRINK

R E C IPE S O F LO V E B Y

A L E X

B A I R D

We thought to start off our food section, in our first edition, with a super simple and delicious recipe that anyone can make and is perfect for a cold winter day.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s broth season.

There is no better time to sip on this nutrientpacked power liquid than winter, when the temperatures are cold and the days are short.

Whether you are curling up for a cozy night in with that special someone or need something to carry you from work to the gym, broth will satiate you mentally and physically.

The bone broth trend has grown over the last few years because of its nutritional benefits: it's incredible for your hair, skin, energy, weight, gut health, digestion and immunity. Because of this, what might have started as a trend is here to stay. Everyone from Salma Hayek to Gwyneth Paltrow is on the bone broth train these days.

My passion as a holistic chef and nutritionist has led me to become the proud owner of Ripe Nutrition, a Toronto based broth company that packages the cleanest and most beneficial line of broth on the market. A superfood that can be consumed on its own or enhanced with add-ons that personalize your broth to suit your mood.

Here is the recipe for our “Ripe Glo Pho,� which everyone can make in less then 10 minutes at home. Experience all the benefits this superfood has to offer, and enjoy!

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RIPE GLO PHO INGREDIENTS 1L liquid Gold Collagen Beauty bone broth or Super Mushroom Adaptogen broth

P R E PA R AT I O N 1

Pour your Ripe Broth Base of choice (vegan or chicken) into a mediumsized pot and bring to a simmer on low-medium heat (3—5 mins).

1 cup baby boy choy 1 tbsp diced ginger

2

3 tbsp chilled scallions or green onion 1 green chilli 1/2 cup sweet potato, brown rice noodles or zucchini noodles 1 pinch of clove

3

Add all of your vegetables at once, including your 5-spice blend, and continue to simmer on low for 3 minutes. We are using zucchini noodles here, but if you are using rice noodles, prepare before heating the soup and strain.

Top your bowl with fresh lime juice and the herbs of your choice.

1 pinch of Chinese 5-spice 1 wedge of lime Spices: There are 5 key spices in pho broth: cardamom pods, star anise, whole cloves, coriander seeds and cinnamon.

Just add any broth as you heat.

Toppings: Fresh-squeezed lime juice, fresh mint, Thai basil, cilantro.

A L E X R I P E I S A C E R T I F I E D H E A LT H A N D W E L L N E S S C O A C H A N D T H E OWNER OF RIPE NUTRITION. YOU CAN FOLLOW HER AT RIPE.NUTRITION O N I N S T A G R A M A N D O R D E R A L L T Y P E S O F I N C R E D I B LY D E L I C I O U S BROTHS OFF OF HER WEBSITE, RIPE-NUTRITION.COM.

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FOOD & DRINK

ATIIOONNSS, , LLIIFFTTEEDD LLIIBBAT

LIB AT I O N S, LIFT E D B Y:

A D A M

M C D O W E L L

Our drinks editor gingerly explores the intersection between cannabis and mocktails Mixing booze and bud can get ugly. As an experienced drinks writer, I’m a certified old hand when it comes to alcohol, but a pathetic lightweight in encounters with cannabis. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stumbled into hangovers and blackouts and otherwise become a blathering, sleepwalking moron after accepting a passed joint while already into my cups. Thank goodness there was no TikTok when I was 22.

The crossfade—mixing alcohol and cannabis—may be dicey and unwise, but some of us will always prefer a drink in our hands over a joint or vaporizer. So I've been looking for ways to swap my G&Ts for THC and CBD—but in potable form, leaving out the alcohol altogether.

Warren Bobrow, in his useful book Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails & Tonics, provides a few solid reasons to dabble in liquid cannabis: it’s smoke-free, it allows you to accurately measure your dosages (some arithmetic required) and it can taste pretty good.

The secret is to work in harmony with the terpenes—aromatic oils—that are naturally present in cannabis flower. They impart a herbaceous, tangy range of scents and flavours, as readers will know. When embarking on a test flight of homemade THC-infused non-alcoholic cocktails recently, I was careful to incorporate ingredients that would offer complementary bouquets of herbs, spices and citrus fruit. Above all, mint, grapefruit and lemon will be your best friends when you’re experimenting with DIY cannabis beverages.

But first things first: how to introduce the green to the glass? There are multiple ways, but to kick off this journey I started with simple syrup, because it seemed—well, simple. To the uninitiated, bartenders use simple syrup to introduce sugar to cocktails (because granular sugar does not dissolve readily in iced drinks). You can make it on your stove (see recipe, right).

Next, I incorporated the syrup into a trio of drinks representing some of the classic cocktail types: namely the fizzy, the stirred and the hot. The results?

The drinks tasted great—the cannabis flavours, mild to begin with, integrated nicely. Even better: I hit that sought-after point of balance, and I felt great.

Caution is the name of the game. As with edibles, you want to give your body plenty of time to adjust before re-upping. Depending on the THC content of your chosen flower, one or two ounces of cannabis simple syrup should be enough to appreciate some effects.

For me? One is definitely enough.

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CANNABIS-INFUSED SIMPLE SYRUP Grind your cannabis, spread it onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper and cover with aluminum foil. Bake at 250F for 30 minutes. Let sit for 15 minutes before you store it in a sealed container in a dark, dry place.

Now to make the syrup—you’ll get 24 oz. or 3 cups from this recipe, enough to make 24–48 doses of syrup, depending on your preferences.

Ingredients • 2 cups ordinary white sugar • 2 cups water • 4 grams decarboxylated cannabis • 2 tbsp vegetable glycerin (available at health food stores) Method: In a saucepan, combine the water and sugar and stir gently over medium heat.

Add cannabis, cover with a lid, lower heat to low and simmer for 25 minutes. Stir in the glycerin, which acts as an emulsifier. Cool for 10 minutes. Pour mixture into a storage container.

Refrigerate and use within a few weeks.

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MICRODOSE MAGIC

This cocktail contains one-third as much syrup as the next two drinks, so it’s great for beginners, or for a mellow time, or for a lightweight like me.

Ingredients • 3 mint sprigs • 1 tsp sugar • 2 tsp cannabis-infused simple syrup • ½ lime • club soda Method: Place two mint sprigs, cannabis syrup, sugar and a splash of cool water in the bottom of a tall, skinny glass. Press with the back of a long spoon. Fill glass to the brim with ice and stir for 30 seconds. Squeeze the juice from the lime into the glass and stir again. Fill glass with club soda. Garnish with the third sprig of mint.

2

THREE-LEAF TODDY

Warm yourself down to the cockles of your heart on a winter’s night with this soothing hot drink. We’re blending three types of leaf here: regular black tea forms the backbone of the toddy, South American yerba mate adds an earthy low note and cannabis provides the, er, high.

Ingredients • 1 oz. or 2 tbsp cannabis syrup • ~1 cup/250 mL freshly brewed black tea • 1 oz. freshly squeezed lemon juice • to garnish: cinnamon stick and/or a lemon wedge studded with cloves Method: Brew a strong cup of black tea and some yerba mate. In a separate mug, combine syrup and lemon juice, stir and then add the hot tea, and finally the garnish. Go sit by a fire and imbibe.

