Before my grandmother served the traditional chicken soup, fish, Persian rice and other main course delicacies, there were the brachot, the blessings. These were tapas-sized appetizers, each symbolically offering a different wish for the incoming year. There was sweet-and-spicy carrot, gezer in Hebrew, which sounds like gezar-din (verdict). We ate the carrot and blessed "may our bad verdict be torn" in this coming year. We ate yummy leek fritters. Leek, in Ladino (prasa), sounds like the Hebrew word for ushering. The blessing was "may He usher a good and sweet new year."  And so on and so forth.

Well, this year we suggest that you adopt this tradition, with an APN twist.

How about eating peas and wishing us all a year of peace. You can even whirl your peas in a food processor with nuts and fried onions (write to us for my mother's vegetarian peas-based chopped liver recipe). As you serve the whirled peas, you can wish for world peace...

How about eating beets and wishing that the incoming year will beat the odds and bring about a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Or serving berries for desert to wish that Israelis and Palestinians will finally bury the hatchet in the year 5773.  And when we eat our salad, lettuce wish a year of peace, security and prosperity to Israel and its neighbors.

If you have more ideas for us, please share

Wishing you a Shanah Tovah on behalf of the APN family,
Ori Nir