Dip Your Apple In The Honey

Jewish New Year, commonly known as Rosh Hashana, is always my most nostalgic holiday. It's the first holiday after a long long break so it means that Ron forgets all his Jewish knowledge or enthusiasm for everything traditional,Yon is so young he definitely doesn't care about any holiday (though he is willing to dance to any music), Hidai is working longer hours, and I feel alone. Every year. It's not just because we are new here, or that we don't know many people. I think it's the autumn that hits me. The whole shorter days, red leaves on the ground, it's getting colder, darker and rainier thing. It's the loneliness, sadness, and the homesickness together with some very Israeli songs and uninterested children with no appreciation for their parents culture and traditions... That is the only time that I get hit by the full impact of how much the kids are different from us, how big is this gap between their lives and childhood and ours. They will never know the things that defined us, and we will forever struggle to understand the culture that defines them.

So I get very... I guess the correct word would be pensive, around this time of year, and even though it happens every year, I am always surprised by it. Maybe because it never happens with any other holiday, I always expect that this year I will finally get used to Rosh Hashana and this weird thing will stop.

It doesn't.

BUT, this year, with the move here on top of everything, I was sure it will happen again and I made arrangements in advance - I invited Uri, Evelyn, Jo, Adrian and their boys to a holiday dinner, because there is nothing worse than sitting alone in this kind of situation. I also started hearing some holiday music with the kids a couple of weeks in advance (only slightly helped - I felt nostalgic, Ron wasn't interested at all, and Yon just couldn't stop dancing), and planned a festive meal that wasn't even remotely close to a real Rosh Hashana Eve dinner in quantity, but was based around sweet food and honey because, a) it's the traditional thing - eat sweet food for a sweet year, and b) I don't really like cooking. I do, however, like baking :).

We were lucky this year that the holiday fell on a Sunday (to the non Jewish readers - the Jewish calendar is based on the moon, so even though the holidays stays on the same Jewish date, they move around on the weekdays and regular calendars. If you want to have a way better explanation then mine - Jewish Calendar ) so we got the holiday feel, everyone could come eat with us, and Hidai was home to help with the preparations (mostly kids and dishes).

I have to admit we were really anxious about the whole thing, and about a thousand times during the preparations revisited the whole "What were we thinking" question. We were totally unprepared for a holiday dinner - when we left Israel we left all of our much loved tableware behind, and even after 3 years, we still haven't managed to replace all of our collection (we are getting there, but it did take us 7 years to build the old one), so we had to buy things like a tablecloth, which we avoided buying until now, because even though it might sound silly, it goes back to the traditions I talked about at the beginning - there is only one kind of tablecloth fit for a holiday, and it's really hard to find the right combination of material, size, colour and decorations... I managed to find and buy it on Amazon, but am still missing the proper cotton napkins and silver napkin rings (I did buy some cute white & blue ones that Yon adores, but it's not the same...). Also, and I know I said it already but still - the apartment is tiny. Tiny. So we needed some creative thinking to fit everyone comfortably inside and around the table (thank you Laura & Mick for the greatest idea ever - the kids table. Taking the kids small arts table, buying 2 more chairs and a nice paper tablecloth sure does solve this problem very nicely, and the kids eat better, leave the table sooner and annoy their parents less. Did I mention that it's most definitely the best idea ever?). Also, we just moved here - we are missing so many food ingredients we don't know where to buy, we are still struggling with the food shopping online and with operating our appliances... What were we thinking?!

Actually, we were not thinking.

Holiday table all ready to go

Yon and I started the preparations together with a trip to Kosher Kingdom in Golders Green (Jewish store, as if you didn't guess from the name), where we bought necessities like burekas, olives, gherkins, Bamba, and obviously - houmous. And some Rosh Hashana napkins and chocolates. We also bought an octopus. Because that is what one does when accompanied by a Yon. Buys a pink sparkly octopus.     

After that it was only silly details, as it is common knowledge that once you have an octopus you are half way there. I guess that's why Yon is always unconcerned. I, on the other hand was concerned, and also worked my butt off for three days before the holiday to make sure everything was clean, tidy, and ready for the holiday.

Yon and I on our way to Golders Green

Kitchen chaos

We invited everyone for 5 o'clock so we can have tea/coffee and cookies before dinner. I was a bit surprised when they came bearing alcohol. Lots of alcohol. But apparently it's customary to bring your own alcohol. So it was more of a wine and cookies five o'clock. We had 3 kinds of cookies - chocolate with chocolate chips cookies, spicy honey cookies and a new recipe that I got from mum a few days before and tastes exactly like the honey cookies you buy in the Supermarkets in Israel (the kids and Uri liked that one the best).

A few cookies (or biscuits if you are not Israeli)

Dinner included one giant chala bread that I got from my favourite Israeli food Blog, 3 kinds of burekas (2 bought ones - potato and mushrooms, and one home-made filled with cheese), 2 kinds of pasta bakes (one sweet and one savoury), and mini pancakes based on soft cheese (I bought the correct real Israeli cheese to make them. It's been years since I ate them like that). In Jewish standards this does not constitutes enough food to be called a holiday dinner. And I'm pretty sure I said the sentence "there is not enough food" a couple of times. At least.

The Challa

Did I already say that there is not enough food?

For desert (because really, not enough food) we had 2 kinds of cupcakes - honey cupcakes with cream-cheese, honey and vanilla icing, and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate and cream icing.

Side note on the cupcake issue - I don't like making cupcake. I don't like making icing. I am no good at it, and given the opportunity I will always choose baking a proper cake, but Ron is very into cupcakes, and it's easier to serve, and I promised to bring some to school, and I couldn't stand the whole not being good at it thing. So it took me 3 tries for each kind of cupcake until I found the right recipe for each cupcake and each icing. We ate a lot of cupcakes here in the last couple of weeks.

Back to Rosh Hashana stuff. Everyone ate (according to Hidai. I was too nervous to see anything, and from what I saw nobody ate anything), played (okay, that was just the kids, but they played together beautifully, didn't break anything, and nobody cried), drank (even us), and took home a goody bag.

Total success.

Cupcake madness

The day after, I gave Hidai all the leftover food and cookies, and added the cupcakes to Ron's school ones.

It was the best Rosh Hashana we had in years. It was hard work, made me sick with nerves, and all of us anxious as hell, but in the end I loved every minute of it and I am so happy we made the effort, and had a proper holiday.

Well, the fact that they loved the food helped :)

And just to finish with a smile, I was searching the net for some Rosh Hashana music in English, and stumbled upon this - Dip your apple song, and this one also. So funny :)