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SECRET SIDEKICK

For this recipe, I adapted the golden afternoon, a non-alcoholic cocktail by Makina Labrecque, bar manager of Calgary’s Proof. The golden 4:20 is intended to evoke that romantic moment in a cocktail bar when the setting sun comes in sideways through the windows, illuminating the bottles and announcing the arrival of evening. It requires two different offerings from Seedlip, an England-based maker of non-alcoholic distilled spirits. (Check your local gourmet food shop).

Ingredients • 1 ½ oz Seedlip Grove 42 • ¼ oz Seedlip Spice 94 • 1 oz cannabis simple syrup • ½ tsp white peppercorns Method: Add Seedlip spirits, cannabis syrup, lemon juice and peppercorns to a cocktail shaker. Muddle peppercorns. Add a handful of ice and shake cocktail with ice for 20 seconds.

Strain using a fine-mesh strainer into a chilled coupe cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon peel.

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FOOD & DRINK

S P O N G E C A K E W I T H S E R R AT U S I N F U S E D H O N E Y

SPONGE CAKE W I T H S E R R AT U S INFUSED HONEY B Y P H I L I P K W O N G , C E O O F 3 C A R B O N E X T R A C T I O N S I N C O N J U N C T I O N W I T H TA N TA L U S B R A N D S

RECIPE 21 grams flour 80 grams sugar 2 tbsp cocoa powder 4 whole eggs A stick of rhubarb 1/3 cup water 1/3 cup sugar 1 cup whipping cream 1 tbsp vanilla extract 6 tbsp icing sugar 1/3 cup blueberries Honey 3.5 grams Tantalus Labs Serratus 1 cup liquid honey

Infusing the honey is a great way to control the dosage while cooking with a potent strain like Serratus. This a Sungrown high-THC cultivar with a woodsy aroma that pairs nicely with the fresh berries and sponge cake. Sweetly spiked is our kind of dessert.

INSTRUCTIONS 1

2

YOU'LL NEED LEVO II (or just a pot on a stove top) Sifter Measuring cups/spoons Mixing bowls Whisk Siphon N2O chargers Microwave Paper cups

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Preheat oven to 245 degrees Fahrenheit; break up Serratus flower into small buds (do not grind it). Decarboxylate half of the Serratus flower on a baking tray lined with parchment at 245 degrees Fahrenheit for 20–30 minutes. Take the decarboxylated flower and break apart into small buds; put the Serratus flower and star anise into the Levo pod, and put into the Levo reservoir. Add honey into Levo reservoir and set temperature to 105 degrees, for 2 hours.

Sift flower, sugar and cocoa powder into a stainless-steel bowl. Slowly whisk eggs into dry mixture until smooth. Pour mixture into a whipped cream siphon and shake vigorously. Use two N2O chargers for the siphon.

3

Make 4 small slits in the bottom of the paper cup. Put the cup onto a plate and fill the cup up halfway with the mixture. (The mixture should look like an airy chocolate mousse.) Put in microwave for 40 seconds.

4

Whisk all whipping cream ingredients in a stainless-steel bowl to a stiff peak.

5

In a small pot, simmer sugar and water together until sugar is dissolved. Cut rhubarb into roughly pinky-width portions; add rhubarb into simmering simple syrup for 45 seconds. Add blueberries, infused honey and 3 tbsps of rhubarb simple syrup, and mix together.

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FOOD & DRINK

C A N N A -T O N I C INFUSED BLENDED CHIA YOGURT B Y

M E E S H

C O L E S,

RECIPE Half a banana 1 cup coconut milk 1/4 cup strawberries (any kind of berry you like) 2 tbsp chia seeds 1/2 tbsp maple syrup 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp CBD-infused coconut oil 1/4 tsp sea salt Oil 3.5 grams Tantalus Labs Cannatonic 1 cup coconut oil (can be doubled)

YOU'LL NEED LEVO II Blender Measuring cups/spoons

H O L I S T I C

C H E F

A mellow, Sungrown strain high in CBD with virtually no THC is the ideal addition to this recipe and a great way to start the day. The earthy cedar and fresh rain undertones inspired by our lush BC climate make Cannatonic a great choice for an uplifting and mellow experience without sacrificing rich aromas or fluffy, soft buds. Meesh uses the Levo II to infuse a carrier oil with our high CBD Cannatonic, then blends it up with chia seeds, salt, sweetener, bananas and strawberries for about a minute.

INSTRUCTIONS 1

Start with your oil—this can be done in advance to make things easier on yourself. Take 3.5 grams of high CBD Cannatonic, grind until medium fine.

Using your LEVO II, place the ground cannabis in the pod with coconut oil and set to infuse at 160 for 2.5 hours.

2

Take all ingredients, add to blender and blend on high until your chia seeds break down to a liquid texture.

3

Refrigerate to set (optional).

4

Top with berries and cacao nibs (optional).

For more recipes like these, visit populace.tantaluslabs.com

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H E A LT H & W E L L N E S S

CHILL YOGA

CBD + YOGA = T H E U LT I M AT E Z E N O U T B Y

K A R I N A

V E E

The next level of chill yoga. You can do this series in your room, at your gym or anywhere you can catch a moment to yourself.

People usually gravitate to yoga to feel relaxed, to stretch their bodies, build strength and balance, practise mindfulness and clear their thoughts. Since anxiety can be such a big part of our lives these days due to technology that makes us constantly available to work, connect and socialize, our fast-paced environments, over-stimulation and heavy workload, yoga is essential not to crash and burn. Most people are now treating yoga as a self-care ritual, a time to disconnect from our phones, a time to ground ourselves, connect with ourselves, our breath and our body, stretching, righting our postures and priming ourselves for movement and exercise.

How do you make your yoga sesh even more relaxed? Infuse it with CBD. A great CBD vape pen that comes with a customized dosage is https://dosist.ca/ “CALM”.

EASY POSE

EASY POSE

01 EASY POSE

01 — EASY POSE

0 2 ­— C H I L D ' S P O S E

Easy pose, as the name suggests, can be easy for some, but not for all, mostly because in this pose you must focus on breathing while sitting upright. This isn’t always an easy task—your mind might be racing, you might be stressed, there can be many factors that would make this pose difficult. CBD might help with feeling more calm here so you can focus and find peace.

A super restful pose that helps to relax the nervous system and ease anxiety. A great pose to do before bedtime to chill out. Kneel on the floor, bring your big toes to touch, extend the arms out in front of you and bring your hips towards your heels. Exhale and lay your torso down between your thighs. Take 10 deep breaths here.

01 EASY POSE

01 EASY POSE

03 — FORWARD FOLD

0 4 — C AT & C O W

05 — CORPSE

A very beneficial pose for your health, especially if you sit at an office desk all day.

This pose helps to circulate blood through your entire body while giving your heart a break. It also helps your hamstrings lengthen (back of the legs) and helps soothe the mind as fresh blood will flow to your head once you stand back up.

This two-pose series helps you connect with your breath and really healthy for the spine, neck and hips. Make sure your shoulders are in line with the hands, hips with the knees; inhale as you look up while the tailbone lifts, exhale as you push the floor away, pull the belly in, tuck the chin under. Repeat this nice and slow about six times.

Save the best for last—“Savasana” is the most relaxing pose, done after you finish your practice to let everything really sink in. CBD will help you find a comfortable relaxation in corpse pose. Lay in a neutral position. Turn your palms up towards the ceiling and relax your entire body from the crown of the head to your tippy toes.

