As you probably know by now, we embrace every holiday with creativity and joy. It’s our passion to celebrate traditions with a modern aesthetic and Shavuot is no different. This holiday actually brings together two obsessions that we are currently having. One is flowers and the other is cheesecake! Actually, we love to bake and any excuse to make a holiday treat is good enough for us.
Cheesecake and flowers seem to be an unusual combination, until you understand the biblical meaning as it relates to Shavuot. The traditional reason for greenery and flowers during the holiday is that G-d gave the Jews the Torah in the desert and a miracle occurred, temporarily turning that area into fertile land with an abundance of greenery. There are apparently six other reasons why if you search around the internet enough, but we like this reason and will stick with it!
The interesting thing about eating cheesecake on Shavuot is that this is the holiday of the harvest, so why aren’t we eating more Challah? We will ask the Rabbi about that one, but in the meantime we understand the reason to be that the giving of the Torah was a time of great enlightenment. With the Torah came the laws regarding proper dairy consumption and so to commemorate the occasion, we eat dairy foods, including cheesecake.
So back to talking about celebrating with flowers. Recently, we interviewed our mom as the Balaboosta of the Month and she revealed that her favorite Apeloig Collection piece is the menorah. The reason is that it was created with one holiday in mind, Hanukkah, but it can be used for other holidays and every day in between. We really loved this answer because it is exactly what we had in mind when designs were being developed.
For Shavuot, you may have seen our reel on Instagram where we show how to make a flower display with dried blooms. As we mentioned in an earlier post, trips to the flower market are full of inspiration and discoveries of new preserved blooms that last a lot longer than fresh flowers. We do love fresh flowers, but it is nice to have a mix and the current trend is something that we can’t get enough of, at least for now.
Nothing says spring like peonies and tulips, and these fresh pink ones made us gasp with delight. We love the contrast with the smoke acrylic color of the menorah and can’t wait to see how it gets transformed when the flowers open up all the way. When using fresh flowers, remember to remove the metal cups that are used for the oil candles and store them in the beautiful storage box. Fill each hole ¾ full of water and arrange with flowers of your choice. Add more water each day or as needed.
Perhaps Shavuot is our new favorite holiday because it’s also the perfect opportunity to use the Challah Board for a beautiful cheesecake presentation. A dessert is even more delicious and pretty when it has fresh berries, and in this case it reminds us of a flower pattern. At this point it would seem the appropriate time to share a cheesecake recipe or two, but we can’t decide which one yet!
In the meantime, Chag Sameach!
