Pi(e) squared, or On Life and Pi(e)s

Two things.

1) I love making pie crusts. Quiche, fruit pie, cream pie, whatever. Homemade pie crusts are quickly becoming a lost art in America, land of the frozen pie shell. My Midwest farmer genes simply won't tolerate pre-made crust, and I'll just go ahead and say right now that if you are a frozen crust lover, I do judge you just a little bit. I mean, who doesn't love a good turn now and again with your rolling pin? But that isn't the point. The point is that my friend Laura and her husband Nick invited us to dinner at their new house, which incidentally looks like a page out of a Pottery Barn catalog. I made dessert, which was a peach and blueberry pie using peaches from the local farmers' market. They were fragrant and just-right ripe, and my lattice crust was (almost) perfect. Laura's homemade vanilla ice cream was the perfect partner in dessert crime.

2) I just finished reading the book Life of Pi. Now I didn't love this Pi as much as my pie, but I quite thoroughly enjoyed it. The best word to describe the story is creative. I am pretty sure I can honestly say I never, ever, ever (nunca, nunca, nunca, jamas) would have come up with that concept for a book on my own, which is one of the plethora of reasons why I am a doctor and not an author. The beginning was a bit slow, but this may have been because I am impatient and just wanted to get to the part about the tiger in a lifeboat. His descriptions of the animals seemed realistic, and I felt the writing style was quite convincing as arising from the mind of a 16 year-old boy, albeit a slightly precocious one. Pi's practicing of multiple religions kinda annoyed me until I realized the character's ideas really led to me think about what I believe specifically and why I believe it, which I find refreshing and necessary as a life-long Christian. Bottom line, I would recommend it to a friend (that's you).

That's all, folks.