Category: Viral

If you’ve ever eaten magic mushrooms — and let’s face it, you likely have if you’re reading this article — then you’re well aware that they taste like a combination of 100-year-old sunflower seeds and dehydrated packing peanuts. They’re horrific. Which explains why for as long as people have been taking psilocybin mushrooms, they’ve been pairing them with some type of food to make the drugs go down easier. The first time I had magic mushrooms, I ate them between bites of a fried chicken breast. I don’t recommend it.

The lack of consensus around what foods pair well with mushrooms is why mycology expert Dr. K. Mandrake (who has a doctorate in mycology) teamed up with writer and editor Virginia Haze to create the Psilocybin Chef Cookbook, a beginner’s guide to the brave new world of psychedelic cuisine. The duo wrote the Psilocybin Chef Cookbook after fans of their first book, The Psilocybin Mushroom Bible: The Definitive Guide to Growing and Using Magic Mushrooms, took an interest in some of the food-pairing recommendations included at the end of the book.

“Both K and I are really massive kitchen fiends,” Haze told me over the phone. “I really wanted to look into the cooking side of things because I’ve been taking shrooms for too long, I really just can’t chew them without wanting to vomit… and that’s not a good way to start a trip.”

The pair recently hosted a live cooking demonstration with Double Blind Mag and we linked up afterwards to talk the basics of cooking with psilocybin. Over the course of the discussion, we talked about dosing, flavor pairings, and Dr. K and Virginia provided us with a recipe for “Grilled Cheese Shroomwiches” from their book.

Let’s dive in to the world of psilocybin cooking!

PART I: The Interview

Before we get into questions about cooking, it’s important we talk about dosing. It’s so delicate, what are guidelines to follow for the unexperienced?

Dr. K: Start slow and start low. You can always have a little more, second chocolate, or a second edible, but it is a really personal thing and set and setting are so important. You hear these people advocating for huge heroic doses, like the equivalent of five dried grams or more, in the book we start with a tenth of that, which is what most people would consider the high end of a microdose or a very low dose.

We don’t want people to think they have to take these incredibly high doses every time. We’ve made allowances for people to add more if they want, but we always suggest that people start low.

Virginia: For every recipe, there is the ability to double up but how strong a dose feels is so reliant on a number of different things. If you’ve slept, how much you’ve eaten in the day, whether you’re stressed out, whether you’re hydrated, how hot it is, how humid it is. As Dr. K said, you can always take more, but you can’t take less.

I remember one of the first times I took .5 of a dose, which is really low, and I was just so out of it for the entire night and it must’ve just been my particular circumstance that day, but I never assumed it could’ve been that trippy, so we kind of work off that basis.

Dr. K: And we work with just Psilocybin cubensis, which is the species a lot of people would grow at home, it’s a commonly cultivated species, there is a bit of variation of potency, but it’s more consistent to work with one species.

In the cannabis world tolerance is so affected by frequency of use, weight, your digestion, is it the same for ingesting mushrooms? Does a standard exist for a microdose of psilocybin?

Dr. K: Maybe a tenth of what you would consider a regular dose for you. The entire point is that it shouldn’t be perceptible. You should feel normal, you shouldn’t feel the walls breathing, and you shouldn’t feel… not straight, if you know what I mean. As you say, dosing is so hard to get ahold of, again we say start at your lowest. Take a tenth of what would be your lowest dose normally and see how you feel on that.

If you’re not getting the effects that you want — which with microdosing is usually a reduction of anxiety — you can always double up.

It’s important to start low, because you’re always trying to work with that sub-perceptual effect. If you feel it you’ve gone too far. You want to start low and work your way up to that level. If you’re going to push it do it on a day you’re not so busy. A day where having the full-blown psychedelic experience wouldn’t be too much of a problem.

What’s the best delivery system for psilocybin? Is it steeping it in liquid, baking it, raw, is there a better way or one that you’ve found agrees with the effects more?

Dr K: The way that is best is the way that works for you. Overall your mindset on this is really going to be affected by how you choose to dose yourself. What I personally like is some of the extractions from the book. You’re having a drink, so it’s very light and there isn’t any material to digest it, the onset is quite quick, I find it quite clean.

