'Tis The Season...

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"So, this is Christmas; The wind-up's begun..." to paraphrase John Lennon; and war, sadly, is not over by a very long chalk. Another festive season, and The Holy Land that spawned the mythology that the festival emanates from is torn and riven by as much strife as it was in the Biblical protagonists' day. Nothing changes. We're still treating each other as enemies, all the while bulling up the 'season of goodwill to all mankind'. At best this seems mildly hypocritical or vainly optimistic; at worst, it's the existential fate of the human race. No lessons learned from history, philosophy or even religion. We seem hard-wired to continue beating each other with clubs - physical or metaphorical - until we're all completely senseless or just plain dead.

But, on an individual, personal level, as much as I don't actually engage with the mythology internally, one special meal of the year, shared with friends and family, is worth some time and indulgence. So, whatever, we'll be sitting down to a pot-roast of lamb shoulder and lemon-roast potatoes, Greek-style, on the twenty-fifth, and to that end, we've had to pony up for the biggest cast iron dutch oven we could find (pictured). The combined weight of the pan, meat and potatoes will probably make it a two-person job to get it from the oven to the table, but hey! it's but once a year. Merry whatever you want it to be...

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