Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco

by Alia Volz

A blazingly funny, heartfelt memoir from the daughter of the larger-than-life woman who ran Sticky Fingers Brownies, an underground bakery that distributed thousands of marijuana brownies per month and helped provide medical marijuana to AIDS patients in San Francisco—for fans of Armistead Maupin and Patricia Lockwood

During the '70s in San Francisco, Alia's mother ran the underground Sticky Fingers Brownies, delivering upwards of 10,000 illegal marijuana edibles per month throughout the circus-like atmosphere of a city in the throes of major change. She exchanged psychic readings with Alia's future father, and thereafter had a partner in business and life.

Decades before cannabusiness went mainstream, when marijuana was as illicit as heroin, they ingeniously hid themselves in plain sight, parading through town—and through the scenes and upheavals of the day, from Gay Liberation to the tragedy of the Peoples Temple—in bright and elaborate outfits, the goods wrapped in hand-designed packaging and tucked into Alia's stroller. But the stars were not aligned forever and, after leaving the city and a shoulda-seen-it-coming divorce, Alia and her mom returned to San Francisco in the mid-80s, this time using Sticky Fingers' distribution channels to provide medical marijuana to friends and former customers now suffering the depredations of AIDS.

Exhilarating, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartbreaking, Home Baked celebrates an eccentric and remarkable extended family, taking us through love, loss, and finding home.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, Biography, Book Club, Social Justice

432 pages, Hardcover

First published April 20, 2020

Reviews

[Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, I loved this book! It was perfectly written, narrative nonfiction with so much heart about a loving, perhaps less conventional, family who just happens to be the owner of Sticky Fingers Brownies, delivering marijuana edibles to the San Francisco community for decades beginning in the 1970s.

It’s about so much more than the business, thought. It’s a loving story of family, love and loss, and community. Sticky Fingers baked thousands of brownies a month, and those same brownies found medicinal use in the 80s when they were provided to patients with AIDS. I loved how the author infused the history of San Francisco into this story while also sharing the lives and hearts (and humor!) of so many beautiful people in and around her family. I loved them all, especially Meridy, Alia’s mom. This truly is an exceptional work of nonfiction.

I received a gifted copy from the publisher.

Many of reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader

[Haley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Home Baked is so much more than a memoir. I picked it up to escape into the iconic setting of 1970s San Francisco, not expecting to learn so much about the history at the time or to have my view on marijuana completely altered.

Home Baked tells the story of the underground, and extremely illegal at the time, first known pot brownie business, Sticky Fingers. The author’s mother, Meridy known to many simply as “The Brownie Lady,” and her friends expanded the operation through the swinging ‘70s and into the AIDS epidemic of the ‘80s and ‘90s, when marijuana went from a recreational drug to one that could mean life or death to many of their friends suffering from the disease.

This book is about so much more than a homespun magic brownie business and the people who believed in it. It’s the story of a 20th century family, a movement, and an era. Whether you’re a square like me or an experienced pothead, I highly recommend Home Baked!

[Erin Khar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This book exceeded my expectations, which were already high because I am a fan of Alia's writing. Alia does an exceptional job of balancing memoir with a well-researched narrative history of San Francisco, marijuana legislation, and the ways in which they intersected with LGBTQ rights and the AIDS crisis. I feel like I know all of the well-drawn "characters" in the book. It was a fast, entertaining read, a love letter to a time and place and the people who inhabited them. Highly recommend for people who like human stories.

[Charlotte Grisafi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book started as an adventure that I willingly went on and ended up a lesson in history. Mer moves to San Francisco in the 70,s and inherits an illegal pot brownie business named Sticky Fingers brownies, problem is Mer hates to bake, enter Barb, who introduces her to Doug who gives her a psychic reading, both into oracles and the occult , he marries Mer and joins the family business which distributed 10,000 brownies a month with daughter Alia tucked into her stroller along with a baby bag and bags of brownies they make their way along the waterfront selling their goods. Not is all fun and games and the atmosphere gets tense and dangerous as Mer consults I Ching and move up north and starts making weekly trips hours away back to San Fran to sell , only things have changed , alot of her customers are wasting away and her business turns from recreational to medicinal that helps victims of the aids crisis. It’s a turbulent period with gay rights, murders and the push towards legal medical marijuana.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you wouldn't say no to a brownie you shouldn't say no to Home Baked.