Virginia: I like the alcoholic extraction the best, just because I can put it in a dropper bottle and throw it in my freezer and it’ll last for ages. It’s really easy to microdose with it and freeze it into cubes of orange juice and throw it in your juice in the morning. It’s not like cannabis in the sense that if you smoke the same strain of cannabis and you put it in an edible and you do dabs with it, it’ll affect you in a noticeably different way, that’s not really applicable with shrooms. It’s whatever fits into your life the best.

Can you pair shrooms with alcohol or wine? Does that infringe on the experience or muddy it in some way?

Virginia: Well, the alcohol extraction is really a small amount of alcohol. You wouldn’t feel the effects of the alcohol unless you had it with an additional amount of cocktails. People come to shrooms from a variety of different backgrounds and communities, some really lean into a cultural and spiritual side of things. Those people would see it as sullying the experience, even if it was just a little bit of alcohol. We respect that, it’s just not really how our culture around shrooms works. Personally, I think when mixing alcohol with any kind of stimulant or mind-altering substance you should always be really careful, but saying that, we would have a beer while we took shrooms, so for us making a mild cocktail is just as enjoyable.

Dr. K: I think people should definitely proceed with caution if it’s something they’ve never done before. When you mix multiple drugs together, regardless of what they are, there are a lot of different outcomes you can get from that depending on when and how you take each one. With the simple ethanol extraction though, we’re looking at like a milliliter of alcohol so that’s not enough for anyone who wants to drink really. Some people will want to be totally pure about it, and in those cases we provide recipes for those people but we also provide recipes for small to medium amounts of alcohol for cocktail-like recipes.

Are there any specific ingredients that lessen or heighten the effects of mushrooms?

Dr. K: We try and be guided by what research is out there but unfortunately there is very little research about this brave new world of psychedelics. We work with some tried and tested ones, like ginger, which in particular is an antiemetic, so if people get nausea, ginger is an established antiemetic and reduces nausea.

Virginia: Citrus juice, but I don’t know how much of that is based in science and how much is anecdotal. The general idea is that when you ingest psilocybin your body turns it into psilocin, and that’s what brings the magic. The idea is that if you put shrooms or shroom material into a lemon juice or a lime juice it already begins that process for you, so by the time you ingest it it’ll already have done a bit of the work, which will get you higher quicker. That’s what lemon tek is, which is basically putting mushroom material in lemon juice and chugging it, which is effective but kind of horrific. It’s also why we use lime juice in our truffles.

If you’re spacing out a little bit too much, or further than you’d like to go, there is an anecdote that sugar can help to bring you back to yourself a little bit.

Dr. K: Yeah most of the stuff that we work with in this area is pretty anecdotal. Ultimately, no one is going to fund the study of the effectiveness of lemon juice in a psychoactive experience, but if they are, I know two people who could lead that study and write it up!

On that subject is there some type of food-related psilocybin study you’d be specifically interested in?

Virginia: Proper scientific peer-reviewed research into whether or not heat degrades psilocybin. This is something we wrote about in the book, it remains a huge bone of contention within the psilocybin community, some people very strongly feel that it does degrade psilocybin, so you shouldn’t put mushrooms into anything that you’re going to bake and you shouldn’t heat it for an extended period of time but there is no evidence for either way!

In the book, we’ve provided a bunch of recipes that are no-cook ingredients, like our cheesecake, but we do have things like brownies because it could be true! I’d love to put that to bed with science.

Dr. K: With the heat thing as well, it’s on a continuum. How much heat do you add-in? How long are you heating it for, it’s not just as soon as the thing comes near heat its over, that’s definitely not the case. It may not be the strongest dose, so you may get a little loss of potency but it doesn’t render it completely inactive. Having some data on that would be great, as well as the effectiveness of lemon tea.

Do you have any favorite flavor pairings?

Virginia: Molecular gastronomy works on the idea that flavors that are similar on a molecular level work well together, no matter how strange they appear. Parsely and white chocolate, chili and cinnamon, the pairing that we’ve played on with this in mind is blueberries and shrooms.

They complement each other in a way that is difficult to understand until you experience it. We came upon the idea of doing it in a risotto, because it’s slightly acidic, it really worked well as a platform for that flavor pairing.

