The Deeper Message of Christmas

I'm gazing at the plate with the melomakarona cookies, a traditional dessert to be found in every local house, and I never fail to think just how positively Byzantine they look. Their gritty but oily texture, dough folded with olive oil and wheat flour; their walnuts and honey succulence, a memory reflecting the offering of peasants to the ancient pagan gods of fertility; their deeper olive-sandy