Pie is such a gift. My wife died nearly ten years ago and soon afterwards, I took up pie baking, which is something that she loved to do (I just loved to eat it — since childhood I've had a birthday pie instead of cake). I had all the stuff, after all. I got good at it and love to share them with friends at gatherings, or even just give them away entirely. Right before COVID, I did a Friday Pie Day thing where I gifted a pie to someone in town based on social media discussions. One time, someone got it for her coworkers who had just shipped a tough release.
vrosas 46 minutes ago [-]
When everyone got into baking early covid I couldn’t understand why no one was baking anything, like, good. No pizza or pie or cake or muffins or banana bread or even a damn focaccia. The world collectively just decided the end-all be-all of baking was… sourdough.
renjimen 20 minutes ago [-]
Sourdough is the bomb though. I agree about the lack of variety, but in its defense, sourdough starter can be used for a variety of other baked goods.
gusgus01 15 minutes ago [-]
Plus bread itself is used in other recipes, like sandwiches or toasts or for mopping up sauced dishes.
1bpp 29 minutes ago [-]
Maybe because the large time investment and trial+error in making good dough provided something to focus on when stuck inside.
sejje 19 minutes ago [-]
Well, as a less-advanced baker, I get the most pleasure from baking bread.
Plus, I can eat it without getting fat.
layer8 24 minutes ago [-]
Not trying to gain weight when being stuck inside, maybe.
raffael_de 20 minutes ago [-]
well, i love the smell of sourdough bread in the morning
zippyman55 28 minutes ago [-]
When I graduated from university, my dad had just died, my mom had cancer, and there was no employment for a year. I made a lot of pies and got really good at making crusts. Yep, it was always great when I brought in a real pie, homemade.
delichon 3 hours ago [-]
For me the change would be to become spherical. That would simplify some calculations.
magneticnorth 1 hours ago [-]
Yes, me too. Reading the caveat "– and she would give each pie away" made a lot more sense.
It's a social commitment at least as much as a creative/culinary one, and since there aren't a lot of people you'd want to give a pie minus a slice to, that keeps the extra calories under control.
noboostforyou 2 hours ago [-]
Do I exercise and eat healthy?
"Yes, I am in shape (round is a shape)"
CrazyStat 3 hours ago [-]
A friend of mine tries to bake a spherical pie for pi day (March 14) each year, with varying approaches (and levels of success).
harimau777 3 minutes ago [-]
I wonder if they could look to dim sum for inspiration? A apple dumbling is basically just a round apple pie right?
fmbb 2 hours ago [-]
I heard circles are also related to pi but have not had the time to confirm yet.
MrJohz 2 hours ago [-]
The first two things that spring to mind are pasties from the UK (which are not usually spherical but can get quite hemispherical), and the "UFO-Döner" from Germany (which are more oblate spheroids). Maybe by combining these ideas, your friend can get closer to their dream?
Fluorescence 36 minutes ago [-]
Beef Wellington could be spherical if you so chose.
I suspect that deep-fried-battered haggis might exist which could be very spherical.
walthamstow 2 hours ago [-]
British steak and kidney pudding (a steamed pie of suet pastry) is a truncated cone shape, could go spherical with the right pastry case.
ant6n 42 minutes ago [-]
> A friend of mine tries to bake a spherical pie for pi day (March 14) each year, with varying approaches (and levels of success).
Could also do it on pi approximation day (July 22), then one doesn't have to be so exact about it.
fsagx 36 minutes ago [-]
I didn't get it, so I looked it up.
22/7 ~= 3.14
hinkley 2 hours ago [-]
Heating the middle has to be a pain. And cutting it…
_aavaa_ 2 hours ago [-]
Well if you insert metal rods through it you can help with the heat transfer, then you can lattice over the holes. If you pumpkin pie it, you might even be able to have it hold up under its own weight. Plus a bit of stiff whipped cream in the holes would help.