Dr. K: When it comes to dried mushrooms, we use earthy flavors like dark chocolate, that strong intense flavor works with the earthy notes of the mushrooms, but then we have things like lime juice and it’ll just cut straight through and completely mask the flavor. A chocolate recipe with elements of citrus and dark chocolate has a lot going on that your brain doesn’t really register mushroom material.

That’s the first recipe I played with — ginger and lime chocolate truffles. It’s something we’ve used in the first and second book.

On that subject, recipes, what’s a good recipe to start off? What do you recommend for the person who has never made food with psilocybin?

Virginia: I think I would always recommend people start off with the ginger and lime chocolate truffles. It’s a fun process, it lets you get a little bit messy, but they also look really cool at the end of the day. They’ve very inconspicuous and they last for a long time. I have some in my fridge that are at least a year old, they won’t be the most potent in the world but they’ll still work.

Dr. K: The chocolate is pretty good because it gives you the sense that you’ve created something. All of the drinks recipes are also very straight forward. The smoothies, or the juice-based recipes, we have a nice one that works with beetroot and apple juice, and it’s based on The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. They used to put their acid in kool-aid, we went with that bright color and made this purple beetroot based smoothie/juice. It drinks like a house drink, its just got a little psychedelic edge to it.

Virginia: We also have a really good grilled cheese recipe.

PART II: The Recipe

Grilled Cheese Shroomwich

Ingredients

• 4 slices good-quality sourdough
• 200 grams of your favorite cheese; we used Camembert and Shropshire blue (because we’re British) but you could use whatever you want.
• 2 tablespoons red onion marmalade 1 gram of ground shrooms
• olive oil
• good quality butter

Servings: 2
Prep time : 5 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes

Method

• Butter the bread.
• Top two of the slices of bread with the cheese.
• Top each cheese layer with half of the ground shrooms.
• Spread the other two slices of bread with the marmalade.
• Press together one cheese slice and one marmalade slice to make a sandwich and butter the outsides of the bread.
• Repeat with the other slices to make a second sandwich.
• Heat a griddle pan and fry each sandwich on each side for 3–4 minutes
• Slice and serve with a side salad, pickles and a cold beer.

Recipe taken from The Psilocybin Chef Cookbook Dr. K Mandrake & Virginia Haze

Succession is not only one of the most awards-friendly shows on television right now, but it’s also one of the most profane. Creator Jesse Armstrong used to write for the British political show The Thick Of It — and its movie spin-off, In the Loop, and its semi-American remake, Veep — which was so cuss word-friendly the staff actually included a “swearing consultant” to punch up the profanity. On top of being riddled with curses, Succession is also one of the most anti-rich shows on television, its monstrous corporate family almost as evil as the one currently occupying the White House.

So when Team Succession got together to get out the vote, it was bound to be very blue. As per Deadline, a handful of cast members went above and beyond, recording not just one but five videos to help drive awareness only two weeks shy of Election Day. But they didn’t just give vague bromides about the importance of voting. Each one was tailor-made for five battleground states — Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Arizona, and South Carolina — breaking down the specific rules of each part of the union.

Four of the five videos are hosted by J. Smith-Cameron, spiritually channeling her role as ever resourceful Roy family counsel Gerri Kellman. She’s the one asking the big questions over Zoom, directed at fellow cast members. In the one for Wisconsin, which you can watch above, she asks Logan Roy himself, Brian Cox, such matters as the deadline for voter registration, voting by mail, early voting, and son. Their banter is liberally peppered with bleeped out cussing. For instance, when Smith-Cameron asks Cox if everyone is eligible for mail-in voting, he replies in the affirmative, then adds, “And anyone who says otherwise can [bleep] the [bleep] off.”

Other videos follow suit. The one for Pennsylvania finds Smith-Cameron talking to both Cox, again, and Peter Friedman, who plays longtime Logan ally Frank Vernon, as well as Fisher Stevens (Hugo Baker, the exec in charge of dealing with the Brightstar curise line debacle) and David Rasche (Waystar RoyCo’s chief financial officer, who has a panic attack during the terrorist hostage situation in Season 2).

The one for Florida features Smith-Cameron and Cox again.

The one for South Carolina is just Smith-Cameron and Stevens.

And the one for South Carolina features Alan Ruck, aka mostly (but not always) laidback Connor Roy, and Justine Lipa, aka Connor’s lady friend.

