Mon­ey, pol­i­tics, social jus­tice, sex, and Shab­bat din­ner are all on the menu as pot sheds its ston­er image in Heather Cabot’s The New Chardon­nay. The sto­ry of an aston­ish­ing rebrand­ing, The New Chardon­nay is the ​“Mon­ey­ball” of mar­i­jua­na. It is a deeply report­ed nar­ra­tive that explores how the ​“Dev­il’s let­tuce” emerged from the shad­ows to become a lux­u­ry prod­uct fuel­ing a $22B US mar­ket all while remain­ing fed­er­al­ly ille­gal. With a Hol­ly­wood-ready cast of char­ac­ters, the book takes read­ers along for the ride into the Wild West of weed with four unfor­get­table pio­neers rac­ing to cash in on cannabis. Judaism fea­tures promi­nent­ly in the sto­ry of pro­tag­o­nist Jeff Danz­er, a for­mer Ortho­dox Jew and men­schy cannabis chef, who draws on Israeli med­ical cannabis research and his fam­i­ly’s tra­di­tion of Tikkun Olam to help can­cer patients feel bet­ter dur­ing chemo. Lat­er, in his moth­er’s kosher kitchen, Chef Jeff refash­ions hol­i­day sta­ples like matzah ball soup and chal­lah into new THC-infused cre­ations with his trade­mark odor­less, taste-free canna-oil.