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Y O U R E S O LV E D T O B E M O R E F I T I N 2 0 2 0

Y O U R E S O LV E D T O BE MORE FIT IN 2020: NOW HERE’S HOW TO MAKE IT STICK B Y

K A R I N A

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New year, new decade, you decided it was time for a new you, right?

When you made that commitment in the euphoria of the New Year’s Eve countdown, you may not have thought about how hard it was going to be to make it happen—and keep making it happen. Whether your 2020 goal is to amp up your gym routine, focus on eating healthier, drink more water or just generally cut down on things that are not good for you, it’s easy to let your motivation wane as time bears on. The good news? You know what you want, and you have a clean slate this year to drop old habits and develop new ones. Now you need a game plan.

Find your “why”?

Through teaching at Barry’s Bootcamp and through my online health coaching, I spend most of my days helping people achieve weight loss, better eating habits and all-around healthier body composition goals. When fatigue sets in, the key is helping clients to love their bodies and better understand themselves.

Whether you’re feeling too lazy to go to the gym or craving something unhealthy, I help clients understand the “why”—why they crave certain things and how to manage those cravings, why they feel a slump in that crucial 20 minutes before they have to pack their gym bags. When you know why, you know how to make behavioural changes to avoid the negative outcome and show up for yourself. Here are some simple steps to help you understand your “why” and respond to it in a healthier way.

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Write a letter to yourself.

Research shows that when you write things down, you are more likely to act on them.

Writing down your goals with specific details will help your goals come to fruition. So grab a pen and start writing a letter to yourself.

Describe exactly how you want to feel/look and exactly what you need to do to get there.

Don’t try to go too big too fast: small changes lead to success.

The next step is to consider what your goals are and which ones are most important to tackle first. If you try to accomplish everything, you’ll probably end up getting overwhelmed and doing nothing. The trick is triage: pick the most important goal, or the most important step in that goal, and focus on that first.

Make it ritual.

Put it in your calendar. If you are not a selfmotivator, pick a fitness class on a certain day at a certain time and PUT IT IN YOUR CALENDAR. With a reminder! Invite friends to join you so you have more accountability.

For example, make Monday your cardio day and Sunday night your yoga night for at least a month. Don’t negotiate with yourself; don’t say “Oh, I can skip Monday, I’ll make it up Tuesday.”

Always pencil it in.

Make your health your first priority. Before scheduling meetings, dates or family time, schedule your weekly workouts that are nonnegotiable and perhaps even pay for exercise classes in advance so you have an extra incentive not cancel them last-minute.

Find your fitness support fam—build a community of health around you.

There’s nothing like a support team. The reason why my clients have success during my three-month transformational health coaching program is because I hold them accountable for their actions. So find a friend that’s on the same page as you, book in workouts together, learn how to meditate and take yoga classes, motivate each other and enjoy the company!

Ditch the “all or nothing” approach.

Just like one workout won’t make your dream body, one cheat day or bad week is not going to break it. It’s okay to have days where you don’t have it together and you just really deserve to treat yourself. It’s also okay to not feel well and take some time off of working out—it doesn’t mean you’re failing, it just means you are regenerating. Start fresh the next day, pick yourself back up and tell yourself it’s fine. Nobody is perfect.

Make it fun—stop doing things you don’t like.

My number one rule is have fun! Life is too short not to enjoy it. If yoga’s not your jam, cool. There’s nothing wrong with that. Find a workout that you enjoy, even if it takes time and some trial and error. Put yourself out there! Try that weird dance group thing you think looks funny every time you pass by, or that intense class you think only super fit people go to.

(Guess what? They didn't all start super fit, so maybe there’s something to it.) Just remember, if you find “your thing,” it’ll be easy to get obsessed with it and keep doing it!

Karina Vee is a celebrity trainer, health coach/nutritionist and a wellness guru. Follow her wellness journey through her blog www.karinav.com & her Instagram @karinaveee

Organic, Plant-Based Hedonism Our organic Cold-Pressed Juices, Kombuchas, Plantmilks, and Boosters are now in grocery stores across Canada, and we’re celebrating with a big giveaway! Details below.

greenhouse.ca / @greenhousejuice

In partnership with our friends at Papers Magazine, we’re giving away a $500 gift card to our Toronto stores. Please enter at papersmagazine.ca.

CANNABIS

CANNA MOTHERS

C AN NA MOT H ER S B Y

M A D I S O N

M A K E P E A C E

On January 11, 2019, Jessica Bonilla and her business partners—a fancy way to say her husband and brother—learned they’d won one of Ontario’s coveted first-round cannabis retail lottery licenses. It changed her life.

“ It’s ridiculous that women and weed is the last big cannabis taboo.”

Jessica was a daily consumer before she won the lottery and, like many women, felt stigmatized. “When I was younger, I felt worried about using cannabis and being judged by the non-users who knew, referring to me as a ‘stoner,’” she says. “When I became a mother, it took a while before I allowed myself to use cannabis again. I felt I had to ‘grow up’ in the eyes of society or I would not be taken seriously in my new role.”

People obviously consume cannabis for many reasons—to relax, to have a laugh with some friends, for inspiration when cooking or for whatever it is they want to do. For Jessica, she has replaced her glass of wine after the kids go to bed with a joint. But she says there’s a stigma attached to being a mother and using cannabis. Most people would agree that society wouldn’t frown on a mom enjoying a glass or two of chardonnay at the end of a long day, but smoke a joint and the discrimination is felt immediately.

And it’s wrong.

“The stigma is the answer to so many questions,” Jessica says. “In Canadian society, cannabis was buried for a long time and research was limited. People need time to see how legalization evolves, how it affects them, and they need to learn the facts through open research. Despite not feeling as comfortable as I would like to smoking my joint in my own backyard, surrounded by my skeptical non-consuming neighbours, I know this is changing. I can see it. I am so excited to be involved in this unique industry.”

Citing Gandhi’s “Be the change you want to see,” Jessica realizes that beyond the thrill of being in business for herself after a decade in the classroom, she has a role to play in changing societal ideas about cannabis and motherhood. Women, mothers included, need to know they’re not alone in enjoying the plant.

Jessica Bonilla is the owner of the Niagara Herbalist. For more on the Niagara Herbalist, and all of the legal dispensaries where papers is distributed, please see papersmagazine.ca

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“As a mum, I feel more responsibility to educate people. The plant is legal because of its potential, so let’s be honest about that potential and not be hypocritical or discriminatory,” she says. “Legalization requires patience, but in order to challenge the stigma, the limits have to be pushed back little by little. Educate people around you and use responsibly.”

C A N N A B I S

“ As a mum, I feel more responsibility to educate people.

The plant is legal because of its potential, so let’s be honest about that potential and not hypocritical.”

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KNOW YOUR PRE-ROLLS

I NA TNENRAVBI IESW S C

CANNABIS

KNOW YOUR PRE-ROLLS B Y N I C O L A S A R AYA P H O T O G R A P H S B Y T Y L E R

A N D E R S O N

Nicolas never calls in for a sick day— his job is to smoke pre-rolls for papers I’ve rolled several thousands of joints/doobies/spliffs in my day.

I’ve been rolling joints since I smelt like teen spirit and and was insane in the membrane. There’s something too perfect about the pre-roll. It’s hard to fail with ready-to-go ganja. I mean, there’s no grinding, looking for papers or the need for the right environmental conditions to roll. Just pop into your local OCS, say “Pre-roll, please,” and then decide what awesomeness you and that pre-roll will get up to. Herewith is the start of a beautiful partnership. I landed my dream job: my job is to review joints. (See, mama? You said my being a pothead would never amount to anything, but I knew that being a cannabis enthusiast would!) Here are my joint reviews and a bit about the ensuing adventures.