Anyway, Election Day is November 3, but if you can, as the Succession cast would say, f*cking vote now, for f*ck’s sake.

(Via Deadline)

The November election is only weeks away and while there have been tons of musicians suing Trump over using their music at rallies, some are actually supporting him. Recently Ice Cube was the source of controversy after news broke that he worked with the Trump campaign, although he maintains that he has not “endorsed anybody.” The same can’t be said for 50 Cent now, who has apparently changed his vote.

The rapper’s change of heart came Monday shortly after Joe Biden shared his campaign’s tax plan. Under the former vice president’s plan, taxes will be raised for those making over $400,000. According to CNBC, the wealthy living in California and New York state could see 62% of their income taxed — and 50’s not happy about that number.

Sharing a photo of a CNBC’s report, 50 wrote, “WHAT THE F*CK! (VOTE ForTRUMP) IM OUT, F*CK NEW YORK The KNICKS never win anyway.” The rapper added: “I don’t care Trump doesn’t like black people 62% are you out of ya f*cking mind.”

Of course, 50 Cent’s pivot to the right has sparked quite a backlash on Twitter, with fans pointing out that his change of heart is solely due to his refusal to pay more in taxes.

You can read 50 Cent’s endorsement above.

After debuting a handful of self-released albums as well as a collection of demos, Blackstarkids have signed to Dirty Hit and now share a label with the likes of The 1975, Rina Sawayama, Beabadoobee, and The Japanese House. The Kansas City trio are days away from releasing their next full-length effort and have already caused a stir with their recent singles. Offering one last taste of their LP Whatever, Man, Blackstarkids share the buzzing track “Acting Normal.”

Tapping into early ’00s nostalgia through the lens of suburban, Gen Z musicians, “Acting Normal” boasts videogame-like synths, fuzzy guitar, and driving drums. While upbeat, the instrumentals leave ample room for each member of Blackstarkids to offer their own daydream about a day as a “normal” person. “I’m done acting normal / No I don’t give a damn / About what they say / ‘Cause I know who I am,” they sing.

“Acting Normal” is the latest single released off of Whatever, Man and follows a handful of well-received tracks. Their recent single titled “Frankie Muniz” even saw a sincere co-sign from the Malcolm In The Middle actor himself.

Listen to Blackstarkids’ “Acting Normal” above.

Whatever, Man is out 10/22 via Dirty Hit. Pre-order it here.

Helen Ballentine introduced the world to her moniker Skullcrusher with her 4-track self-titled EP back in July. Her gentle melodies and enthralling lyrical delivery quickly captured a large fanbase. Riding the momentum of her EP, Skullcrusher returns with two new songs.

Skullcrusher’s track “Farm” arrived alongside an artful video. Directed by Silken Weinberg, the visual depicts Skullcrusher as the lead role in her own play. The singer holds a glazed look as the set continuously morphs around her.

About “Farm,” Skullcrusher said she was inspired by reflecting on vignettes of her childhood:

“‘Farm’ was created out of time I spent reflecting on my childhood and family. The process of developing it to its current version ended up being really tied to these reflections. Noah and I were visiting my family on the East Coast when the decision was made to release it in the coming months. We went up to a studio in Woodstock, a couple hours from where I grew up, and recorded the song in a day. I was able to gather a lot of really nostalgic sounds from the area: crickets, cicadas, the beach in CT and the creaking of old homes. I had the ability to really talk through the memories and emotions of the song and how they could be manifested sonically.”

Along with “Farm,” Skullcrusher also appeased fans with a cover of Radiohead’s 1997 track “Lift.” Infusing her own style into the track, the singer transformed the song into a wistful ballad complete with banjo, rolling snares, and Skullcrusher’s folksy lilt.

Watch “Farm” and listen to Skullcrusher’s “Lift” Radiohead cover above.

Robert Downey Jr. is retired, at least from the MCU, meaning he never has to strap on that clunky helmet again. And that’s good news for him because he hated wearing it. The actor and occasional singer was one of David Letterman’s guests on the upcoming season of his Netflix chat show My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, alongside the likes of Lizzo, Kim Kardashian West, and Dave Chappelle. And when the aggressively bearded former late night host about Iron Man helmet, saying “Is that thing really there?”, his guest had some thoughts.

