Here's to a Sweet, Sweet New Year

Some things just belong together. Tomatoes, mayonnaise and white bread (yes, I do eat it selectively). Movies and popcorn. Convertibles and sunny days. In my family, we define fall as: back-to-school, crisp mornings and hot days, apple picking and the Jewish New Year.

At this time of year, it is customary for Jews to wish each other "a sweet new year" and reinforce that goal by devouring copious amounts of food containing apples and honey. It got me thinking, "Why specifically apples and honey?"

A little bit of research turned up lots of reasons. The one that resonated most strongly goes something like this: There is a difference between the sweetness of an apple and the sweetness of honey. An apple is a sweet fruit which grows on a tree. There is nothing surprising about that--many fruits are sweet. But honey comes from a bee--an insect that is not only inedible, it actually stings. Nevertheless the honey that it produces is sweet. In fact, honey is sweeter than an apple.

Similarly, there are two types of sweetness in our lives: we have times of family celebration, successes in our careers, personal triumphs and harmonious relationships. These are sweet times like the apple is sweet. But then there is a different type of sweetness; a sweetness that comes from times of challenge. When things don't go the way that we would like them to, when tragedy strikes, when our job is in jeopardy, when we fail to reach the goals we expected of ourselves, when our relationships are being strained and tested, when we feel alone.

At the time when we are facing these challenges, they seem bitter and insurmountable, like the sting of a bee. But if we are strong and withstand the difficult times, and overcome the obstacles to our own happiness, we reveal layers of our personality that we would never have tapped into if we weren't challenged. Something deeper is brought out when we are tested.

My kids, at nine and five years old, already maintain a strong association between their religious New Year and sweet foods. To reinforce it even further, we decided to start a new family tradition and pick our own apples on the actual holiday. (No, we won't be collecting honey any time soon!)

So, last Thursday we took a short, ten minute drive south on 272 to Cherry Hill Orchards . The summer apples are at their peak and did we have a blast. John, the resident apple educator, encouraged us to ask him anything and to taste everything. The sweet apples are to the right; the tarter ones to the left. I planned to make apple sauce and apple cakes for the freezer and the occasional apple crostata, or Italian freeform apple pie. We also go through 3 -5 apples each day and wanted enough for the fruit bowl. We visited both sides of the orchard as I like to mix tart and sweet for the cooked items and we prefer the sweeter, crisper apples for everyday munching.

Here's what we sampled:

• Sweeter apples: Rambo, Ginger Gold, Gala, Honey Crisp, Fuji
• Tarter apples: Courtland, Pink Courtland, Jona Mac

By far, our hands down favorite was the Honey Crisp. It's sweet, with a hint of sour lemon, yet very crispy. Ginger Gold was the blandest apple we sampled. Pink Courtland was new to us and our friends. Curiously, the flesh is light orange and has a faint apricot taste. Gosh, am I talking apples or wine?!

A great surprise was that peaches, both yellow and white, were still plentiful. We grabbed a couple of handfuls as we were pretty overloaded with apples. I could have filled four more bags without blinking and I'm glad the voices inside my head encouraged me to stop. That's the thing about picking your fruit. It only takes a few minutes, you have a wonderful time connecting with the land, and you're always ready to come back for more. Maybe not 40 pounds more, but more.