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CANNABIS

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AURORA: THC INDICA ACES

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R I F F : S U B W AY SCIENTIST

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48NORTH: INDICA

5 PRE-ROLLS $38.95

THC 12—22%

1 PREROLL $11.10

T H C 1 5 . 0 — 2 9. 0 %

3 P R E - R O L L S $ 1 7. 0 5

THC 16—22%

0.5G PER ROLL

CBD 0.0—1.0%

1G PER ROLL

CBD 0.0—1.0%

0.35G PER ROLL

C B D 0 . 0­— 2 . 0 %

INDICA DOMINANT

INDICA DOMINANT

INDICA DOMINANT

TERPENES

TERPENES

TERPENES

• Alpha-Pinene • Guaiol • Terpineol

• Myrcene • Limonene • Linalool • Beta-Pinene

• Alpha-Pinene • Beta-Caryophyllene • Beta-Pinene

Very strong THC potency.

PERSONAL NOTES:

• It's potent • Lemon citrus • Piney back end • Mild spice • Definite throat tickle • Quick stone • Burns fast "Are you going to start shoveling?" asks my wife, just as I discovered Gargoyles on Disney+.

"Yeah, I guess." I pull away from the TV as my eldest settles in and the Gargoyles theme song gets going. Throwing on all the important winter gear, I discover an Ace in my pocket.

An Aurora Aces pre-roll sends me out the door with confidence. The brisk, cold air combined with the citrusy, piney smoke hit the back of my throat and I immediately cough my brains out. Hot damn, I'm baked. I put my shoveling game-face on and survey the field. Being stoned, my OCD is magnified and every push of the shovel requires symmetry and precision.

With no concept of time, I come to the last strip of driveway along the passenger side of our Civic and my eldest's window has been down the whole FREAKING NIGHT! "ROAR" (I actually shouted a number of profanities in Spanish), my stonage cracks away, I fly into the house, grab the remote to the TV and shout "Child safety locks!" and turn the power off.

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This strain is greenhouse-grown in a natural and ecologically friendly environment and has a very strong THC potency. It is said to have a berry scent, which is created by a complex terpene profile that includes myrcene, limonene, linalool and beta-pinene.

PERSONAL NOTES:

• Smooth • Mild fruit/lavender taste • Light citrus flavour on the backend • Mild dank smell • Sedative effect

Grown under LED; machine-trimmed; said to have peppery spice, wood, dill, parsley, basil, pine and rosemary notes.

PERSONAL NOTES:

• Packaging is environmentally friendly • Medium strength • Peppery taste • Light throat tickle • Heavier stone • Burns quick • Standard-quality roll

It was a long day of Santa mall photos with my wife and three kids. After the kids went to bed Monday night was finally coming to an end. and the wife was wrapping gifts, I went out to Dinner was mental—all three kids learned to smoke a 48North Indica pre-roll. When I came reach new octave levels. The wife HAD to finish back in, I proceeded to put together a pair of all the Christmas cards before she called it a reindeer lawn decorations. They were wired night, and I was ready to unplug. I decided to and covered in gold glitter—so much glitter step out and attend a lecture from the RIFF that I tied a bandana around my face because Subway Scientist pre-roll. Coming back in, the I was afraid I would inhale the glitter. Cleaning lights seemed hundreds of micromoles brighter. up, I attempted to pick up every single piece The wife said I was too pungent to sit at the of gold glitter that I thought my one-year-old table and help her with the cards (which was a would attempt to eat. Feeling accomplished positive side effect). For a moment, I thought and deserving of another doobie (second of I was too levitated. I deduced that I required three), I indulged and proceeded to watch humour to alleviate the paranoia of having to Rick and Morty and finish an extra-large help with the Christmas cards. I hypothesized tube of Pringles. That night, I dreamed I that Super Troopers 2 would lead to the most had contracted a glitter cold—every time I positive results of this mad experiment. My sneezed, a plume of gold glitter would shoot findings led to explosive laughter on several out of my nose. occasions and the total demolecularization of two Cinnabons and a full bag of Smarties Snax.

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KNOW YOUR PRE-ROLLS

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WINK: NO. 01

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CANOPY GROWTH: T W D. S AT I VA T H C P R E - R O L L

2 PRE-ROLLS $26.75

T H C 1 2 . 0 — 1 7. 0 %

1 PRE-ROLL $10.70

THC 15.5—23.5%

0.5G PER ROLL

CBD 0.0—1.99%

1G PER ROLL

CBD 0.0—1.0%

INDICA DOMINANT

S AT I VA D O M I N A N T

TERPENES

TERPENES

• Alpha-Pinene • Beta-Caryophyllene • Humulene • Myrcene • Ocimene

• Alpha-Pinene • Alpha-Santalene • Beta-Caryophyllene • Myrcene • Selinadienes

Soil grown; hand-trimmed; said to exhibit smells and tastes of strawberry and citrus notes, with woody and earthy undertones.

Canadian-grown, very strong THC potency with minimal CBD levels.

PERSONAL NOTES:

PERSONAL NOTES:

• Light • Woody taste • Mild citrus • Relaxing • Cerebral • Mild stone After slugging through various emails and listening to the draining impeachment hearings in the background, I needed a change of pace. I stepped out and lit a 0.5 gram Wink No. 01 pre-roll. Coming back in, I turned off the TV, threw on the Ongoing History of New Music episode on Arcade Fire and began putting away the laundry for the entire household. An hour later, all of the upstairs was tidied and my admiration of both Alan Cross and Arcade Fire had gone up several notches. I then proceeded to eat a toasted jalapeño bagel sandwich with Black Forest ham, smoked gouda and Dijon mustard with two (then three) side pickles. While I’m eating my third pickle, I think to myself: if Trump had a radio show, he’d definitely collude with Nickelback.

• Mild smoke • Citrus flavour • A bit of spiciness • Nutty/earthy on the back end • Little throat tickle • Cerebral buzz • Solid stone As a grower, I spend a LOT of time with plants.

Ideally, if I’m going to work on plants all day, I need to stay hydrated, with tunes playing, and I’ll probably end up smoking at least one doobie over the course of the day. (The plants appreciate it when I’m in a positive mood.) I go for my second coffee and set out with a Canopy pre-roll. It’s too big for one person—during the day, with stuff to do—so I don't smoke it all in one go. It’s smooth, and it doesn’t take effect after the first few hauls, so I keep at’r.

I’m more than halfway when I’m like “Wow, I’m more than halfway,” and my buzz has crept in and I’m baked—maybe too baked, so the proper course of action is sustenance. I head back inside, microwave a few taquitos, pull out some salsa and guac, and I pour a huge glass of watermelon juice. By the time I go back into the grow room, Nina Simone is streaming, my buzz has mellowed, I’m arms-deep in plants and I’m feelin’ gooood!

