Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Pi R Square



Today is March 14th, or as it is known among nerds of a peculiarly silly bent, Pi Day. And the best time on 3-14 to celebrate Pi Day would be 1:59. My dad was a math major in college of the gentleman’s “C” variety and belonged to a fraternity slightly less prestigious than the Deltas of Animal House. Thus it can be forgiven when he loves to chuckle and say “Pi R Squared? No, pie are round; cake are square.” It is his second favorite joke behind teaching the dog to answer questions like “What’s on top of the house?”, “Who was the greatest baseball player?”, and “How does sandpaper feel?”

Thus when my son decided to make a snack for the math team practice which coincidentally was on Pi Day, it was only fitting to make a square pie. The recipe calls for a 9” diameter pie pan which is 63.6 square inches. Instead we bought an 8” x 8” baking tin which is a much bigger 64 square inches. The pie itself is a no-bake chocolate pie with a peanut butter crust that my son found on the web.

Other people are doing much fancier pies for Pi Day. Fellow boodler Yoki is running a Pi Day contest where seven people sent in pie recipes and you can vote in a bunch of categories. Voting may be closed by the time I post this, but the recipes all look too delicious (except for maybe the mountain oyster pie, which has real oysters, not mountain oysters). While it’s tough to pick favorites among your friends, I am always in search of good apple pie recipes and kbetocci's’s As American As version looks great.

My alma mater also has a long running (no pun intended) road race called the Pi-Miler, which is billed as a 5k charity run. I’m not sure whether the route is really 3.159 miles, which is 56 meters too much or exactly 5 kilometers, in which case the runners are slacking off for 61 yards. Perplexingly, this event is not on Pi Day, but is being run a month later on April 14th. Such are the mysteries of life,

Enjoy Pi Day. I am now very hungry.

4 comments:

trusty getto said...

Happy Pi day, YJ!

Jeff and Charli Lee said...

Damn - that chocolate peanut butter pie looks awesome. I think I have a new love for Pi!

Anonymous said...

I love peanut butter anything. Kerric, otherwise known as son 2, and I seriously love peanut butter. There was a point where we bought peanut butter in 25 pound pails. This pie with chocolate and a peanut butter crust, is going to be featured in our house frequently, as an alternate to our other easy favourite, peanut butter stirred into previously whipped cream, chilled and in a shell. Ok, I have to stop now. I just realized its lunch time.

dr

Mooselet said...

I will be making that pi... I mean pie. Chocolate and peanut butter, in a low-cal form? Yummy!!!!

I'm a bit late, but hope all your pi's were great.