More than a memoir, Home Baked, is a time capsule, a love letter, a coming of age story and an epitaph. Not only does it investigate the edibles industry from it's infancy it reminds us that outlaws are sometimes heroes without capes. I will be recommending this book to every generation, from grandparents to the university bound, for it has universal appeal, yet I have no more time to devote to this review, because as soon as the book left my hand, I had a recipe I needed to make and there is a steaming treat waiting to bookend this marvelous read. Bon Appéiti.

[Melania 🍒 · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75|5

[Kyra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sticky Fingers Brownies was an underground pot brownie business in San Francisco during the 1970s and 80s and one of the original canabusinesses. They produced thousands of baked goods each month for recreational and medicinal use. In HOME BAKED, Volz pens a heartwarming memoir of her life as the daughter of “The Brownie Lady” or Meridy—the powerhouse business woman behind Sticky Fingers Brownies.

Volz recounts how Sticky Fingers began and describes her unique childhood. Her family’s story intersects with a well-researched history of San Francisco during the 70s, the rise of the LGBTQ+ movement, politics and marijuana legislation. When the AIDS epidemic hit, their business shifted from recreational to medicinal to bring comfort to those who were suffering. HOME BAKED is a fascinating story about an eccentric, loving family living through an era of cultural change. I highly recommend this beautifully written memoir.

[Karyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a pleasure to read! Lively and descriptive, the author has clearly brought us into the colorful San Francisco of the later 1970s, 1980s and into 1990s. Sylvester and Harvey Milk are remembered fondly as well as a myriad of other characters making the scene and dazzling us with a view that can only be viewed now by history.

Alia Volz interweaves the progress of marijuana laws that shape many lives both as medicine and entertainment, and naturally the calcified criminal justice system that has incarcerated and limited countless lives.

Sit back and enjoy a brownie while you devour this treat of a book.

[Juniper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it possible to be nostalgic about someone else’s life? While I did meet the main “characters” during my childhood in Willits, in many ways the author and I grew up in separate worlds. Alia has a delectably vivid way with language, rich in sensory detail. It’s irresistible to describe her writing in the same terms that evoke the Sticky Fingers brownies. Her deceptively simple approach packs a wallop of an impact, sinfully satisfying with its descriptions of the hedonistic 70s SF lifestyles, with a bright herbal edge striving towards enlightenment. She recreates the highest highs and lowest lows of her mother’s life, rippling out from her nearest and dearest to an incredibly wide variety of the figures that made SF matter to the world. More than a memoir, Home Baked is about a series of transformations, a history shared in many senses of the word, which resonates on a level that feels intensely personal.

[Barb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating 4.5

I loved this story of a college graduate from Wisconsin who moves to Haight Ashbury in the 1970’s with her degree and a disregard for authority. Meridy finds herself struggling to make a living as an artist by training until she meets The Brownie Lady. One of Fisherman’s Wharf’s hippie characters, The Brownie Lady is just that; a woman who sells pot-laced brownies to the street vendors in the area. She aspires to move to Scotland to live on a commune and decides that Meridy is just the person to take on her mantle.

Meridy agrees with the idea; there’s just one little problem. She can’t bake to save her life. Enter her best friend Barb who develops the perfect recipe for pot brownies. Their collaboration becomes Sticky Fingers Brownies, a legend in San Francisco. With Barb’s product and Meridy’s marketing skills, they soon find themselves selling more brownies than they can produce. They hire a staff to handle much of the baking prep and packaging of the product, and a few extra hands to help with distribution.

The book is written by Meridy’s daughter Alia who grew up in the midst of the madness. Alia infuses her story with all the craziness, love, enthusiasm, and tragedy of San Francisco during the hippie era, the gay pride movement, and the AIDS epidemic. A must-read for anyone who was around in the 70’s and has their own experiences to relate.

