Go for the gold: A Pie for All Seasons

March 14, 2022

Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Erika Joyce.

A Pie for All Seasons

By Sam Sifton

Good morning. This is a week of holidays and affirmation, even as the world remains stricken by conflict and pain, offering moments in which to convene, if you're able, and to celebrate tradition, faith — even pastry.

For instance, it's Pi Day today, for the mathematically inclined, a chance to bake in the name of science: 3, 1 and 4 are the first three significant digits in the ratio of the circumference of any circle to the diameter of that circle. As in, say, a 9-inch apple pie (above).

Purim commences at sundown on Wednesday, and whatever else you eat, I think these hamantaschen with a poppy-seed filling ought to make an appearance on the table. St. Patrick's Day follows on Thursday, a chance to make corned beef and cabbage, Irish soda bread, Guinness pie.

Holi, the Hindu festival of spring and many colors, is on Friday. My colleague Priya Krishna wrote about a flavor combination that runs through the sweets of the holiday: kesar pista, or saffron and pistachio.

Here's Priya: "The pairing's use in dessert was well documented during the Mughal Empire, when kesar pista kulfi was served to royals, according to 'A Historical Dictionary of Indian Food' by the food historian K.T. Achaya. The flavor also appears elsewhere in Asia, in Persian dishes like sohan, a saffron brittle topped with pistachios, and bastani, an ice cream typically scented with saffron, pistachio, vanilla and rose water." (Remember to give her recipe for saffron pistachio blondies a try.)

Friday's also the third one of Lent, and maybe you'd like to make fish cakes, or fish pepper soup.

Then Nowruz arrives on Sunday, to celebrate the spring equinox. Consider this amazing whole fish stuffed with herbs, walnuts and pomegranate for dinner, with sabzi polo (herbed rice with tahdig) and a tureen of ash reshteh (greens, bean and noodle soup).

And of course March Madness starts this week as well, a chance to cheer your favorite college basketball teams on toward victory. (Anyone but Duke? Just kidding!) We've got loads of recipes for chicken wings, for nachos, for dips. Steak 'n' bacon Cheddar meatballs? Yes, please, with toothpicks so you can spear them from the couch.

You can find thousands more recipes appropriate to your holiday or personal needs on New York Times Cooking, and further inspiration on our TikTok, Instagram and YouTube channels (check out Vaughn Vreeland kicking our most popular recipe for beef stew up a notch). It's true that you need a subscription to access the recipes. Subscriptions support our work. They make this whole thing of ours possible. I thank you for yours. (And if you haven't subscribed yet, would you please consider doing so today?)

We will remain standing by to render assistance, should anything go wrong while you're in the kitchen or using our site and app. Just write us a letter: cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you. (You can also write to me with gripes and compliments: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I read every letter sent.)

Now, it's nothing to do with cherries or poulet Bresse, but Mary Pols's Times review got me excited to read Stewart O'Nan's latest, "Ocean State."

I'm kind of into this painting of Nantucket by the Italian artist Nicola D'Ascenzo (1871-1954), at Schwarz Gallery in Philadelphia. (He also designed the stained-glass windows at the National Cathedral in Washington. D.C.)

Simon Reynolds has 6,976 words on Malcolm McLaren in the London Review of Books, if you're game for a long read. (I hope you're game.)

Finally, do take a look at this wonderful piece of travel writing and photography in The Times, "Vermont, Dressed in Snow," with photographs and text by Caleb Kenna. And I'll be back on Wednesday.