PA P E R S

M A G A Z I N E

P – 4 5

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CANNABIS

W H AT O N TA R I O NEEDS NOW IS THE TRUTH A B O U T VA P E S H O W L E G A L VA P E S A R E C O M B AT I N G H E A LT H C O N C E R N S B Y

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The segment of the 2.0 market that probably has the largest room to grow is also arguably the least understood of the drinkables, edibles and new vape products designed for cannabis consumption. Vaping is inhaling and exhaling aerosol—the vapors—from an electronic platform that doesn’t need flame to combust. A mix of oil formulations and cannabis-derived terpenes, these products, as they relate to cannabis, have been lumped in with the American health concerns over illegal vaping—a health crisis that stems from black market products that use Vitamin E acetate to thicken the oils. It’s these black market products that have made people ill and, in some cases, even caused death.

These are not the products being sold in legal Ontario dispensaries. No one has gotten ill from the products that are legally being sold as part of cannabis 2.0.

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“Educating consumers should be the number one focus—what to look out for and directing them to purchase from licensed, legal dispensaries that carry vape pens manufactured by reputable companies like Greentank,” says Dustin Koffler, Greentank’s founder and CEO. “Our partners only use the full spectrum of the cannabis to formulate their extracts—nothing more. The vape scare is an issue you simply don’t get from licensed producers. And for us, that’s all we work with.”

Amy Redekop, founder of RedeCan Pharm, a 30-year-old, family-owned agricultural company in the Niagara Peninsula that has been in legal cannabis since 2014, agrees with Koffler’s summation of the current environment.

“The scare comes from the States, and there’s a misconception that people in the

US are vaping and getting sick and that the problem lies with the vapes, but that’s 100% wrong—the problem lies with the source of the product, not the product itself,” said Redekop. “Our extraction process and concentration methods are entirely inspected and approved by Health Canada, which has the strictest vaping regulations of any regulatory body in the world. It’s only in markets where the products are unregulated that the issues have occurred.”

I recently traveled to Los Angeles and met with dosist CEO Gunner Winston, and we smoked some of his vape pens before conducting an interview. dosist, based in Venice Beach, was introduced to Ontario's dispensaries last month. They make singledosed vape pens with names that describe how they make you feel: bliss, arouse, calm and so on. According to Winston, the vaping

C A N N A B I S

T H E T R U T H A B O U T VA P E S

crisis was disconcerting: nobody wants to see anyone become ill, especially from a product you’ve invested your life in building smartly and safely. But Winston’s fear quickly turned to outrage as his assumptions played out: that no one using his products or other similarly licensed products would be facing health concerns and that the only sickness from vapes would be found in the illegal market—a market where his vapes aren’t sold.

“In a way, the entire vaping health scare confirmed what we knew since day one—that if you want to operate in the legal cannabis market, you need to comply with regulators, or even over-comply,” says Winston, who earned his fortune on Wall Street before moving out west to become the dosist CEO. “It’s sad, scary stuff, but people are treating all vaporization products as equal—e-cigarettes, nicotine, cannabis—and that’s just not the

“ No one has gotten ill from the products that are legally being sold as part of cannabis 2.0.” case. Vaping comes down to consumer trust.”

In the end, consumer trust is behind the entire cannabis legalization endeavour. You know when you’re buying your cannabis from a legal dispensary that it’s free from mildew and pesticides; when you’re buying an edible, that it’s labelled correctly and consistently in terms of dosage; and when you’re buying a vape, that it’s been rigorously tested both by Health Canada and the vape manufacturer, like Greentank Technologies.

“Safety is the most important thing to us. And the best way to deliver on that is transparency—we only work inside the legal market and we think all consumers should know what they’re buying,” says Dustin Koffler.

“Our mission is to constantly seek the best and go beyond. That means ensuring we have the best vape hardware in the market and the most innovative vaping experience there is—one that delivers full terpene profiles and unmatched flavour expressions for our partners. But it’s also about something bigger than us. We’re dedicated to pushing the industry forward and further than it's ever gone before. And you cannot cut corners to get there, especially when it comes to safety.”

For more information on Canadian Vape manufacturer Greentank, you can visit them at greentanktech.com

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PRODUCT SHOWCASE: GET TO KNOW CANOPY’S LEADING LINE O F VA P E S B Y

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CANOPY GROWTH GOES ABOVE AND BEYOND W I T H VA P E P R O D U C T D E V E L O P M E N T Canopy Growth Corporation’s vapes are designed and produced with three key pillars driving product development: reliability, certification and traceability. Hardware and formulations are designed in house by the company’s Canadian R&D team and are assessed in tandem throughout every step of the development process to ensure optimal performance when paired.

All products are produced using the optional UL 8139 Certified Safe Manufacturing standard, meaning that each electronics component of the hardware—including the battery—is certified by UL prior to being available for purchase. UL, which stands for Underwriters Laboratories, is an independant, global organization and a world leader in product safety testing and certification. Most of the major electrical appliances in your house, for example, are UL certified—from fridges and dishwashers to vacuum cleaners, microwaves, even your cell phones.

[1] JUJU POWER 5 1 0 B AT T E R Y Canopy’s JUJU Power is a rechargeable and compact cannabis concentrate vape battery that is designed to be compatible with most 510 threaded cannabis concentrate vape cartridges on the market. It has buttonless activation, an LED power status indicator and a USB-C charging dock.

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[ 2 - 7 ] T W E E D, VA N D E R P O P A N D T W D. 5 1 0 C A R T R I D G E S Pocket-friendly and puffable, Canopy’s 510 vape cartridges are compatible with most 510 threaded batteries and will soon be available from a range of Canopy brands including Tweed, Twd. and Van der Pop. Canopy’s vapes are made with cannabis and terpenes and contain no vitamin E acetate.

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2 - Tweed Bakerstreet 510 Cartridge 3 - Tweed Penelope 510 Cartridge 4 - Tweed Houndstooth 510 Cartridge 5 - Van Der Pop Eclipse 510 Cartridge 6 - Twd. Indica 510 Cartridge 7 - Twd. Sativa 510 Cartridge

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[8] TOKYO SMOKE L U M A B AT T E R Y Bring your Intent to light with the Tokyo Smoke Luma rechargeable battery, featuring light and vibration notifications and designed with a unique, matte feel that’s evocative of stoneware. For use with Tokyo Smoke Luma Vape Pods. Comes in two colours: Daybreak (white) and Midnight (blue).

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Canopy’s 510 cartridges are designed using the highest quality of materials— surgical grade steel, borosilicate glass and ceramic heating technology—made to withstand high heat and reduce the risk of chemical leaching. All vapes are tamper-resistant, serialized, traceable through every step of the manufacturing process and go above and beyond Health Canada regulations.

The extract used in Canopy’s devices is a formulation of concentrated cannabis resin and can contain naturally occurring terpenes for flavour. No vitamins or minerals are added, no sugars, sweeteners, colours or stabilizers.

No vitamin E acetate is used in any formulations.

In addition to the JUJU Power 510 battery and Tokyo Smoke LUMA battery currently available in stores and online, a range of branded 510 cartridges and LUMA pods are being released shortly. Soon to follow will be Canopy’s JUJU Joints disposable vape pens.

[9-11] TOKYO SMOKE L U M A VA P E P O D S Tokyo Smoke LUMA Vape Pods deliver clear, smooth taste, thanks to precise ceramic heating technology, and are available across the Tokyo Smoke Intents.

These premium formulas are thoughtfully curated without the use of carrier oils or vitamin E acetate. All pods feature Intentcoloured mouthpieces so you can easily identify your chosen cannabis varietal.

