Pi Day

Today was Pi Day. Instead of enjoying math in its purest form, my roommate and I decided to make a pie (which is what a lot of people do on Pi Day). Ours is a lemon pie in a gram cracker crust . . . well, mostly gram cracker. We didn't quite have enough of it so we added some cereal that didn't really do too well in the food processor. The crust isn't that great (and I suppose it goes without saying that this was the part I made). The filling is wonderful though. My roommate made that part. This was a first for us because instead of regular eggs, he used egg beaters.

We've both always mistrusted the low cal egg things. This is probably because we tried them when they came out and they sucked something awful back then. Things have improved though. We use them a lot. Besides having less calories and cholesterol than regular eggs, they have some other very significant advantages. For one thing, there is no shell. This means no cracking, no mess, and no bits of shell in whatever you're cooking. It also means no surprises. There is no 'crack open the shell to find a nasty, ruined/bloody/otherwise questionable egg inside. There is also no annoying scrambling or beating of the egg. It's already there for you.

The calorie reduction is significant though. It may not seem like much at first, but over time, reducing what is in your eggs can add up to a lot. I think people often underestimate the value of small changes to diet and life style. I know that making large changes in one's eating habits yield quicker results, but a lot of the time, this kind of drastic stuff can end quickly. It's just too much to handle all at once. Small changes though . . . well, for one thing, you don't notice them as much. It was just a little adjustment. Just less of this here and more movement there. For another thing, it doesn't feel like such a sacrifice. For someone like me, someone who can get very resentful of sacrifices, this is very helpful in keeping perspective.

We had a lot of fun making our pie. My roommate (the far better cook) did all of the complicated stuff. I just made the crust and helped him keep an eye on time. Timing is, after all, very important in pie making. So is chemistry. Come to think of it, we had more math going on than we realized.