St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th, is one of those holidays that everyone likes to celebrate.

Some attend a parade, some head to pubs.

But our favorite activity is casual entertaining at home with friends.

Our friends love to bring food to a gathering. So we have a group feast, without anyone doing too much work.

You can pull together a quick party with these ideas:

 
Plus, some of our favorite fun recipes:

 
Don’t forget the Irish Coffee.

If you’re on a budget, you don’t have to buy green napkins, cups and plates.

But pulling together some Irish music is a good idea: Maybe your friends can help with that, too.

The drinking toast is sláinte, “health” in Gaelic. It’s pronounced “SLAN-chuh” or SLAWN-chuh.

We’re not even going to try to pronounce Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhuit, which means Happy St Patrick’s Day to you

[1] Leprechaun lemonade can be served as a soft drink, or with Irish whiskey. Here’s the recipe, along with recipes for green beer and green ranch dip.

[2] There are different cheeses to create an Irish cheese board, but you can also sprinkle herbs with a shamrock cut-out (photo courtesy Vermont Creamery).

[1] Brussels sprouts with bacon jam, as an appetizer or beer/wine snack (photo © Pampered Chef).

[2] While large Brussels sprouts are tempting, smaller ones are more tender (photo © Sweetgreen).

With St. Patrick’s Day ten days ahead, we begin a series of festive recipes.

This recipe from Pampered Chef is both fun and tasty: Brussels sprouts, cooked in bacon drippings, topped with bacon jam (photo #1).

You can serve it as an appetizer, a side, or a beer/wine snack.

Use any leftover bacon jam with crackers or brie (baked brie or on a cheese plate)—or on toast.
 
 
RECIPE: BRUSSELS SPROUTS BITES WITH BACON JAM

Ingredients For 30 Pieces

 
Preparation

1. COOK the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove the bacon from the skillet and drain on paper towels. Drain the grease from the skillet, reserving 1½ tablespoons of the bacon drippings.

2. ADD 1 tablespoon of drippings back into skillet. Add the onions, garlic and thyme. Cook over medium-low heat 2-3 minutes, or until the onions are tender.

3. CRUMBLE the bacon into a small mixing bowl and add the onion mixture, preserves and vinegar. Mix well.

5. ARRANGE the Brussels sprouts cut-side up on a serving plate or board. Top with bacon jam.

While National Pie Day is January 23rd, March 14th, 3.14, is National Pi Day.

The date format 3.14 is the same as the first three digits of pi. The first 10 digits are 3.1415926535.

There are many more: Pi has been calculated to more than one trillion digits beyond its decimal point.

Some people are obsessed with memorizing as many digits of pi as possible. The Guinness Book Of World Records names the record holder as a man named Lu Chao.

He set the record in November 2005 at Northwest A & F University in the Shaanxi province of China. It took him 24 hours and 4 minutes to recite the 67,890th decimal place of pi without a mistake.

(Want to try it? Start here.)

It’s a great achievement, but we’d prefer to eat pie than to memorize pi. For March 14th, bakers and mathematicians alike have fun baking pi-themed pies.
 
 
WHAT IS PI?

If you’ve forgotten high school math, pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The number is constant, no matter what the size of the circle.

The pi symbol is the Greek mathematical symbol that represents the ratio.

Because pies are round, it’s particularly fitting to have one today.
 
 
CELEBRATE PI WITH PIE

We use Pi Day as an excuse to have a different type of pie each year. Almost any pie can be decorated for the occasion, from apple or other fruit (photos #2 and #3) to Key lime to pecan or pumpkin (photo #1).

You have enough lead time to have a Pi Day dessert party. Eight people can share one pie.

For a larger event, invite friends to bring their favorite pies.

If you don’t have time to bake, pick up a pie and the garnishes to create the pi symbol (berries, marzipan, mascarpone, etc.).

To see some different creative approaches to decorating the pies, search for “Pi Day pie” on Google and Pinterest.
 
 
THE HISTORY OF PI DAY

Pi Day was founded in 1988 by Larry Shaw, a physicist at the San Francisco Exploratorium. On that first day, both staff and visitors celebrated by marching in a circle, and then eating fruit pie.

On March 12, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution (111 H. Res. 224) recognizing March 14, 2009 as National Pi Day.

The tradition expanded across the globe among countries that use the month-day format (i.e., 3.14). Who on this earth doesn’t want a reason to eat pie?

Some bakers make a pastry cut-out of the pi symbol to decorate the top crust (photo #1). Some actually decorate the rim of the pie with the first 31 digits of pi (or however many fit—photo #3). You do it with cookie cutters in the shape of numbers.
 
 
OR, HAVE A PIZZA PIE

If you go for savory rather than sweet, a pizza pie fits right in.

[1] A simple pie pie: A single crust pie with the pi symbol cut from the rest of the dough (photo courtesy From The Mixed Up Files).

[2] Get cookie cutter numbers to create the formula (photo courtesy King Arthur Flour).

[3] We wish we had the patience to apply all these decimals of pi (photo courtesy Great Minds Of Science | Tumblr).

[4] If you’d rather have a pizza pie, it counts. This one is decorated with pepperoni (photo courtesy Real Life At Home).

We conclude with one of our favorite pie quotes, from Yogi Berra:

“I cut my pie into four pieces. I didn’t think I could eat eight.”