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was less the memoir I thought it was going to be and more of a history of San Francisco from the 70's and 80's through the eyes of the authors mother. It's quite slow paced but I really enjoyed that and enjoyed the whole thing (love San Francisco and reading about it). Takes in queer history, murder of Moscone and Milk, the Jonestown Massacre, and the AIDS crisis all seen through a fascinating woman selling marijuana brownies. Having read a few histories of San Francisco, some of this stuff I already knew - but didn't know about the use of marijuana medically for people with AIDS and how the decimalisation was ultimately linked to that. really loved it - warm hearted, sad and joyful.

[Scott James · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Alia Volz's parents were arguably some of the most successful illegal drug dealers in the history of America with their pot brownie empire. Their story documents the beginnings of the modern marijuana era, reveals the discovery of weed as a genuine medicine during a pandemic, and gives readers a front row seat to events in San Francisco that changed the world. But it's the characters who really grabbed me. Mom is a trip, but Dad is even farther out there. And grandma? Wow. And you thought your family was strange?

[Laura Noggle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very enjoyable 3.5 stars!

There were parts that dragged a bit, and it could have been shorter — but by the end, I was quite charmed and happy to have read it.

Volz's parents were kind of horrible, although her mother meant well and redeemed herself in the end.

My favorite parts were the historic aspect and final quarter, the family drama and drug fueled parties became repetitive after awhile.

[Cherri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book must have come at just the right time. I have struggled to focus on reading during the pandemic, but I read this entire book in one sitting. It is a fascinating look at counterculture, the hippie movement, the AIDS epidemic, gay rights, well-everything wonderful and heartbreaking about San Francisco over several decades. I love the city and I loved this book!

[A.H. Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haiku review:
Midwest girl goes rogue
Tales of the pre-tech city
Funny, touching, sad

[Freesiab BookishReview · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at 48% this was the dullest book about selling pot brownies in San Francisco during the 60’s and 70’s. A lot of information was just basic history and then a lot of uncomfortable family history. I’m very disappointed and I feel bad I chose it for my book group.

[Alvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story of growing up in a family of eccentric pot dealers is endearingly candid and beautifully written. It not only takes readers into the hidden hippie wilderness, but provides a well-researched history of pre-legalization cannabusiness (thankfully dispersed throughout the text in easily digestible nuggets). The book is also a love letter to pre-gentrified San Francisco, one that's all the more convincing because it doesn't edit out the downsides of too much fun and freedom. Keep a box of tissues on hand for the second half (the AIDS years) and be prepared to learn a thing or six about San Francisco history. To sum up: this book is epic, and even if (like me) you're not into pot or pot culture, it's a terrific read.

[Melody · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. Alia's retrospective of her parents' lives is so fond and so warm, despite many opportunities for her to point fingers. I loved it so much, and then, and then... suddenly the names were familiar, and it was AIDS in San Francisco and there was some weeping as I remembered and lost people all over again. Bobbi Campbell, I'm looking at you, honey. And Randy Shilts, goddamn. And then Volz knocked me for a loop and explained the bloody obvious fact that has hitherto escaped me. The reason, the only reason we have legal cannabis today, is because of the folks working with their lovers and friends who were wasting away to nothing- because a bit of brownie brought back their appetites and eventually the authorities were convinced.

Such a delightful book!

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe memoirs are what I need for my *pandemic* reading, but this tale of how Sticky Fingers, an underground cannabis bakery came to be as told by the daughter (Alia Volz) of the founders was equal parts glory in the late 70s/80s San Francisco and a story of a girl realizing her parents, particularly Meridy, her mother, were always rebels.

The fears Volz contended with concerning when, not if, her family would get busted later segue into the realization her mother, in particular, was considered a hero by many. Volz points out more than once that it wasn't until 1996 that California became the first state to legalize medicinal marijuana sales.

