Many times we take for granted and overlook all of the fun and exciting ways to celebrate Jewish holidays. Holidays are not just the laws and basics that you learned in Hebrew school.
There is so much more that one can do to observe a Chag and we are honored to share with you the Apeloig way of celebrating Shavuot, which begins on Thursday May 28th until Saturday May 30th.
For starters, Shavuot is the day that the Jewish nation received the Torah in Mt. Sinai after trekking the desert for 7 weeks. The Torah is the premise of Judaism and lays the foundation of our religion. Receiving the Torah was a major event that consecrated the union between G-d and the Jewish people.
This year Shavuot may be celebrated differently, we are unable to gather as a community at our local synagogues as we normally do on Holidays, but we can do tons of things at home to commemorate this important day with our families!
One custom of Shavuot is to refrain from eating meat. Some may question this tradition and ask why? The reason we do this is because when the Jews received the Torah they became obligated to observe the kosher laws. As the Torah was given on Shabbat, no cattle could be slaughtered nor could utensils be kosherized, so on that day they ate dairy.
Following this may sound like a limitation, but we see it as an indulgence instead! There are so many dairy options to choose from, ranging from cheesecake, to blintzes, to pizza, and more, but we opted for a cheese board.
To bring you the ultimate Shavuot menu item, we proudly collaborated with @beautyandtheboard to create the perfect cheese platter using our acrylic challah board as the base. The result was almost too beautiful to eat, but once we got started we couldn’t take our hands off of all the dairy deliciousness.
While assembling our custom cheese plate, Beauty and the Board shared with us her expertise on how to combine an array of cheeses with dried fruits, nuts, crackers, olives and any other compliments one may see fit. With so much versatility, you can guarantee this will please your entire family.
Here are some tips on how to create the perfect cheese platter:
- Pick one of each cheese type:
- Soft Cheese: Mozzarella, Brie, Goat Cheese, Camembert
- Semi-Soft Cheese: Gouda, Jarlsberg, Blue Cheese
- Semi-Hard Cheese: Provolone, Sage Derby, Manchego, Comte
- Hard Cheese: Aged Cheddar, Parmesan, Aged Asiago, Chesmire.
- Add Crackers and/or bread
- Add a sweet touch: Grapes, pear, apricot, dried fruits, marmalade, honey
- Add nuts and/or olives
- Cut the cheeses in slices, cubes or your preferred shape and scatter them around the board using the crackers, sweets and nuts as barriers. This will allow it to look perfectly unpolished.
- Pair with wine for ultimate satisfaction!
- Make sure you use plastic, acrylic or wood knives to avoid scratching the acrylic. Don’t use metal cheese knives
- If you’re serving for a large quantity, place the bread on a second challah board or in a separate plate for spacing purposes.
- Don’t forget to either kosherize the board if you typically use it on Shabbat meat nights or if you have two boards, use one exclusively for cheese and the other for meat.
We hope you enjoy and have a lovely Shavuot feast!