Nevermark 45 minutes ago [-]
A pie like this, to the face of a problematic politician, would add drama and help resurrect the profile of pies as activists!
mordechai9000 2 hours ago [-]
I would make them fairly small (personal pie-sized) and use a filling that doesn't need to be cooked in the oven to set. The main limiting factors, I think, would be structural integrity and heating the filling to the center. You could set it on a ring (like the rim of a spring-form pan) to support it better during cooking. Now, a four dimensional hyper pie, on the other hand...
_aavaa_ 2 hours ago [-]
If you’re not cooking the filling, then do a teflon ballon that you put the crust on. Cook. Remove balloon. Then pipe in ready to ready to set chocolate cream.
hinkley 29 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
reactordev 1 hours ago [-]
I would bake it on a pizza stone to ensure an even bake.
Has nobody here ever done this? It comes out perfectly cooked.
thatguy0900 2 hours ago [-]
If we don't care what the filling is you could just use sticky rice.
redundantly 2 hours ago [-]
One could always precook the filling.
thot_experiment 3 hours ago [-]
half way there, now you just have to find the frictionless vacuum
CobrastanJorji 1 hours ago [-]
The pie calculation for spherical you would be 3*volume / 4*radius^3.
gnatman 3 hours ago [-]
I’m of the belief that doing just about anything every single day for a year will change your life! A key for me has been to “lower the bar” so that I can keep the promise to myself and maintain momentum through days of low energy or enthusiasm, e.g. playing the guitar for 1 minute, or writing 1 sentence.
toxik 3 hours ago [-]
Similarly, just showing up at the gym/hobby/sport is huge. Even if you do next to nothing.
tom1337 1 hours ago [-]
a stranger i once talked to at the gym told me "every workout is better than the workout you are not doing" and that kinda changed my perspective on that topic.
Insanity 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah I go bouldering even on off days to “stay in the rhythm”. And I do have honestly terrible days where I feel I’m struggling climbs of even a grade below my comfort level, but at least I went lol.
renjimen 17 minutes ago [-]
How do you stay injury free climbing every day? I feel like at even twice week I am entering the danger zone with ligamentisis.
bonestamp2 1 hours ago [-]
Atomic Habits is a great book for little things like this that make a big difference when compounded with time.
Nevermark 43 minutes ago [-]
I imagine reading a book about habits every day for a year would be life changing. :)
pavel_lishin 3 hours ago [-]
The best form of exercise is the one you can consistently stick with.
For me, that got shot down in flames over the winter because I kept getting sick. :/
irishcoffee 3 hours ago [-]
Someone said it, I forget who: 90% of life is just showing up
idontwantthis 2 hours ago [-]
Especially true for friendship. If you want friends, all you have to do is be in the same place with the same people regularly.
gloryjulio 1 hours ago [-]
It's basically a form of meditation. It's a great way to get your life back on track
simonw 57 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, doing a small thing daily can add up so fast.
When I started my niche-musueums.com website I bootstrapped it by posting a new museum I had been to every day for a month. It took 15-30 minutes a day and within a few weeks I had a site I was really proud of.
I think the key is to give yourself permission to stop without feeling guilty about it. Any time I start a new streak like this I deliberately tell myself that it's not going to be forever and I can stop any time for any reason.
Being intentional in what we do and learn, and practicing it consistently, inevitably changes our lives.
We mostly live on autopilot, without thinking about what we love to do or what we might love to do.
Every day, we read about people whose lives have been changed by jiu jitsu, CrossFit, or learning a foreign language.
It is dedication, focus, goal setting, and practice that change our lives, not so much the activity we devote our time to.
Although pies are delicious and I love making them.
stephen_cagle 1 hours ago [-]
Not to take anything from any other activity that someone embraces, but I imagine that for the majority of people in the developed world, taking a 1 hour walk every day would be the most "life changing" thing you could do.
wewtyflakes 53 minutes ago [-]
What does that have to do with the article? It is not about 'the most life changing thing for everyone', it was what was life changing for her.
stephen_cagle 48 minutes ago [-]
Nothing at all. Just a comment on the internet. Taking a walk AND and baking a pie is even better.