9 - Tokyo Smoke Go LUMA Vape Pod 10 - Tokyo Smoke Pause LUMA Vape Pod 11 - Tokyo Smoke Equalize LUMA Vape Pod

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C A N N A B I S

L E A D I N G L I N E O F VA P E S

CANNABIS

EDIBLES & DRINKABLES

EDIBLES & DRINKABLES: YOUR SAFE CONSUMPTION B Y

E L D O N

M A S C O L L

Whether you’re an edibles veteran or just canna-curious, the diverse selection of cannabis-infused food and drinks should make you happy even before you indulge. It won’t be long before your cannabis shopping list starts to mirror your grocery list with candies, lollipops, peanut butter, mints, water, sports drinks, popcorn and pizza sauce. Yes, pizza sauce! Cannabis can be substituted in any recipe that requires butter or oil.

When it comes to beverages, Canadian producers take a different approach than their US counterparts. In legal US states, the drinkables market is dominated by beverages with high THC levels aimed at consumers looking for the same psychoactive “high” they would get from smoking. Many of the Canadian producers have developed formulas to keep THC levels low, but with faster onset times. “To us, it’s an alternative to alcohol. We’re targeting the person who might otherwise have a beer or a glass of wine,” says Paul Weaver, Canopy Growth’s Director of Innovation. Canopy’s beverage line includes products where you start to feel the effects within 10 minutes.

Before you start stocking your pantry with a smorgasbord of tasty cannabis snacks, remember to heed the advice of smart weed eaters everywhere: dose low and go slow.

Edibles and drinkables take a different path in your body than smoked cannabis. The effects take longer to appear and they last longer when they do. Patience is a virtue you’ll learn the hard way if you decide to “have another one” when you don’t feel the hit immediately. Health Canada also warns you to refrain from mixing edibles with alcohol or other drugs.

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EDIBLES & DRINKABLES DEFINITION: Cannabis-infused food and beverages.

TYPES OF PRODUCTS: Cookies, chocolates, teas, sodas and more.

HOW THEY WORK: Edibles are processed and metabolized in your liver before going back into your bloodstream and then into your brain. In the case of chewable edibles—even those we don’t swallow, like mints and candies—the process takes a slight detour, since the membranes in your mouth are the first contact and active ingredients reach your bloodstream sublingually before reaching your liver.

THE HISTORY OF EDIBLES: You can trace ingestible cannabis back to the Stone Age. This time period also coincides with cultural advancements in music and art (wink wink). Edibles have roots in China and India dating back thousands of years. Hindu culture embraced Bhang, a cannabis-infused drink that’s still used today. But, it was in the early 1900s, American poet Alice B. Toklas came up with a recipe for "hash fudge.” The 1960s counterculture built on her recipe and soon we had brownies, cakes and cookies that made us feel better than ever without that funny smell.

DOSAGE GUIDELINES: Health Canada recommends products containing a maximum of 2.5mg of THC. Products are regulated to contain no more than 10mg of THC per package.

ONSET TIMES: It may take up to 4 hours for you to feel anything and the effects can last up to 12 hours, with residual effects lasting up to 24 hours.

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU TAKE TOO MUCH: Remember the rule: dose low and go slow. If you unintentionally overindulge, you’ll feel some unwanted effects. The good news is that they’ll go away…eventually. Here’s what you should do in the meantime: 1. Relax and rest.

2. Stay hydrated. 3. Avoid alcohol and caffeine.

4. Take a shower. 5. Sleep it off.

WHO MAKES WHAT:

AURORA Aurora’s debut line of cannabis edibles focuses on quality and consistency. Initial products include mints, gummies and chocolates for their brands Aurora Drift and San Rafael.

TRUSS BEVERAGES CO. CBD-infused spring waters are among the new products coming from this new company launched as a collaboration between Hexo and Molson Coors. Expect non-alcoholic, cannabis infused beverage breakthroughs to flow from this exciting new brand.

CANOPY GROWTH Their Smith Falls manufacturing facility is a former Hershey’s Chocolate plant. They’ve partnered with Hummingbird Chocolate to produce cannabis chocolate bars for three of their brands: Tweed, Bean & Bud and Tokyo Smoke. They’ve also introduced a line of cannabis beverages such as a grapefruit juice and lemonade in partnership with Seth Rogan’s Houseplant brand.

TILRAY Tilray CEO Brian Kennedy is a big advocate for cannabis beverages. Partnering with Budweiser, Tilray has developed non-alcoholic cannabis drinks with faster onset times.

Look out for Olli Brands coming soon to a dispensary near you

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H E A LT H & W E L L N E S S

ZEN AND THE ART OF VIDEO GAME STRESS RELIEF B Y

J O S H U A

O S T R O F F

We live in stressful times. Ice caps are melting, koalas are burning and global politics is a populist trash fire. Social media has pushed society post-truth, smartphones have allowed work to follow us home, and pretty much everything lately feels pretty bad en route to worse.

Everyone needs a release valve for all this mounting pressure, but what? Well, yes, that.

Obviously. But also, video games!

A UK study of millennial gamers has shown that 55 per cent of them use gaming to “unwind and relieve stress,” and other studies have found that virtual violence can help get frustration out and teach one to manage stress in a lowstakes environment.

But if you’re like me, wildly popular Fortnite battle royales or purposefully impossible FromSoftware games like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice can sometimes make matters worse.

While I respect the challenging game design,

sometimes I just need something a little less challenging. A game purpose-built to make me less stressed out instead of more.

And let’s be real, cannabis may not be the best choice before tasks requiring highintensity hand-eye coordination.

When discussing games designed to destress, you have to start with indie icon Jenova Chen and his studio, thatgamecompany. Widely considered the pioneer of “Zen” gaming, Chen made his name with instant classic Flower, a lushly gorgeous nature-based game poem in which you literally play a petal floating on the wind. That was followed by Journey, another astoundingly beautiful meditative offering where you climb a mountain in the desert, encountering other gamers along the way with whom you can only communicate in song and either assist or continue upward solo.

Chen’s latest award-winning work—Sky: Children of the Light, which Apple named 2019

“ Everyone needs a release valve for all this mounting pressure, but what? Well, yes, that. Obviously.

But also, video games!”

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iPhone Game of the Year—is a joy-inducing “social adventure” that expands on his earlier gameplay experiments while continuing his use of stylized game graphics as interactive artworks. (In fact, their past work has been regularly exhibited in art galleries.) Here, you fly around a pastoral sky kingdom with seven realms to ascend as you restore light to the world and return fallen anthropomorphized stars to their home in the heavens.

Each level offers a different ecosystem to explore—Endorian rainforests, snowy mountain slopes, verdant valleys, dune-laden deserts—but all are populated by other players doing the same as you. Unlike most massively-multiplayer online games, the goal here is to help strangers not kill them. You can work together, communicate via emotes and gift-giving, and fuel each other to fly farther.

Already a five-million-download hit on iOS, it’s arriving soon on Android devices and eventually on console.

Now what if you don’t want to make friends? What if you wanna be a jerk, just not to other people? Consider Untitled Goose Game, a nonviolent multiplatform “slapstickpuzzle-stealth” title in which you control the jerkiest member of the animal kingdom. With cartoonishly minimalist graphics reminiscent Katamari Damacy, you waddle about an English village completing meanspirited tasks on

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ZEN AND THE ART OF VIDEO GAME STRESS RELIEF

your to-do list like “get the groundskeeper wet” or “trap the boy in the phone booth.”

To be honest, the only thing sillier than the premise and gameplay is that what started out as a Slack channel joke among procrastinating programmers eventually won best breakthrough game at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards.

