Dip the Apple in the honey;
There will be challah on it too;
Shannah tova umituka;
Have a sticky new year;
So the song is corny, but oh so true.
Out of all the different honey applicators used this Rosh Hashanah, I noticed the only semi-efficient one was the regular old bottle. The first night was a fancy honey tray made of silver that over flowed and made everyone’s cups stick to the table cloth and everyone’s challah become glued to the spot on the side of their plate where they kept it, regardless if they had ever dipped their challah into the overflowing honey tray. The little spoon to dispense it was basically a spoon for high society babies to eat from their smashed peas with a fancy silver spoon. It did not have the capacity to hold enough honey for more then one piece of bread, if that.
Then the second day, the family had this “Rosh Hashanah Honey Jar”, I guess companies make loads of money when trying to market kavodicka honey jars. Well this honey jar would have been a good product for A.D.D. children who tend to take too much honey. Since the jar was glass and the hole to dispense it was very small, the jar took on the glass Heinz ketchup jar effect, except in this case the hole was too small for a knife to be shoved up in frustration to free the slimy mess from its cocoon of stickiness. Children with ADD would have given up and just spiked their sugar high with tzimis or apple kugel instead. While us adults were frustrated at having honey free challah and no humus to provide some sort of dip.
Many families had and continue to have the classic honeycomb commercial honey jar, which has the stick that was specifically made for getting honey all over your hands, the table cloth and any children who happen to be within ten feet of the always arduous and sometimes extremely pissed off task of deposited some honey on each piece of challah while trying to keep the honey away from your suit, and the children’s faces which will no doubt come in contact with the carpet and couch cushions.
“But dear it said it was made specifically for honey?” Will be the common out cry from the wife who foolishly walked into one of those “As Seen On TV” stores in the mall, trying to find a clever way to dispense honey to the challah and pathetically failing to see that the traditional squeeze bottle is in fact the best way.
Granted the squeeze bottle itself becomes a mess of old challah crumbs, apple peels and anything that stood in the ay of an 8 year old wielding the bottle over everything that could handle honey, but those bottles work way better than any other honey dispenser I have seen.
I wonder if some Jewish fellow with the same issues as the guy who invented the wine fountain that serves 8-12 cups at once will be pressed to find a solution to the honey fiasco that takes place in Jewish households around the world at this time of year. Imagine having ten hungry guests after a long shachris waiting for your sorry ass to get all the challah pieces properly honeyed. I think you would also wonder why someone could not produce a honey fountain. Imagine what a honey fountain would do, it could provide those who hate having to use salt all year to reduce their shabbos sodium intake and use honey instead. Instead of having a sweet 2 weeks of the year we could have it sweet all year, even water challah would be marketable, since you could mask its nothing taste with honey.