I'm just making a slight point that walking is probably the simplest most effective thing you can do to improve almost every aspect of your life.
shermantanktop 39 minutes ago [-]
Sure, but it's random and unrelated to the discussion at hand.
I bake pies but I also like mushrooms and grilled cheese sandwiches. Every other individual here has random associations they can make.
In person, this is seen as commandeering a linear discussion to your personal topic and repeated violations get you uninvited from conversations for being selfish.
On the internet we can just ignore a thread, which is what I should have done here but I've typed this far so I'll go ahead and post it.
sejje 15 minutes ago [-]
I don't think it's off-topic at all. The story is not as much about baking pies as it is doing something every day.
ericmcer 34 minutes ago [-]
The point of the pies was the connections it forced her to make with people in her life and then ultimately strangers. Finding 365 people to give pies to is probably harder than baking them all.
Taking a walk alone would be missing the main point.
aziaziazi 21 minutes ago [-]
Lovely story but the beautification is a bit off.
> Hardin Woods would bake [...] using fresh ingredients local to her home in Salem, Oregon
> She baked her first pie, a lemon meringue
> The next day Hardin Woods made a peach pie
> After that came a chocolate cream pie
Does lime, peach and chocolate ripen within the same season in Oregon? Vickie cooking for is community is already touching, this claim about freshness and locality is skimmed by people who are already convinced, spotted by those who disagree and raise critics of the skeptics.
sejje 18 minutes ago [-]
I mean, the first pie was in California, per the text right before that. She was visiting family.
aziaziazi 8 minutes ago [-]
Right, the location is off too! The ingredients probably aren't sourced in Oregon after moving to California, but anyway the season ("fresh") and location ("local") point stands. I guess she use local eggs.
profsummergig 1 hours ago [-]
I decided to make rotis every day for a month (am male of Indian origin who hadn't ever cooked breads), AND eat them. The first one was completely inedible. The 30th day's rotis were edible, but nothing like what women in my family make. But still, edible.
Eventually had the confidence to experiment with making Naan.
This led to experimenting with Asian-style Pot-Stickers.
The main benefit to me was confidence, and belief in pmarca's "you can just do things".
d_burfoot 26 minutes ago [-]
These kinds of stories may seem silly to some (certainly it would seem silly to my past self), but I think these narratives of personal journeys are going to become more and more important to humanity as AI and automation take over most jobs.
its-kostya 1 hours ago [-]
The sarcastic individual in me saw the title and thought "heh, and you got diabetes?" But I was pleasantly surprised after reading it about how wholesome this was.
delichon 40 minutes ago [-]
She is obviously a sweet lady that you would like to have as a neighbor. But I would not include garden variety pie in the wholesome category. The indulgence won't kill you, but it isn't healthy. Apples from her backyard tree are wholesome.
sosodev 3 hours ago [-]
I challenge each and every one of you to make a pie by the end of the month.
I made one, for the first time in my life, last week. It brought me tremendous joy not only to make it, but to have something nice to share with friends.
sejje 13 minutes ago [-]
My "pie" is barbecue ribs. I've made them many, many times, and I've never eaten them all by myself.
Once I fed about 20 friends--one of the best days I've lived.
epiccoleman 44 minutes ago [-]
My grandma made Platonically Ideal Pies, and I took up the art years ago. Mine, if I say so myself, are quite good, given that with Grandma's example I know what I'm shooting for.
I haven't made one for a few years, though - having a pie in my house is a recipe for me eating 5000 calories of pie and vanilla ice cream over the next few days.
When my grandma died a few years ago, I asked my aunts if I could have one of her pie pans. Apparently none of her other 17 grandkids thought to ask that - so I got all three (philistines!). Those basic metal pans are among my most cherished possessions.
Cerium 2 hours ago [-]
Do it! Making a pie might seem unapproachable, but it will all work out. I have never failed to make a pie that brought some happiness into the world.