Now if you think being a groundskeeper would be more fun than tormenting one, there are a whole host of strategy simulation games

Switch. It offers an increasingly wide range of crops—Cotton! Soybeans! Oats!—and livestock, which now includes horses. And just like Gran Turismo-style racing sims, the game boasts “over 100 faithfully reproduced farming vehicles and tools,” including John Deere machinery.

For my money, though, the best farming game is the multiplatform Slime Rancher in which you, well, ranch slime. This first-person sandbox game set on a frontier alien planet is delightfully adorable and deceptively complex.

“ What started out as a Slack channel joke among procrastinating programmers eventually won ‘Best Breakthrough Game’ at the 2019 Golden Joystick Awards.” fitting that mould. Stardew Valley is a low-res farming RPG that applies a retro-graphics approach to players planting crops and raising livestock alongside additional activities like making and selling crafts or finding love and raising a family.

If you prefer to focus strictly on farming, and want it to look and play as realistic as possible, there’s Farming Simulator, a somewhat surprisingly popular title that boasts 20 (!) editions since debuting in 2008. While finding initial success on PC, the game has since branched out into mobile and consoles, most recently making it onto the Nintendo

You play upstart rancher Beatrix LeBeau and go about your day managing ranch resources while strategically tending to sentient balls of slime that come in a vast array of varieties with unpredictable personalities.

Raising your alien livestock will also earn you cash—the slimes poop gem-like “plorts” that you can sell on an ever-changing commodity market and the money earned lets you slowly open up the open-world and create more plots across the map. Though running your slime farm on this distant planet can occasionally get chaotic, the game’s literally oozing charm is pretty relaxing and probably

why it’s sold over two-million copies.

If exploring alien worlds sound interesting, but you’d prefer more freedom, then No Man’s Sky may be your best bet. Initially criticized upon release in 2016 because of its overly expensive aimlessness—the universe is procedurally generated, meaning AI expands the gameworld in real-time as you explore it—creators Hello Games have continued adding functionality, including multiplayer, an acclaimed VR mode, planetary base building and, just this winter, the ability to create in-game music using the new ByteBeat Device. That said, the game already boasts a cool, calming score by English post-rockers 65daysofstatic while you pilot your spaceship around breathtakingly beautiful galaxies and head out on planetary expeditions.

Of course, you can also turn stressful sandbox games into chilled-out explorers by taking advantage of open-world design to do whatever you want. I’ve probably spent more hours happily riding my horse across the vast and varied landscapes of Rockstar’s instantclassic western RPG Red Dead Redemption 2 than robbing trains or O.K. Corral-esque shootouts.

I’ve definitely spent more time web-slinging about New York City in the last Spider-Man game than following the storyline. And while Forza Horizon games are open-world racers, I’ve generally avoided competition in favour of driving with reckless abandon through the realistically realized environs of Great Britain, Southern France and the beach towns and outback of Australia.

So yes, these times are stressful. Games can’t change that. But they can help make you less stressed, and that’s a win.

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FOOD & DRINK

2 0 R E S TA U R A N T S

HUNGRY? B Y

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Dining across Ontario is inviting, delicious and a great thing to enjoy with a buzz. Here’s our list of hotspots across the province that will spark joy and make you feel good.

OT TAWA

TORONTO

C O N S TA N T I N E 1 5 C H A R L E S S T R E E T E A S T, TORONTO, ONTARIO M4Y 1S1

S U P P LY A N D D E M A N D

WYNONNA

1 3 3 5 W E L L I N G T O N S T R E E T, O T T A W A , ONTARIO K1Y 3B6

8 9 G E R R A R D S T R E E T E A S T, T O R O N T O , ONTARIO M4M 1Y8

This is the place you take your best friend for her birthday or your parents when they are in town. Featuring light, raw bar dishes and produce-friendly plates, Supply and Demand changes the menu often depending on what’s in season and available through local producers.

Gather the family (or friends you like better than your relatives) for Wynonna’s Family Feasting menu. While this seasonally-inspired menu rotates regularly, options include shareable plates such as Portuguese sardines and house-made focaccia.

FRASER CAFÉ 7 SPRINGFIELD ROAD, OT TAWA, ONTARIO K1M 1C8

H A M I LT O N

SEOUL SHAKERS 1 2 4 1 B L O O R S T R E E T W E S T, T O R O N T O , ONTARIO M6H 1N6

This hidden Korean snack bar is a definite Keeping it simple with local, seasonal find for anyone (and everyone) with a case ingredients is the name of the game at of the late-night munchies. Serving a Koreanthis neighbourhood café. The menu varies inspired menu of shareable plates, roast according to chef’s whim and features a range kimchi is a must-have along with grilled of hearty and heart-warming dishes, including beef short ribs. a barbequed pork rice bowl and steak frites.

R I V I E R A O T TA W A 6 2 S P A R K S S T R E E T, O T T A W A , ONTARIO K1P 5A5

The upscale sibling to Ottawa’s Shelby Burger and El Camino, among others, is stunning. This is where you go on a third date. Pasta dishes include lobster spaghetti, with sea bass, tuna and scallops. Seafood features prominently.

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Celebrating the distinct regions of the Mediterranean, the menu celebrates their woodburning oven that produces thin-crust pizzas, vegetable dishes and family-style feasts that makes this an excellent spot any night of the week. Plus, the location inside The Andor House encourages an intimate atmosphere that’s welcoming for guests and locals.

L O G A’ S C O R N E R 216 CLOSE AVENUE, TORONTO, ONTARIO M5K 1M3

Anchored in Parkdale, this Tibetan takeout restaurant features a modest café area that’s as comfortable as your living room.

Dine on traditional house-made Tibetan dumplings, and other great comfort food offerings. Did we mention the hot sauce?

It's legendary.

BORN & RAISED 2 2 4 J A M E S S T. N O R T H , H A M I LT O N , ONTARIO L8R 2L3

Raw bar meets pizza oven and at Born & Raised, it doesn’t get any better. Visit this Italian hotspot on Mondays after 9pm for $5 margarita pizzas and $2 shucked oysters. Squid ink pasta, meatballs and polenta and $5 gelato.

HAMBRGR 2 0 7 O T T A W A S T R E E T, N O R T H , H A M I LT O N , O N TA R I O L 8 H 3 Z 4

Best burgers in town. In Ontario? With three Hamilton locations that feature local, hormonefree, fresh-ground burgers including classic customizable options, it just might be. Not into beef? Try the chicken and the extensive list of pairable beers and custom cocktails.

D R I N K & F O O D

NIAGARA-ON-THE-L AKE

BARRIE

BACKHOUSE

THE FARMHOUSE

2 4 2 M A R Y S T R E E T, N I A G A R A - O N THE-L AKE, ONTARIO L0S 1J0

2 6 8 B R A D F O R D S T. B A R R I E , ONTARIO L4N 3B7

Tucked away in a strip mall, Backhouse is home to climate cool cuisine. Many of the ingredients are grown in-house and the unexpected aroma of peach wood fills the dining room. A chef’s tasting menu is customized regularly and includes handmade pastas, heritage chicken and house-made sourdough breads. Needless to say, this is your dinner stop on that weekend country wine tour.

Located on Barrie’s waterfront, the Farmhouse is open from breakfast through dinner so that you never go hungry. Locally grown ingredients drive the menu, which plays well for date nights and family dinner.

