One of the pleasures of life is shopping at  D’Vine Taste, the middle-eastern gourmet shop on Seventh Avenue near Garfield Place in Park Slope, where I buy cheese, hummus, tabouli, condiments, olive oil, olives and many others delicious things. On Wednesday, Wajih Salem, the tall Lebanese man with the beard who is one of the sibling-owners, handed me a large, round challah, that he bakes.

“L’shannah tovah,” he said with a big smile.

D’Vine Taste supplies the challah for Congregation Beth Elohim. Often on Thursday afternoons I’ll see Salem walking up Garfield Place to the synagogue with his huge box of challah for the temple’s nursery school, the weekend’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah or other celebrations.

On Friday’s one of the shop’s front windows is filled with challahs wrapped in plastic. For Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year and the beginning of a 10day period of celebration and atonement which ends with Yom Kippur, Salem bakes a round challah, which symbolizes the cyclical nature of life.

Yesterday I also picked up a jar of of honey from the Magnolia Honey Company in Woodville, Mississippi, dried fruit and nuts. What a pleasure to share the holiday with Salem and his siblings at D’Vine Taste.