I’ve always found this carol haunting and beautiful.

First, I love any counting that involves a unit of 20. Secondly, this group sounds so lovely performing this song.

So, this song always made me giggle because there is that line, “later on we’ll conspire as we dream by the fire” which could so easily be “we perspire”. Yes, internally, I’m like 12 years old.

Bing Crosby rocks out in this rendition. It is very enjoyable.

Chuck Berry’s the best. That is all.

I think this a great song. It reminds me that little things can make everything better.

This is the Muppets’ interpretation of the Carol of the Bells. It is classic.

So, xkcd recently had a comic about how Christmas tradition, in particular the music you hear on the radio, is just recreating the childhood of baby boomers. And whether that’s true or not is irrelevant for me. What I found interesting was when all of these songs, that have from my perspective “always been” came out. And, of course this old chestnut was released in the 1940′s. All of those soldiers away at the front during the second world war would be thinking about home at Christmas. And, everyone at home would be thinking about their soldiers.

And, then I didn’t get around to picking it up until the following December.

And, then I put it down again in January and didn’t pick it up until the summer, at which point I decided that I needed to read at least five pages a day in order to not take a whole year in finishing the thing. The book starts out slow. Since it is an autobiography, Mandela starts at the beginning and, maybe this makes me a terrible person but I was looking for the action, the politics, the rebellion, the prison term which you don’t get to until at least 100 pages into the book. But, as I read further I was glad to have had all of that background. First of all, because I know nothing, less than nothing, about African history or family structure, unless you count the occasional paper on kinship terms one reads in Linguistics classes. I don’t know how the tribal system works (Mandela was originally brought up and trained to be an advisor to the King) and I certainly wasn’t aware of how bad it got in South Africa before apartheid was actually ended. The government opened fire on unarmed civilians non-violently protesting. And, in later years factions of the apartheid government covertly funded organizations opposed to unity that went out and slaughtered civilians. That is horrifying. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to live through that. And, to have been in prison for 27 years, missing the childhoods of your children, not being there to take care of your Mother before she died, not being able to go to family funerals, all because you wanted a government where every person, regardless of the color of their skin, has a vote. So, I guess the answer to the question is Nelson Mandela an amazing forgiving machine or is he a man is this: He is a man, a stubborn man, but a man who wanted the freedom that was his. But more than that, Mandela wanted freedom not just for himself but for every South African. As he says at the end of the book:

“It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness.”

Freedom is something that must be protected and we must be mindful of all of the things that we do or say that can take that freedom away, from others and from ourselves. This was an amazing book and Nelson Mandela is a truly inspiring man.

So, I sprayed my cookie sheet with pam (so that nothing would stick) and rolled out the phyllo dough. I preheated my oven to 350F. Then I destemmed and unribbed my greens (I tossed a little kale in with my spinach). After that I shredded the leaves into bite sized little pieces. I filled the center of the phyllo sheets with the greens. I then chopped an onion into slices and put slices on top of the greens.

Onto that, I layered slices of mozzarella.

I haphazardly pulled in the edges of the phyllo dough to the top of the bundle, making what looked like one giant pasty or calzone or log of stuffed goodness. I then sprinkled on a little parmesan cheese for good measure.

This had originally been designated a dinner item on the menu, but I couldn’t get my oven to work one night this week. It is hard to bake something if the pilot won’t actually light and you can’t get it to light manually, either. So, I saved it, all wrapped up and ready to go until the morning, in case in magically decided to work. It did. I have a finicky oven. I let it bake for about 15 minutes, until it started to smell spinachy and baked-goody in my apartment. I then had a slice of it for breakfast along with a fried egg.

I’d imagine that there are many recipes like this one out on the internet that require more spices, oil and/or butter and sautéing of greens, but I was in the mood for something simple and delicious and that is just what I made.

Recipe:

One package of store-bought phyllo dough, thawed

2 cups spinach or other green

Half an onion, sliced into strips

4 or 5 generous slices of mozzarella cheese

A pinch of parmesan (optional)

Pam cooking spray

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Spray a cookie sheet with Pam.
3. Roll out phyllo dough on the cookie sheet.
4. Destem and unrib greens; tear leaves into bite sized pieces and put the greens in the center of the phyllo dough
5. Gather edges in on the top, making a pasty/calzone/loaf shape
6. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese, if using
7. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until outside is golden brown
8. Enjoy the pants off of it