I love a nice looking dining room table throughout the year, and usually pick a theme for each season. I also decorate my table for specific Jewish holidays and celebrations, and for special occasions, such as birthdays.

Yesterday, I bought some new place mats, napkins and a table runner for my dining room table. I put the placemats on the table, and arranged the napkins on top of some green plates. The napkins have a multi-toned leaf pattern on them, and I thought they would look nice against the plates. Leaves are symbolic of autumn, and symbolic of endings and new beginnings, which appealed to me. I put a small artificial pomegranate on each plate.

I placed a runner down the center of the table, and put a centerpiece on it. The tray of the centerpiece has various-toned and textured glass balls inside it, and I also put several artificial pomegranates in the tray. There are two sets of candles on the runner, on either side of the centerpiece.

When I finished setting the table, I began thinking about what I would make for Rosh Hashanah dinner. That required more thought. The menu will look like this:

The Yahrzeit candle will be lit and a prayer will be said for my parents, relatives, ancestors, and for those who don’t have anyone to pray for them. Dinner will begin with Kiddush. I will serve a romaine lettuce salad (“lettuce all find contentment in the New Year”) with dinner. It will have diced apples, walnuts, tomatoes, figs, dried cranberries, and a few raisins in it, and have sesame honey mustard dressing to go with. The raisins are thrown in to “raise my expectations for a peaceful New Year”!

I will have one pomegranate to open, and everyone can have a seed, and piece of the pomegranate. We will then recite: “May it be Your will that our merits be numerous, as the seeds of the pomegranate.” We will also say the “Shehecheyanu“.

For the main course, I decided to make baked chicken, with mandarin oranges, topped with orange marmalade. I’ve made this before and it is quite delicious. The orange marmalade compliments the mandarin oranges (you can also use orange slices instead of mandarin oranges), and makes a nice thick saucy topping for the chicken. I keep the reserve in a bowl, and those in attendance can add more to the chicken if they wish.

Sweet potatoes will also accompany the dinner, along with honeyed carrots (tzimmes). Challah will be served, and there will be matzoh, also. There will be a lot of orange color in the food chosen, “Orange you happy about the New Year?”

Of course, there will be a separate bowl of apples and a jar filled with honey, to dip the apples in. If you look at the jar closely, you will see an abstract shape of a fish on it. There’s my fish head!

All in all, it will be a healthy and nutritious Rosh Hashanah dinner, followed by prayers. Jewish music will play throughout dinner, specifically two CDs, one CD entitled The Partisans of Vilna…beautiful and heartfelt Partisan songs of Jewish resistance, along with traditional Jewish music from a CD entitled Songs of Our Fathers. My parents will be there through their spirit, as their photograph illuminates from the mantle.

For now, that is it, unless I change the menu in some way.

Shana Tova! Have a sweet and good New Year filled with joy, love, peace, tolerance and understanding. And, as Leora reminded me with part of her well-written post, “Wishing you all… …tolerance except in cases of the intolerable, happiness except in cases where one needs to grieve… .” Thank you for that thoughtfully-articulated reminder, Leora.

All photographs were taken by me.
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Jew Wishes…Peace to you all.
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