it's national pi day

March 14 (you know, 3.14), a day for nerds and dessert-lovers. I can't say I really fit it into either category today. I enjoy a good math joke, but I can only remember π to five or six digits (nerdier friends can rattle off twelve, fifteen, even twenty digits easily). And then there's the other thing.

I hate pie.

I hope we can still be friends, I know this can be a fairly controversial stance. It's the one dessert category that I really just don't get. The tiny town I live in holds an annual pie festival, a wacky event straight out of Stars Hollow. The highlight of the event is $10 all-you-can-eat pie buffet and I leave hungry. My brother served pie instead of cake at his wedding last year and I brought a cupcake in my purse. Team Cake for life.

But I love dessert and I love celebrating goofy holidays, so I didn't want to sit this one totally out. I realized it's the traditional fruit pies that I really hate. Goopy, sugary fillings sitting on a soggy crust...no thanks. But when you start adding chocolate, peanut butter, marshmallow, and other good stuff into the mix, well that's a horse of a different color.

Here some pies that are worthy of baking, serving, and eating, today and any other day...

This chocolate peanut butter tart is meant to mimic the deliciousness of Tagalongs, the very best Girl Scout cookies in the world.

This S'mores Pie is perfect when you don't have a campfire handy. I can almost taste that buttery graham cracker crust and gooey marshmallow.

These pie pops are pretty goddamn adorable, even if they're filled with traditional fruit fillings here. But what if they were filled with Nutella? What if, indeed...

Creme brûlée is one of my favorite desserts, and part of the beauty is it's simplicity. I wouldn't want to mess with it too much, but the addition of rich, flaky crust to create a creme brûlée pie doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Pudding pie is a staple at my house for Thanksgiving, a compromise to appease the pie-lovers and the stubborn pie-hater (me). Ours is usually a simple chocolate version, but at some point I'm going to need this banana pudding pie in my life.

A few more pie-related tidbits....

How adorable are these dessert plates? I'm definitely going to pick up a few of each (especially for the price!)

source

I'm not the only one who hates pie! I could have written this article, which argues we need a better all-American dessert than apple pie. Mark Bittman suggests ditching the crust when making fruit desserts, which is at least a step in the right direction. And what would @drakeoncake be if there was only...pie?

If you are a pie-lover, put this on your culinary bucket list: Briermere Farms. It's a fairly tiny, unassuming farm stand on eastern Long Island that serves some of the best pies in the world (according to those in the know). They also have delicious muffins, cookies, and other baked goods in addition to farm fresh fruit and veggies. It's in the middle of nowhere but an easy stop on your way out to the Hamptons, Montauk, my mom's house, or other fancy destinations.