Nathel Anderson was never supposed to work in the restaurant industry.
Her parents had been in the business for a long time, and they didn’t want their kid to get into it—the hard work, the long hours, the stress. She remembers her dad warning her after she read Anthony Bourdain’s behind-the-scenes memoir Kitchen Confidential: It’s not like that.
But the heart wants what it wants, and in high school, Anderson’s first job was at Pizza Hut. “I was just talking to my mom the other day, and she was laughing about it, because she says that I would take it so seriously,” she says. She worked in restaurants throughout high school, then “line cooked around” Minneapolis and St. Paul after that, at spots like Tilia in Linden Hills and Lynnhurst’s St. Genevieve.
How’d she end up helming the kitchen at Twin Cities THC retailer Hemp House, where she oversees a growing line of cheffy edibles and drinkables? Well, “It’s kind of a funny story,” Anderson says.
After Anderson had a baby, the long kitchen hours were just too much. She applied to be a barista at Patisserie 46—something easier to handle for a while—but there, chef John Kraus had other ideas. “He sat me down, and they were like, ‘I know you applied to be a barista, but would you be interested in helping our chocolatier instead?’”
Reluctantly, she said yes. And she thrived. Anderson had a knack for making pastries, and she fell in love with it. She’d go on to help open Estelle in St. Paul, where she oversaw the pastry program. That’s where a regular, who loved those pastries, would mention a friend who owned Hemp House and knew they were interested in making THC edibles.
Did Anderson know anything about developing THC desserts? “Um, no. Zero experience,” she says. But she figured, what the hell? Her daughter was about to enter kindergarten, and her priorities were shifting once again.
No Coast Cannabis Co.’s Pâte de Fruit won Best Gummy Flavor (Natural) in Racket’s 2024 Weed Weviews Wewards.Jessica Armbruster
For Anderson, designing THC treats is like a “fun science experiment,” with a lot of trial and error. “It’s all just figuring it out as you go,” she says. She may not have known how to make edibles a few years ago, but she’s always loved to figure things out in the kitchen, and the exacting specifications are familiar after so many years in the fussy, highly specialized world of pastries and chocolates.
The biggest difference is that here, her confections have to be sent to a lab for testing after they’re developed. “Definitely some major anxiety compared to restaurants,” she says.
Hemp House was initially excited to have Anderson make suckers and ice cream, two things that were expressly banned in the state’s cannabis bill because of their resemblance to products marketed to kids. Instead, she’s gotten creative.
“We weren’t going to do gummies, but I had a random mix of purees in my freezer, and I just made some pâte de fruits,” she says. “They were like, ‘OK, we gotta do gummies now.’”
Over the last few years, Anderson has developed cannabis chocolates, gummies, cookies, and even drinks for Hemp House and its No Coast Cannabis Co. line, always with the goal of making something that doesn’t just get you high but is truly delicious. The gummies are made with real fruit; polvorónes come in flavors like brown butter and sweet ube. Racket’s THC columnist says her stuff is consistently some of the best in town.
(Technically, Anderson develops edibles for No Coast and “sells” them to Hemp House, both of which operate under the same LLC.)
“There’s some more really fun confectionery things that we can do,” Anderson says, including an upcoming line of soft, chewy Caramelts, which will be available in blood orange and passionfruit mango. Right now, she’s especially fond of the toffee crunch chocolates, made with fancy Valrhona Chocolate and a hard toffee crunch that’s prepared in-house.
“It’s really fun in this kitchen,” she adds. She and the rest of the Hemp House staff make a family meal like they would in a restaurant, and they play music or watch TV during packing sessions. “Right now, they’re watching The Real Housewives of something, all these dudes who work with me,” she says.
And yes, she’s as surprised as anyone that this long and winding road brought her here. “I don’t really smoke weed, I don’t really eat edibles, so everybody just kind of cracks up that this is where I ended up,” Anderson says. She’s a lightweight; during taste tests at work, her coworkers can handle a whole lot more.
“I’ll taste it, and I’ll spit it, but you do that enough in a day, and you’re still getting high!” Anderson says. “I’m not doing anything outside of work, but if I am high, it’s only at work.”
Kind of a dream job for a kid who was supposed to stay out of the kitchen, huh?
“Yeah, take that, mom!” Anderson laughs.
And yes, these THC treats are really, really good. Read More
