As the chef of the Wine Bar of Saratoga and the Yawning Duck Culinary Services, Dominic Colose's professional kitchen is well-stocked with a variety of ingredients. Flavors emerge when he takes his ingredients from raw form to finished product, combining new elements to familiar recipes and techniques to keep his skills keen and palate excited.

The same applies to his home kitchen, where he makes duck egg fettuccine with mushrooms and cream that turn out magazine-worthy in appearance and fill his home with enticing scent. An earthy, citrusy aroma serves as a piercing high note to this rich meal, credited to the new cooking ingredient that seems to be growing in popularity for professional and home kitchens alike: CBD oil.

Chefs like Colose say that it is also delicious and adds a unique herbal flavor to food. Colose first experimented with CBD to relieve long-term depressive disorder and anxiety. While conventional pharmaceuticals took the edge off his depression, the anxiety remained. He began using CBD oil earlier this year and found some relief. As a curious cook always looking for the best flavor, he experimented with CBD oil in his cuisine, leading to sous vide duck eggs cooked in rosemary- and hemp-spiked oil and beech mushroom salad dressed in CBD oil.

"I may use it in the restaurant, but not really push it as a regular ingredient," Colose said. Before cooking with CBD oil he cooked with THC-based products in the past and enjoyed them for "recreational effects," he says, but not as a culinary element.

The oil is derived from the flower of the hemp plant — a cousin of marijuana that was legalized for commercial growth and harvesting on a federal level in the 2018 farm bill. CBD, which is short for cannabidiol and is one of more than 70 compounds within the hemp plant, has gained popularity as the health benefits of hemp and CBD oil are further researched and promoted. The oil is used to treat such varied conditions as eczema, anxiety, epilepsy and chronic pain, according to reports from the World Health Organization. Reporting group Statista states that the CBD industry could approach $1.8 billion by 2022. CBD oil and products made with the oil are available in health food markets,

CBD oil contains 0.03 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, the intoxicating substance in marijuana). In comparison, most strains of marijuana contain at least 10 percent THC, and one gram of marijuana typically contains 100 milligrams of THC. As a reference point, the National Center for Biotechnology Information rates a single marijuana cigarette, known as a joint, as containing 0.66 grams or marijuana, while a study by the federal government lists a joint as containing 0.43 grams of marijuana.

At Bacchus Woodfired Pizza in Troy, owner Jim Scully has used CBD oil as a garnish on his unique menu. "People kept saying we need to do weed on pizza, but weed is still illegal," he said, joking, "our customers usually get high before they come in to eat." Last week, Scully added the Honey Badger pizza to the Bacchus menu, which combines caramelized pears, crispy prosciutto, figs, gorgonzola and mozzarella cheese and CBD-infused honey on top of a blistered and chewy pizza crust.

With the heavy snowfall and below-freezing temperatures in January, Scully was eager to give people a reason to come to Bacchus and introducing Honey Badger was a ploy in increase business. He wants to use CBD beyond just a garnish, but knows he will have to do a fair bit of customer education to make sure it is understood. "People need to be informed and understand CBD doesn't necessarily get you high. It can have a placebo effect, but people are confused about what CBD really is."

In some instances, officials are cracking down on the sale of foods containing CBD oil. The New York City Department of Health this week announced it would not allow the sale of food and drinks with CBD until it is "deemed safe as a food additive" by the federal Food and Drug Administration, according to a statement released Tuesday.

Chef Anna Louisa Weisheit said she is considering a CBD-focused dinner at Public House 42 in Albany, where she heads the kitchen. While she has used CBD-based skin care and health products (like lotions and tinctures), she is new to cooking with it. Her early experiments with CBD oil have focused on understanding how it will impact the mouthfeel of certain recipes and whether the flavors will overwhelm the palate and crowd out other ingredients. She is not concerned about the dosage of CBD oil used, since it is classified as a supplement and not a controlled substance, like THC, but does wonder about the repercussions of acceptance of CBD and potential legalization of marijuana in food in New York.

"I think the biggest thing will be identifying everyone. Who is to say a kid won't come in and order a bunch of food with CBD or pot?" said Weisheit. She likens it to cooking with alcohol, but while most alcohol evaporates with cooking, THC in marijuana edibles and the trace amounts of THC in CBD oil do not dissipate and stay stable under heat. If cooking with marijuana were to become legal, she said the limit in serving customers will need to be up to the discretion of the waitstaff, akin to a bartender choosing to cut off a patron who has consumed too much alcohol.

Brewer Sam Pagano of C.H. Evans Ale, located within the Albany Pump Station, said his initial excitement about combining CBD oil and beer was tempered by the legal issues. Putting it into alcoholic products is prohibited. Adding an oil into beer can also lead to issues of slick texture while drinking the beer, he said, and can affect the proteins in beer that give that picturesque frothy, foamy head on a freshly poured beer. For him, releasing a CBD-infused beer would be a gimmick, he said, but with companies like Budweiser maker Anheuser-Busch InBev investing $50 million into cannabis-infused beverages (containing both CBD and THC), Pagano knows it is a matter of time before the law adapts. "Anything that big beer does puts craft beer at a disadvantage. They step on us no matter what, and right now, it is a legally gray area," he said.

Colose will continue to use CBD oil in his home cooking as long as the flavor and medicinal effect are still beneficial, but he is slightly skeptical of the lasting appeal of CBD in restaurants. "I'm sure it will become more popular. Too many chefs like to jump on fad bandwagons and follow trends rather than be original. I think a lot of older diners could be put off by CBD or any hemp product because of a misunderstanding of what it is," he said. "I'm sure people will think chefs are putting marijuana in their food.

Deanna Fox is a food and agriculture journalist. @DeannaNFox, foxonfood.com