“Excellent question,” Downey replied with a big smirk, ready to reveal the irksome evolution of the costume that helped take his career next level. It didn’t start off so well. “Initially everything was there. They wanted to spend as little as they could on CG replacements.” (As you’ll recall, the first Iron Man was seen as a potentially risky proposition, “only” costing about $140 million in 2008 dollars.)

Downey went on to describe how the filmmakers assumed he could actually act with the helmet on.

I remember this helmet went on, then there’d be a shot, I’d be in this whole suit. And they’d say, ‘Alright, Robert, it’s like you’ve landed on the roof, so when we say action, just go like that, like you just landed, and start moving forward.’ So I moved with this helmet on, and it slammed closed, so I couldn’t see anything. And then these LED lights went on, and it was like Manchurian Candidate, like I was absolutely blinded.

It got better, but it appears he grew reluctant to have an actual helmet on his actual head at all. “By the time we were doing the last Avengers, they’d be like, ‘Hey, Robert, would you mind putting on that…’,” Downey said. To which he would reply, “Helmet? No. Yes? No. Paint two dots here and you can paint it in later.”

You can find out what other tidbits Downey dished out to Letterman when the show’s third season drops on Netflix on October 21. Perhaps he has some choice words about acting with another menace — CGI talking animals — in his notorious stab at Doctor Dolittle.

Zendaya says that more episodes of Euphoria are coming a lot sooner than we anticipated. The 2019 smash hit on HBO, which helped earn its lead actress a milestone Emmy award earlier this year, seems to have more episodes on the way before the end of 2020.

The award-winning actress shared on social media that two new episodes are on the way, and she shared a cryptic image to Instagram that looks like a reflection of her character in the blue eyes of another person.

“We really missed them. Two special Euphoria episodes coming soon. First one December 6th on @hbo,” Zendaya shared.

The “them” is perhaps a reference to Zendaya’s Rue and Hunter Schafer’s Jules Vaughn, the two main characters of the show. But details about what actually are coming in early December, or whether these two episodes are the start of a new full season or a pandemic-created interlude of sorts, were initially scarce.

HBO later shared a press release with more details about the first of the two special episodes, which were shot amid the pandemic.

In the aftermath of being left by Jules at the train station and relapsing, the first special episode follows Rue (played by Emmy®-winner Zendaya) as she celebrates Christmas. Written and directed by series creator Sam Levinson, the episode, titled “Trouble Don’t Last Always,” also stars Colman Domingo, who appeared in season one. The title and date of the second episode are forthcoming. Both special episodes were produced under COVID-19 guidelines.

Regardless, it’s sure to be exciting news for the show’s legion of fans, who either identified with or were transfixed by Rue’s ups and downs when it came to drug addiction, young love and just generally trying to survive Sam Levinson’s take on modern high school life. Hopefully, the announcement means a trailer of some sort is on the way soon, but we do know we’ll see Zendaya and Schafer back a lot sooner than many anticipated.

When it comes to the topic of race, we all have questions. And sometimes, it honestly can be embarrassing to ask perfectly well-intentioned questions lest someone accuse you of being ignorant, or worse, racist, for simply admitting you don’t know the answer.

America has a complicated history with race. For as long as we’ve been a country, our culture, politics and commerce have been structured in a way to deny our nation’s past crimes, minimize the structural and systemic racism that still exists and make the entire discussion one that most people would rather simply not have.

For example, have you ever wondered what’s really behind the term Black Pride? Is it an uplifting phrase for the Black community or a divisive term? Most people instinctively put the term “White Pride” in a negative context. Is there such a thing as non-racist, racial pride for white people? And while we’re at it, what about Asian people, Native Americans, and so on?

Yes, a lot of people raise these questions with bad intent. But if you’ve ever genuinely wanted an answer, either for yourself or so that you best know how to handle the question when talking to someone with racist views, writer/director Michael McWhorter put together a short, simple and irrefutable video clip explaining why “White Pride” isn’t a real thing, why “Black Pride” is and all the little details in between.

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“I knew this question was coming and I waited until someone asked nicely to respond,” McWhorter says at the beginning of his video. “So, no, there’s no such thing as ‘White Pride.’ In part, because there is no white culture.”