1 hours ago [-]
RankingMember 1 hours ago [-]
Even broader, honestly. Make something culinary! It's amazing what the simple tactile experience of making something can bring when so much of our existence is doing things by proxy.
simonw 55 minutes ago [-]
A fun hobby I picked up during Covid was trying to cook food from countries I had never been to - since traveling anywhere wasn't an option.
Pick a country, research what food it has that you've never tried, find a few online recipes and YouTube guides and give it a go.
This was a ton of fun. I have no idea if anything I cooked was even remotely like the authentic original, but it was still a very rewarding exercise.
If you live somewhere with a lot of international supermarkets (the SF Bay Area is great for those) it also gives you an excuse for a shopping adventure for ingredients.
I did this recently, and you know what I really loved about it? It's a great entry-level baking activity where the upside is that you have a pie (something you can gift or just eat!) and the downside is that you have a sort of cobbler.
You really can't !@#$ up a pie. Omelette is another good one. At worse you have scrambled eggs.
I mean, yes, at worse you burn your neighbourhood down and your dog runs away. But in terms of the more likely failure modes like screwing up the dough, breaking it, messing up how watery it is, etc. you can mostly just keep baking until it's done, mix it up, put into bowls, serve with ice cream, down the hatch.
98codes 3 hours ago [-]
I already did for October, November (twice), and December. Does that count?
recursive 2 hours ago [-]
It would have if you hadn't asked. But as it stands now, I regret to inform you that you'll need to make another pie.
98codes 2 hours ago [-]
OK then... let's see, it's citrus season -- meyer lemon meringue it is, with a swiss meringue[1] of course.
As someone who loves pie and has far fewer friends and family than the person this story is about, baking a pie every day for a year would also change my life.
imgabe 2 hours ago [-]
If you just place the pie to cool on your window sill, the smell will cause some nearby hobos to float over, or so cartoons have lead me to believe. Then you'll have some friends.
worldsavior 3 hours ago [-]
Friends are always attainable via purchase.
embedding-shape 3 hours ago [-]
Also neighbours tend to be very glad to receive free stuff :) I usually end up with way too many Basil plants every season and give them away, gotten to know some new neighbours that way!
adzm 2 hours ago [-]
Do you have neighbors?
rwmj 3 hours ago [-]
I started practising guitar every day and it didn't change my life but I have a lot of fun doing it.
sejje 12 minutes ago [-]
There's still time, my friend. Keep it up.
munificent 3 hours ago [-]
A very timely article when many of us are wondering if AI will eventually push us out of a digital career into something else.
kaon_2 3 hours ago [-]
I am hearing rumors that B2B sales is rebounding back to more in-person meetings. Cold emails don't work anymore. I've heard similar tales of current teens early-twenties that there is a trend of doing things in real life again. But... more likely if you start measuring it people are more reclusive than ever, and doing things that used to be normal is now considered "niche and trendy". Our sales process at least is very online-meeting oriented...
beauzero 26 minutes ago [-]
This reminds me of "The Artist's Way".
jdthedisciple 1 hours ago [-]
Refreshing. There truly is an almost mysterious bliss hidden in giving.
sgarrity 39 minutes ago [-]
I didn't even read the article, but the headline made me smile.
9864247888754 1 hours ago [-]
Number 7 will shock you!
amelius 1 hours ago [-]
If AI continues like this, we can all retire and bake pies all day long.
nozzlegear 2 hours ago [-]
I would love a pumpkin pie right now. But I'd settle for pecan.
natebc 58 minutes ago [-]
Waffle House pecan pie can hit the spot. ... cup of black coffee, damn fine.
zabzonk 2 hours ago [-]
Nah, that's not a pie! [brandishes a Yorkshire meat and potato pie] Now, that's a pie.
To be more precise: she baked breadbowls and calzones. :)
drcongo 2 hours ago [-]
One of the most Guardian headlines of all time. I'm old enough to remember when they were a newspaper.
pmdr 51 minutes ago [-]
Is it just me or since The Guardian left twitter/X they've really been ramping up their paywalls/nagwalls? Love or hate X/Elon, that was really a dumb move on their part.
navane 3 hours ago [-]
Government job. Retired at 61. But I made a pie everyday!
recursive 2 hours ago [-]
Some people find meaning in ways other than the prestige of their employer.
hypeatei 1 hours ago [-]
Software developer isn't a very prestigious title either. The only thing it has going for it is the pay.
