Many say baking has helped them cope with coronavirus-related anxieties.
There are infinite digits in Pi and similarly, there are endless ways to enjoy pie on this year’s Pi Day. Home bakers and professional pastry chefs alike are sharing the ways they are celebrating March 14, the quirky date that shares the same initial digits as Pi – 3.14.
Chef Clemence Gossett, who is the head pastry chef of The Gourmandise School in Santa Monica, California, says she is hosting a pie-making class Saturday, and encourages those self-quarantining to limit coronavirus spread to try their hand at a recipe.
“Pie is great if you’re stuck at home to keep your hands busy,” she told InsideEdition.com. “It’s really meditative, it gives you something to do and it keeps your hands occupied.”
Gossett also uses pie-making as an opportunity to give her kids a lesson on ratios and fractions, going along with the spirit of Pi Day. “Pi is the relationship between the circumference and diameter of the pie so it’s a great time to teach your kids a math lesson.”
And especially now that her kids are kept home from school, Gossett said she is encouraging her kids to help her in the kitchen to keep busy. “You know the scariest thing is when they’re quiet and there’s nothing happening,” she joked. “Get your kids in the kitchen, give them a big mound of flour, and then they get to play while the pie crust is baking.”
Home bakers, like Jenny Fan from San Francisco, California, agree that baking has been a great activity to share with the family. “We just got word that school will be closed for the next few weeks during this period of social distancing, so I’m hoping to get my kids in the kitchen with me and try some new recipes.”
Shireen Fathi, of Basking Ridge, New Jersey, chose to self-isolate in an attempt to keep her more vulnerable family members safe. “I’ve been staying inside to try and avoid bringing any germs into the house,” Fathi said. “My grandma’s elderly and my dad is immunocompromised so definitely don’t want to spread it to them.”
To cope with COVID-19-related anxieties, she has turned to cooking.
“I really like to cook and I really like to bake,” she explained. “I think it helps a lot when I’m A) bored, B) stressed, so there’s not really a better time for it than right now. And it’s nice, because there’s a nice ending to it – when you eat it.”
For Melinda Reidinger, an American living in Czech Republic, baking pies has helped her connect to her roots. “Pie reminds me of my life back in America when I used to live there. It’s a typical American food and it’s not very typical here.”
She plans to bake a Pi-themed pie. Her kids being home from school to help her with the baking has been the icing on the cake.
Pastry chef Mallory Cayon of Sibling Rival, a Los Angeles restaurant in The Hoxton hotel, said they already had a comprehensive pie menu that gets catered out to diners on a pie cart. From Pi Day to the end of the month, they plan on donating $1 of each of the $3.14 individual sized pies to the Downtown Women’s Center.
“It only makes sense that during Women’s Month we give back to them during this difficult time we’re all having,” Cayon said. “The homelessness in LA is so intense and at such a low point.”
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