I know! I was supposed to post this yesterday but as you can guess, life got in the way!!

Hello and welcome to one of the most fun days in the calendar year! Yes, that double meaning holiday that brings joy to math nerds and foodies the world over. But guess what? You don’t have to limit your love of π (or pie) to just one day! More on that a little later.

The standard reasoning for choosing today, March 14th, for Pi Day is because the beginning of π is 3.14. But it wasn’t until 1988 that someone thought about it long enough to make the connection and a large-scale celebration was in order. It was California’s Exploratorium physicist Larry Shaw who nabs the honor. But it wasn’t until March 2009 that The House of Representatives agreed to officially designate March 14th as National Pi Day.

This all led Google to do their infamous Doodle and in March of 2014 – it was celebrated as “Pi Month”, allowing the March 14th of 2015 to become “Super Pi Day”! Then to add to the fun, if you use the American style of writing the date then 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 the date and time together represented the first ten digits of π.

According to Wikipedia “Pi Day has been observed in many ways, including eating pie, throwing pies and discussing the significance of the number π, due to a pun based on the words “pi” and “pie” being homophones in English ( /paɪ/), and the coincidental circular shape of many pies. Many pizza and pie restaurants offer discounts, deals, and free products on Pi Day.”

It continues: “The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has often mailed its application decision letters to prospective students for delivery on Pi Day. Starting in 2012, MIT has announced it will post those decisions (privately) online on Pi Day at exactly 6:28 pm, which they have called “Tau Time”, to honor the rival numbers pi and tau equally. In 2015, the regular decisions were put online at 9:26 am, following that year’s “pi minute”,^[26] and in 2020, regular decisions were released at 1:59 pm, making the first six digits of pi.” This is very clever indeed, although I feel stupid that I had to look up what the tau number was.

Here’s what I found out: 2π, also known by the Greek letter tau (𝜏) is a common multiple in mathematics. Some even say it is a more “fundamental” constant than π itself. All of this led to June 28th becoming “Two Pi Day” or “Tau Day” and the “jokingly suggest eating “twice the pie” “. Okay let’s not joke about this. I’m all for eating as much pie as I can handle!!

I love Pi Day because it is also Albert Einstein‘s birthday.

Remember when I said earlier that you can celebrate on other days? Well, here’s a list:

• Pi Approximation Day is (using the Western Style of writing the date) celebrated on July 22nd. This is because the fraction  ²²⁄₇ is accurate to two decimal places.
• I already told you about “Two Pi Day” or “Tau Day” (June 28th)
• And there is a second Pi Approximation Day! This one is celebrated on the 314th day of the year – November 10th

So there you have it – reasons to eat pie (or any other circular food) and all the days (not enough in my opinion) where you can sit back, rub your belly and say “That was so worth it!”

Well, well. It appears that March has National Ranch Day – who knew? My question, and it may be silly, but what kind of ranch?

This kind?

Or this kind? (The actual Hidden Valley Ranch!)

Call me crazy, but I have never been a big fan of the Ranch Dressing and seasoning craze that has taken over the U.S. Some of my friends even use it on their chicken nuggets! This concept just seems foreign to me. But I do love to watch YouTube cooking videos and I see a ton of people like Jessica O’Donohue (one of my favorites – along with Mandy In The Making), who absolutely love the stuff and will even add it to things that don’t call for ranch!! I suppose some may consider me crazy because I do the same with hot sauce (well, sometimes). But I do enjoy their crazy videos and their even crazier relationships with their husbands, “Bunkey” and Steven, respectively.

The O’Donohue’s with Daisy Mae

Mandy & Steven

If you do like ranch, just take a quick journey down Google Lane and you won’t be disappointed; dressings, seasoning packets and recipes galore! Or better yet, go to the King of Ranch, the Hidden Valley website, where not only can you find recipes – you can share them, too.

Ranch dressing has been the best selling salad dressing in the United States sine 1992 – when it beat out Italian.

The salad dressing was invented in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s by a man named Steven Hensen while he was working in the Alaskan bush as a plumbing contractor. He wanted to keep his workers happy so he invented the dressing. But it wasn’t until 1956/1957 that it really took off – being produced at his personal ranch; Hidden Valley Ranch in San Marcos Pass, California. Hensen would make the dressing for friends at functions and it was always well received. But it wasn’t until he put a batch together for his friend and owner of the Cold Spring Tavern, Audrey Ovington, that he hit it big and she became his first commercial account.

Hensen stayed with the operation until 1972 when it was bought by Clorox (of all companies!) for $8 million. Since then the name and production has changed hands numerous times as well as being cloned by entities like Kroger, Ken’s, Kraft, Litehouse, Marie’s, Newman’s Own, and Wish-Bone.

If you’re interested in a more in-depth history of Hidden Valley Ranch, check out Wikipedia and the Hidden Valley website.

I thought I would share with you some of the funny music remakes that have come out of this Corona Virus. Let’s face it, we could all use a little laugh during this difficult time.

Let’s start with the Friend’s theme song:

Now a little Queen:

Some Bee-Gees perhaps:

Even Billy Joel:

The clip I really wanted to show you I can’t find!  How typical is that?  It was from the British TV show The Last Leg.  They did a parody of Come On Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners.  It was fantastic!  I’ll keep looking for it and if I find it I will post it.

Meanwhile, everyone stay safe and inside if you can.  We really do have it easy with NetFlix and delivery and the grocery store when we need supplies.  Good Night!

Edmund Blair Leighton, God Speed, 1900, private collection

Frank Bernard Dicksee, Romeo and Juliet, 1884, Southampton City Art Gallery

(for the two above)

Corrado Giaquinto, Religion Protected by Spain, 1750s, Royal Palace of Madrid

Eugène Delacroix, The Massacre at Chios, 1824, Oil on Canvas

Honore Daumer, The Uprising, c. 1848

Winslow Homer, Prisoners From the Front, 1866, oil on canvas, private collection

Pablo Picasso, Guernica, 1937, oil on canvas, Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, Spain

Thomas Cole, View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm or The Oxbow, 1836, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vincent Van Gogh, Olive Trees With Yellow Sky and Sun, 1889, The Minneapolis Institute of Art

Aaron Brumbelow, Border of Howling Fjord, 2013

Alfred Eisenstaedt, Kissing on VJ Day, 1945, Black and White Photograph

Robert Smithson, “Spiral Jetty,” IKONOS satellite image, 11/11/02.