JCC Book Festival

Join the JCC for their 2021 Book Festival.

Speaker: Heather Cabot
Moderator: Mark Passerini

The New Chardon­nay: The Unlike­ly Sto­ry of
How Mar­i­jua­na Went Mainstream

NON­FIC­TION

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.

Author: Heather Cabot

Heather Cabot is an award-win­ning jour­nal­ist and serves on the alum­ni board of Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Grad­u­ate School of Jour­nal­ism. A for­mer ABC News cor­re­spon­dent and anchor, Cabot is co-author of Geek Girl Ris­ing: Inside the Sis­ter­hood Shak­ing Up Tech (St. Mar­t­in’s 2017). She is also a con­trib­u­tor to ForbesWomen. Cabot resides out­side NYC with her hus­band and teen twins.

Single Author Event

11/29/2021

1 PM EST