By Judy Clabes
NKyTribune editor
Today — for the non-nerdy amongst us — is Pi Day, so declared by the Congress of the United States to honor Albert Einstein’s birthday and a mathematician’s delight. ∏ is a constant value used in math that represents the ratio of a circumference of a circle to its diameter which is just about 3.14. . . 15 . . .9265459. . .
You have to go back a few thousand years to learn about this elusive number, first calculated by Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 BC) one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world. It was baptized with the Greek letter as its name in 1647 and later was embraced by the scientific community in 1737. So it has a long and distinguished history.
Today it is celebrated by math geeks around the world and has become a pop culture phenomenon.
Especially on Pi Day, March 14.
None of that matters, of course — except for the “nerdy” part — to the Dr. Doug Flora family (yes, of St. Elizabeth Cancer Center fame) which celebrates Pi Day as a family tradition — celebrated, of course, with pies.
It’s a family tradition for Doug, his wife Andrea, and their three children, Connor, Reilly, and Carter. Andrea, as you might expect, is the pie aficionado. She says they have celebrated Pi Day since the kids were little. Doug, it seems, is the family expert on “sampling.”
As the kids have grown older (two are away at college), she thought the family tradition might just fade away.
But, no, the kids manage to find their way home for the celebration.
And their 86-year-old grandparents join in as well.
Andrea’s perfected Chicken Pot Pie is always on the menu as the family favorite. The “dessert” pies rotate from year-to-year, and there’s always one for the family dog as well.
“We are probably better mathematicians than bakers,” Andrea says, “and sometimes our Pi pies turn out funny looking but we enjoy making them together each year and look forward to spending time together as part of the nerdy tradition.”
On this year’s yummy Pi menu: Two chicken pot pies, chocolate cream pie, cherry pie, and apple pie. And a mini-apple pie with dog treats in the shape of π for Penny the family dog.
The Floras — and their children — obviously understand the value of family traditions. As they reflected on past Pi Days they remembered one year when right after putting the pies in the oven, they had to run to the basement because of a tornado warning — but managed to get back to the pies before they burned.
The value of Pi is constant, but unending. The value of family traditions and pie-baking, and pie-eating, and story-sharing, and gathering around fun times — well, that’s constant and unending as well.
Have you started a family tradition lately?