Today is Pi Day, aka the biggest nerd fest of our year. My husband is over the moon about this whole deal – have I ever mentioned that I managed to marry the biggest nerd on the planet? Ah well, I love him…so I’ll indulge his, um.. unique eccentricities.
Our recent Pi Day Pinata instruction blog hinted at some of the madness to come, but I figured that today, I will elaborate.
First, a bit of explanation for the less nerdy of my readers. Pi Day is the day that celebrates Pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to it’s diameter. You know, 3.14159265358979323.. etc etc. 3.14… 3/14.. March 14.. get it? It’s also Einstein’s birthday.
The day started off with rolling out of bed and semi-coherently making a ton of pizza dough at an ungodly hour. Having spent the better part of 2 weeks getting ready for the TCBA (mega) wedding show, which was oh-so-conveniently scheduled the day after Pi Day, I was already a bit worn out. Ah well, making fondant, making pizza dough.. not a lot of difference to me at this point.
I’m more of a St Patty’s Day girl, myself.. so there were some compromises made in the planning of this particular party. While the central theme was Pi Day, there were a few aspects in which St Patrick’s Day encroached on the festivities. The pizza was one of these areas.
You see, I’d been chatting with a friend of mine on Facebook, who had been looking forward to attending. Somehow, the subject of Irishing up the party came up, and – after a bit of smack talk – the idea of a St Patrick’s Day themed pizza came up. It was almost a dare, and I love a challenge.. so I came up with a pizza of sheer evil genius proportions. I will be posting the recipe on the recipe blog soon.. basically, fresh pizza dough, spread with a thick layer of fresh caulcannon, then layered with thinly sliced onion, pieces of blanched cabbage, sliced of par-boiled potatoes, corned beef, and then cheddar cheese. OMG was it ever good! Made 3 huge regular pizzas, plus another one that had a gluten free crust for my friend Lisa and I.
Ok, got off on a tangent there. Have I ever mentioned how much I love caulcannon? It can drive me to distraction!
So anyway, the party was a PIe potluck. My contribution was an “Irish” silk pie.. chocolate silk pie flavored with Irish Cream, and – because I was a bit low on Irish Cream – supplemented with some amaretto. Yum.
There were quite a few types of pie represented, from a pear and cinnamon, to an apple crumble, to pumpkin. I was pleasantly reminded of how awesome our friends are, when there were more gluten free pies there than regular. LOL. Totally unexpected and unneccessary, but very much appreciated!
At 1:59 (again.. 3.14159…), we toasted Pi and Einstein with PInapple Juice, and headed to the family room to take part in some ridiculously insane Pi Day Trivia. Having culled the questions from online (http://www.eveandersson.com/trivia/, for those interested!), I was shocked and amazed to see people actually getting the majority of questions right! I bow down to their supreme nerdiness!
Other activities included reading off some horrible Pi Day jokes (I’m talking on the order of “What do you get when you cut a jack o’lantern by its diameter? A: Pumpkin Pi!” Groan!), Pi Ku reading and writing (http://www.exploratorium.edu/pi/Pi-Ku/index.html for some examples!), and Pi Day Sudoku. (http://www.brainfreezepuzzles.com/main/piday2008.html, which managed to fry everyone’s brain!).
After that, we noshed on some PIzza, and then headed out to the porch to bash out PInata. Took video of all our nerds engaging in that, may post the video if the blackmail scheme doesn’t pan out, muahahaha!!
All in all, a lot of fun. Would have liked to let it run later, but had to kick people out so that I could sugar some fruit for the wedding show, as we had to get up early to set up. Looking forward to next Pi Day!