Now, “hold on,” you might be thinking. Is this another try-hard white guy attacking fellow white people to appear woke? No, what McWhorter says next is one of the most insightful, and inclusive, explanations for anyone who is white, or really anyone who isn’t Black, and might be wondering how they can identify with their own cultural heritage in a constructive and meaningful way. Also, as a Southern, white man, McWhortner might be just the perfect messenger for those who have been unable or unwilling to answer the question on their own.

Viola Davis on Facebook Watch

“You can have pride based on your ethnicity, like Scottish, German, Irish,” he says. “You can even have regional pride, like Southern Pride. These things usually apply to your cultural identity, like how you grew up, etc.”

OK, hard to argue with that. And a handy explanation for how to positively celebrate your culture as a white person. But what about those who still want to generally “take back” the idea of White Pride or who attack the concept/origins of Black Pride?

“Some people argue, ‘well, others have pride.’ And no, they don’t,” he continues. Chicano, Latino pride, Asian pride, those are not colors. The one exception is Black pride. And that’s because they’ve had a unique experience no one else has. Black Americans were robbed of their culture. They don’t know where they come from.”

McWhorter goes on to explain the basics of the African-American diaspora and how it is different than other cultural heritages or even legacies of racism that other ethic or religious groups have experienced.

And if someone still needs an explanation of why the term itself is unnecessary, problematic and makes almost everyone more than a little uncomfortable, McWhorter reminds us simply that, “White Pride was coined by white supremacists.”

So, there you have it. It’s perfectly OK to celebrate your heritage without being a racist. And Black pride is an inclusive, uplifting term used to help people whose ancestor had their freedom and their heritage itself stolen from them. It’s not that complicated!

Conor McGregor and Dustin Poirier are set to meet in a rematch of their 2014 fight that saw McGregor win by way of a first round knockout, with both fighters agreeing in principle to the January 23 date but with contracts still needing to be finalized and signed — which means it is not exactly a 100 percent certainty the fight happens.

If they do get pens to paper, the bout could be for No. 1 contender status in the lightweight division, with the winner in line for a shot at Khabib Nurmagomedov’s belt. However, given that McGregor’s coach John Kavanagh noted he’d like to see them fight at 170 pounds rather than 155 pounds, there are some concerns from Khabib’s camp about such a fight serving as a battle for the top contender at 155 pounds.

Khabib spoke with SportsCentre on TSN on Monday as he gets ready for his title fight with Justin Gaethje this coming Saturday, and reaffirmed that he will consider whomever comes out on top of Poirier’s next bout the top contender, provided they fight at 155 pounds.

This makes complete and total sense, as if you are wondering who is the best at 155 pounds you should, well, probably fight at 155 pounds and not 170. That said, it wouldn’t be the fight game if there wasn’t some silly controversy and what’s more ridiculous than judging the best fighter at 155 pounds based off how they fare while 15 pounds heavier.

The biggest point of contention is that, if McGregor wants to fight at 170 then he should fight at 170. To say they should see who’s best when fully hydrated is certainly a valid point from Kavanagh, as weight-cutting remains an issue in combat sports, but if it’s a concern that McGregor wouldn’t be at his best at 155 then maybe he shouldn’t be gunning for contendership at that weight.

Billie Eilish’s shoes gave fans a flashback to the 2015 viral photo of a dress which the internet couldn’t decide if it was blue and black or pink and white. During a recent Q&A session on her Instagram Stories, the singer gave her own version of the optical illusion — this time involving sneakers.

Fielding a variety of questions from fans about her music and personal life, Eilish was asked about the original 2015 meme and urged to give her opinion on the colors she saw. Taking things one step further, the singer revealed she was in a similar situation recently after she showed off a pair of her sneakers to her father. Eilish’s father apparently incorrectly saw her Uptempo Nike sneakers as pink and white, when they are supposed to be mint green and white.

Many of Eilish’s followers said they also saw pink and white, and Eilish wasn’t having it. “So listen. You guys are all my f*cking dad,” she said.

Still, several of Eilish’s followers weren’t convinced and a debate ensued over the proper color of the shoes.

After seeing the arguments, Eilish attempted to settle the debate once and for all and leaned on Google to provide a final answer.

Check out photos of Eilish’s sneakers above.