Volz also describes the assassination of Harvey Milk and the onset of the AIDS crisis in agonizing detail. The cannabis-infused brownies and Meridy's special "fantasy fudge" provided comfort to many a customer during these trying times. If Volz didn't realize this before, it comes across in an interview with AIDS/LGBTQ activist Cleve Jones who credits Meridy for “changing America’s relationship with cannabis from viewing it as a party drug to viewing it as a medicine.”

This book is a gem.

[Kara Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

We are having our book club on 4/20 and this group loves memoirs so I picked a memoir about weed. It was nice hearing stories of another girl who grew up with pot being commonplace in her household. I was intrigued by the San Francisco aspect. I think this will get mixed reactions from our group.

[Lene · Rating 3 out of 5]

The value of this book is its review of the history of gay rights, the AIDS crisis, the illegal/legalization of marijuana, and the sociopolitical influences underpinning each. Everyone should have to read those bits.
The dad is a narcissist. The mom is a flake. They're both awful. I don't care enough about the drug-soaked, hippie bullshit of baby boomers to be dazzled by the 'legend' the author is trying to make her mother out to be. Maybe you'll feel differently about them.

[Pamela Skjolsvik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful memoir that mixes the personal with the historical. Loved it!

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Home Baked” by Alia Volz provides a full on history of San Franciso during the late 60s through the 80s, the years of the growing gay movement and when the gay cancer, later called HIV/AIDS, was starting.

She tells the tale of her family, and in particular her industrious business-smart mother, Meridy, who became a successful marijuana brownie distributer. Her mother had an early run-in with the law when she was a teen in Milwaukee, which had a fortuitous outcome, giving her a sense of invincibility. When she moved to San Francisco she started a marijuana brownie business, and did it smart; she sold her brownies to shop keepers who passed them on—an underground market, she was not out on the street where it was easier to get busted. At first she also sold regular pastries also, she was not the baker.

When she met her future husband he was in the Berkeley Psychic Institution (BPI), a spiritual seeker with grand ideas. He had seizures since childhood that medication helped, but he believed it interfered with his psychic abilities. To say her parents were hippies would be accurate but not precise.

Meri used the I Ching for every move she made with her business and in her life. These two clicked and I Ching was favorable. His grandmother was married to a ghost. Meri met his grandmother when she visited her brother and sister-in-law, at her father's request, to help with their new baby on the way. Doug, her boyfriend had a psychic vision he would have a son who would come in a great light. On this trip she decided she would have his baby.

Well, their baby was born, but it was not a boy. Alia arrived after a long arduous labor. It was the first glint for Meri that perhaps his psychic abilities were not as strong as he believed. She had been carrying the name Alia around on a slip of paper, after reading in the novel "Dune," about a baby named Alia who on birth spoke full sentences.

There is so much history about our country wrapped up in this western outpost city, San Francisco: Patty Hearst, Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, the rebellion before Stonewall—fighting back against the police at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria, Diane Feinstein who was lax on the police in the early years; the history of Marijuana and how the drug war affected people. Alia covers the history well. Castro Street, the Mission, and the hills come alive, and many who are no longer with us—the disco singer Sylvester—lost to AIDS. People her mother knew. Leaders like Cleve Jones who lead political protests and started the first AIDS organization. There was one other woman named Mary, an elder, who also made Marijuana brownies and beat the law after her arrests. Mary and Meridy get mixed up in people's minds.

This is a book you do not want to miss. It’s a solid read, engaging, and especially thrilling for anyone who lived through those years, or for the many who’ve heard stories but don’t know the depth of impact. We owe a huge debt of thanks to those who flocked to San Franciso. This pioneering city was an outpost for personal freedom despite laws and fears. I’m grateful this book exists.

[Marathon County Public Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the years following the Summer of Love in 1967, San Francisco saw a steady influx of hippies, outcasts and other free sprits flock to its streets, eager to call the city home. One of those transplants was Milwaukee native Meridy Volz, who left behind her studies at UW-Madison in the name of pursuing spiritual enlightenment and adventure. Not long after the move, Meridy agreed to take over a friend’s small part-time bakery business, with one small caveat: she only wanted to sell pot brownies.