The daily “Appy Hour” ($6.50 each) features a selection of cocktails, wines, beers and appetizers. Done and done.

KINGSTON

Serving Mediterranean fare with a twist, Atomica Kitchen has become a favourite downtown Kingston spot. An inclusive menu featuring plant-based fare, pizzas, small and large plates, each with an inventive spin on classics including carbonara and ziti, this is a place that really hits the spot. Plus, the signature cocktail menu, hummus and bruschetta bar are perfect for late-night eats.

With simplicity of ingredients taking centre stage, The Works Gourmet Burger Bistro only uses Canadian-raised AAA beef in its burger patties. Serving deli-style sandwiches and salads along with classic poutine, the restaurant offers a relaxed atmosphere where beer, wine and spirits are served up alongside the ultimate shakes.

WINDSOR

THE SQUIRREL CAGE

7 3 C O L L I E R S T. B A R R I E , ONTARIO L4M 1G7

1 M A I D E N L N . W E S T, W I N D S O R , ONTARIO N9A 5V9

Homestyle cooking with a modern spirit, everyday is different at Groovy Tuesday’s 1 9 2 O N T A R I O S T. K I N G S T O N , Bistro. While you may not expect an upscale ONTARIO K7L 2Y8 eatery in Barrie, this bistro is a welcome Wood-fired pizzas are in regular rotation at addition to the region’s up-and-coming food Wooden heads Gourmet Pizza, a destination scene. While the menu offerings are small, for families, students and business gatherings. the chef’s approach to seasonal cuisine is Along with pizzas, the menu also includes satisfyingly simple, making for an entirely tapas dishes and a hearty selection of chicken delightful dining experience. and fish options. Situated in Kingston’s historic downtown, you’ll always find LONDON something new on the menu.

7 1 B R O C K S T. K I N G S T O N , ONTARIO K7L 2Z9

1 4 5 K I N G S T. L O N D O N , ONTARIO, N6A 1C3

GROOVY T U E S D AY ’ S B I S T R O

WOODEN HEADS GOURMET PIZZA

AT O M I C A K I T C H E N

THE WORKS GOURMET BURGER BISTRO

GARLICS OF LONDON 4 8 1 R I C H M O N D S T R E E T W E S T, LONDON, ONTARIO N6A 3E4

Since 1992, Garlics of London has been home to seasonally prepared dishes, all underscored by unique spins on garlic.

Known for its rustic comfort food, the menu offers gluten-free and vegetarian options including garlic bisque and garlic frites.

Upscale but down-to-earth.

One of Windsor’s hidden gems, the Squirrel Cage offers simple, finely-tuned homemade fare including paninis, salads and daily soups. Chill, the restaurant is a favourite for weekend breakfast and brunch that includes a variety of egg dishes with a creative spin.

THE TWISTED APRON 1 8 3 3 W Y A N D O T T E S T. E A S T, W I N D S O R , ONTARIO N8Y 1E2

The quaint and cozy atmosphere at The Twisted Apron really draws you in any day of the week. Billed as offering comfort food with a twist, perogies, mac and cheese and crispy chicken are among the menu offerings. With brunch served until 7 p.m., you’ve always got options.

For more restaurants and locations, visit our page at papersmagazine.ca/foodanddrink

PA P E R S

M A G A Z I N E

P – 5 9

The explorers, the never jaded, the always curious TSUNAMI (Northern Berry) Indica

HEXO’s flower goes straight to the heart of those determined to own life’s moments.

Check out their 5 faves.

AT L A N T I S (AK-47) Hybrid

Averages:

Averages:

THC 22% CBD 0%

THC 19% CBD 0%

When you want to talk about something that is massive and all-encompassing, you call it a tsunami.

B AY O U (Dark Desire)

Plato meant Atlantis to be fictional, but that hasn’t stopped generations of explorers from seeking it.

LAGOON (Northern Berry)

Indica

Indica

Averages:

Averages:

THC 9% CBD 0% The bayou is a mysterious place. These marshes are alive with lush and slow-moving life that invites insatiable curiosity.

THC 19% CBD 0% The sun, the blue waters, the distant hum of waves.

Our lagoon is sweet and spicy, too.

HELIOS (Snow Leopard) Sativa Averages:

THC 18% CBD 0% To the ancient Greeks, Helios was a handsome and strapping young god who had one sweet ride: a chariot of the sun.

hexo.com

CROSSWORDS

P U Z Z L E

WRAP-UP

B Y

B A R B A R A

C R O S S S W O R D

THE LAST DRAG O L S O N

ACROSS 1 Number of leaflets on a typical marijuana leaf 6 Neighbour of Norw.

10 Geddy Lee's band 14 Nova Scotia town dubbed "The Hub" 15 Bubbly chocolate bar 16 ___ occasion (never) 17 Prep stage for surgery patients 18 Line up at Whistler Blackcomb?

19 Hockey goal attempt 20 Sandwich shops 22 Suck up, in a way 24 Psychedelic marijuana strain 27 Shoe brand sued by Nike 29 ___-ground missile 30 "I ___ Rock" (Simon and Garfunkel) 31 Brittle, glasslike cannabis extract 33 Partner of drugs and rock & roll 34 Agave plant variety 36 Put into effect, as a law 38 "... merrily, life is ___ dream" 41 "Then again", in a tweet 42 Yesterday's headlines 45 Mr. T film about a taxi company 49 Pou ___ (vantage point) 50 What gives marijuana its classic smell 53 ___ Hill of hip-hop 54 Stage, as the "terrible twos"

56 57 58 60 62 63 65 69 70 71 72 73 74

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Star Wars sage Clone alternative in cannabis growing Long-tailed primates of Madagascar "You have to ___ lot of frogs ..."

"Would ___ to You?" (Eurythmics hit) Working stiff, for short Mutual give-and-take?

Skipped town Not fair, to the ump Stand before a painter?

"Heads up, Tiger!"

Apartment caretaker, for short Low-grade cannabis, slangily DOWN Motor oil additive Make a boo-boo Scene on the Seine Eat into "Aint gonna happen" Counterpart of indica, in cannabis cultivation Surfing destination "It's the end of an ___" "Explorer" with a talking backpack Martini's partner in wine Cause to fall in a joust Laughed like Laugh-In's Lily Tomlin Smoke up in a small, airtight space

21 23 24 25 26 28 31 32 35 37 39 40 42 43 44 46 47 48 49 51 52 55 57 59 61 64 66 67 68

"Di-dah" lead-in Scannable price tag "Grass" or "weed" kin in pot lingo Asia's ___ Darya River Efron of "Baywatch" (2017) Oxygen's is 8, in chem.

Stroll along casually Take a fast break?

Non-psychoactive cannabis ingred.

Psychoactive cannabis ingred.

"Caddyshack" prop?

Askew or amiss Shakespearean general duped by Iago Richer, as soil Voiced one's concerns B-F link Texter's R, often B.C. ___ (high-quality pot strain) Marijuana/tobacco blended joint Cannabis consumable "I Can" rapper Elvis's "Blue ___ Shoes" Halifax-born singer McLauchlan Sunscreen figs.

Crock-pot concoction Mary's boss, played by Ed Quick-wink link Mo. name meaning "ten", oddly 8-foot statue in Vegreville, Alta.

PA P E R S

M A G A Z I N E

P – 6 1

WELL SMOKED , NEVER BURNT.

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