My father gave me strict instructions: Your single-minded goal must be to coddle the paper-thin, nearly transparent phyllo dough. You need an ample supply of melted butter and some clean, damp kitchen towels stashed right next to you, to use as blankets for the temperamental phyllo. Have your filling already prepared and make sure that you've wrung all the water out of the spinach with yet another towel, or two, or three. (There will be more water than you might think vegetally possible. You will use up many kitchen towels.) Work as quickly as you can, but have no fear.
That's how my father, Constantine Tsioulcas, taught me to make spanakopita, the spinach pie that he grew up eating in Alexandria, Egypt, the city in which he was born and raised.
