HAPPY ROSH HASHANAH!!!!

What A Great Month for Holidays!

Courtesy http://www.123rf.com 

I love it when September really gets under way and we start getting holidays and birthdays galore, it's as if the whole month is a celebration! That being said, Happy Rosh Hashanah to those observing, I hope you have a sweet new year! :) One of my favorite ways to respectfully honor someone else's culture or holiday, is to delve a little into the traditional foods that accompany them. Just like you used to in school, and people's parents would bring in food that their family eats on special days. I like that, I think it's a great way to acknowledge that something special is happening for a group of people, and that you respect that, even if it's a culture or belief system different from your own. I personally plan on enjoying my fresh farmer's market apple with a little raw honey today ;) It's also a great way to take a moment and celebrate the newly dawning apple season! My market had a good selection of 5 or 6 early fall varieties. Often more tart than their October counterparts but PERFECT for paring with something a little sweet, or baking into cakes and pies. My favorite pie of all times is peach apple, which can really only be made with fresh ingredients for a couple weeks a year, when peach season overlaps with early apple. It's sadly one of my few secret family recipes. Yup. I have some of those. Blood relations have access to their magic but no one else. They're often built upon other older family recipes, and I can't give mine without giving away something that belongs to my mom, grandmother, or aunt. But find a good peach pie recipe and substitute half of the peaches with apples. You won't be sorry. The only tip I'll pass along is that peaches cook faster than apples, so you must slice your apples about half the thickness of the peach slices so that they cook at the same rate. Happy apple eating, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

BKBTY