Like many other holidays, Rosh Hashanah (literally "Head of the Year") has a couple of traditional foods (though not as many as some other Jewish holidays). We still tend to serve challah, but in a different form -- rather than being braided, the dough is wrapped in a large circular bun shape and it often will have raisins.
The other traditional "food" is pretty vague; if I had to define it, the food is "something sweet" to symbolize our hope for a sweet new year (very deep, I know). In American Reform Judaism, "something sweet" normally means apple dipped in honey. There's a song.
Now, in modern American culture, pretty much EVERYTHING is sweet, so I suppose the notion of eating something sweet just isn't that special. This, however, was not always the case, and as with all rituals, it is the underlying sacred meaning and interpretation of otherwise mundane or profane actions/objects that gives it power.
I go into all of this just to provide the cultural milieu in which I crafted the following sandwich.
I took two slices of fresh rye bread (with caraway seeds), added a thick slice of maple-smoked vermont cheddar, some avocado, two macintosh apple slices, and toasted this in the broiler for a few minutes. Then I added as much of the mango walnut chicken salad I made last night as I could and closed the sandwich. THEN I ATE IT. (With a delicious Imperial Pumpkin Ale from Weyerbacher Brewery in Easton, PA. God, there are some awesome breweries in PA.)
It looked like THIS!
It was a great sandwich, and eating it outside in what has felt like perhaps one of the first true days of autumn was a special way to spend my Rosh Hashanah afternoon.
B'teavon!