Dubbed Sticky Fingers Brownies, Meridy began running the underground business with close friends, and later with her husband, Doug (a then-recent graduate of the city’s Berkeley Psychic Institute). Known city-wide as “the Brownie Lady,” Meridy would make weekly in-person deliveries to customers, with a duffel bag full of product (and sometimes, her daughter, Alia) in tow. At its zenith, Sticky Fingers sold upwards of 10,000 brownies a month.

Through their weekly sales and delivery routes, the Volz family witnessed firsthand as revolution and social changes unfolded in the city over the course of decades, including marches for LGBTQ+ rights, the election and assassination of Harvey Milk, the devastation of the AIDS crisis, and the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana in California. Through it all, the family always managed to evade arrest, a feat Meridy credits to closely following the signs of the I Ching, an ancient form of Chinese divination.

"Home Baked" is written by Alia Volz, who chronicles her parents’ endeavors and Sticky Fingers’ history in rich detail. The book is part memoir, part biography of Meridy and captures an iconic period in San Francisco’s history that shaped the city into what it is today.  

Dan R. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.

[Regina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Home Baked is exceptional.

Every person you meet in this book is interesting and unique. The pacing and organization is excellent. The author includes just enough information about pretty much every person and topic she touches on to be engaging and insightful without being too much or distracting.

Although it's technically a memoir, it goes so far beyond that. Volz expertly weaves in facts and anecdotes throughout the book about a wide range of related topics, including drug laws/incarceration, medicinal marijuana history, the AIDS epidemic, and of course, San Francisco history.

At times I found myself laughing out loud (the author finds love letters and, lets say "saucy," pictures her parents exchanged as young lovebirds), with my jaw on the floor (as a nine year old, Volz helped her mother make pot brownies), or on the verge of tears (when discussing the AIDS epidemic). That's what you want from a good book, right?

Needless to say Home Baked is a new favorite for me. At the very least, it deserves a lot more attention than it's getting. Highly recommend on audio.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to San Mateo County Library for giving out free copies of this book! I wouldn't have heard of it otherwise, and I was surprised at how much I liked it for many reasons. First, the author gives a great recent history of San Francisco, linking activism and AIDS while telling her main story. Second, I was impressed that she kept the focus on her parents (especially her mother) and managed to present plenty of detail about them without making them saints. I also liked that she presented her unconventional upbringing as part of what made her who she is now. Third, she really kept the story moving! There was only one point, maybe a third of the way through, when I thought "there's a lot of this book left - does it have to be so long?" But I was soon swept away by the story and moved through it quickly.

[Tom Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ’70s and early ’80s apparently really were a crazy ass time in San Francisco—every history I’ve read, no matter its angle, backs this up. This particular history focuses on Sticky Fingers Brownies, an (it goes without saying) illegal edible delivery operation that at its height sold over 10,000 homemade brownies to partiers, and later, AIDS patients. How the hell they didn’t get busted Is one of the mysteries of the cosmos.

The book is wonderfully written by the daughter of The Brownie Lady who, when she was a little kid, often went on the delivery runs with her mom. Their world is a bygone era which she captures well. Too well actually. You’ll mourn the San Francisco of old, before the tech tsunami came along and crushed its free spirit.

[Bianca · Rating 5 out of 5]

A colorful memoir about the family magic brownie business balanced with the history of San Francisco, the LGBTQ community, the AIDS crisis, and so much more. It’s a book about family, community, love, and loss. Bonus: beautiful illustrations done by the author’s family, many of them for the weekly brownie bags. A wonderful and magical read!

[Surabhi Godbole · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book reminded me how much i love good memoirs. it packed a punch: gay rights, local SF history, the AIDS epidemic, the journey of weed, and more. the volz family’s life included so many inspiring characters that met heartbreaking ends. reading it through the lens of alia, who was *literally* in the thick of it, was fascinating! a must-read for SF locals/residents/transplants

[Alice DeSousa Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️