Rendered at 21:10:45 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Plus, I can eat it without getting fat.
It's a social commitment at least as much as a creative/culinary one, and since there aren't a lot of people you'd want to give a pie minus a slice to, that keeps the extra calories under control.
"Yes, I am in shape (round is a shape)"
I suspect that deep-fried-battered haggis might exist which could be very spherical.
Could also do it on pi approximation day (July 22), then one doesn't have to be so exact about it.
22/7 ~= 3.14
Has nobody here ever done this? It comes out perfectly cooked.
For me, that got shot down in flames over the winter because I kept getting sick. :/
When I started my niche-musueums.com website I bootstrapped it by posting a new museum I had been to every day for a month. It took 15-30 minutes a day and within a few weeks I had a site I was really proud of.
I think the key is to give yourself permission to stop without feeling guilty about it. Any time I start a new streak like this I deliberately tell myself that it's not going to be forever and I can stop any time for any reason.
We mostly live on autopilot, without thinking about what we love to do or what we might love to do.
Every day, we read about people whose lives have been changed by jiu jitsu, CrossFit, or learning a foreign language.
It is dedication, focus, goal setting, and practice that change our lives, not so much the activity we devote our time to.
Although pies are delicious and I love making them.
I'm just making a slight point that walking is probably the simplest most effective thing you can do to improve almost every aspect of your life.
I bake pies but I also like mushrooms and grilled cheese sandwiches. Every other individual here has random associations they can make.
In person, this is seen as commandeering a linear discussion to your personal topic and repeated violations get you uninvited from conversations for being selfish.
On the internet we can just ignore a thread, which is what I should have done here but I've typed this far so I'll go ahead and post it.
Taking a walk alone would be missing the main point.
> Hardin Woods would bake [...] using fresh ingredients local to her home in Salem, Oregon
> She baked her first pie, a lemon meringue
> The next day Hardin Woods made a peach pie
> After that came a chocolate cream pie
Does lime, peach and chocolate ripen within the same season in Oregon? Vickie cooking for is community is already touching, this claim about freshness and locality is skimmed by people who are already convinced, spotted by those who disagree and raise critics of the skeptics.
Eventually had the confidence to experiment with making Naan.
This led to experimenting with Asian-style Pot-Stickers.
The main benefit to me was confidence, and belief in pmarca's "you can just do things".
I made one, for the first time in my life, last week. It brought me tremendous joy not only to make it, but to have something nice to share with friends.
Once I fed about 20 friends--one of the best days I've lived.
I haven't made one for a few years, though - having a pie in my house is a recipe for me eating 5000 calories of pie and vanilla ice cream over the next few days.
When my grandma died a few years ago, I asked my aunts if I could have one of her pie pans. Apparently none of her other 17 grandkids thought to ask that - so I got all three (philistines!). Those basic metal pans are among my most cherished possessions.
Pick a country, research what food it has that you've never tried, find a few online recipes and YouTube guides and give it a go.
This was a ton of fun. I have no idea if anything I cooked was even remotely like the authentic original, but it was still a very rewarding exercise.
If you live somewhere with a lot of international supermarkets (the SF Bay Area is great for those) it also gives you an excuse for a shopping adventure for ingredients.
(My favorite recipe we tried with this was Doubles from Trinidad https://www.africanbites.com/doubles-chickpeas-sandwich/)
I mean, yes, at worse you burn your neighbourhood down and your dog runs away. But in terms of the more likely failure modes like screwing up the dough, breaking it, messing up how watery it is, etc. you can mostly just keep baking until it's done, mix it up, put into bowls, serve with ice cream, down the hatch.
[1] https://www.seriouseats.com/easy-swiss-meringue-recipe
Apologies to Crocodile Dundee.