Last month I had a post about a week where all the holidays aligned and I made like 8 or 9 special meals for an international and interfaith series of holidays (read more at https://blissfullu.com/2026/02/24/a-week-of-holiday-bliss-culinary-and-cultural-journeys/_. This week wasn’t quite as busy, but again I almost couldn’t keep up with all of the holidays we could celebrate.

It started out last Saturday with one of the homeschooling community’s favorite holidays: Pi Day (March 14 or 3.14). We have celebrated it for years, usually by making homemade pizza with mushrooms and pepperoni cut into the pi symbol (see an example at: https://blissfullu.com/2021/03/14/happy-pi-day/). This is the first year in a while that my son has been home for the holiday (he has been away at college), so I was excited to have a joint celebration with him.

So we made pizzas. I started by going to the Cary Farmers Market and getting some local smoked mozzarella-esque cheese from one of my favorite vendors, Boxcarr Cheese (https://www.boxcarrhandmadecheese.com). Their brie-like cheese just won a Bronze Medal from the World Championship Cheese Contest, which is really a big deal for a small local cheesemaker. I don’t like brie so I don’t buy that, but I’m so proud of them for earning this distinction!

This is the cheese I got for our pizzas.

I’m usually the main chef and my son is the sous chef (he is actually better at cutting uniform sized vegetables than I am). He is a vegetarian now so we don’t have pepperoni any more, but I wanted him to cut the cremini mushrooms I had gotten into pi shapes. He didn’t want to because he thought that made the mushroom pieces too big. I think for holidays that the theme transcends practical things like difficulty of eating, but since he was doing both the cutting and the eating (I’m allergic to mushrooms)…well, there were no pi shaped mushrooms.

I had some leftover sausage patties from the Cary Farmers Market that I was going to make into pi shapes. But when I got them out, I was afraid they had gone bad. I don’t take risks with pork, even the wonderful natural pork at the Farmers Market, so I threw them out and so, alas, we had no pi symbols on our pizzas this year.

But what we did have for the first time was Pi Tarts! They were a cheesecake-like batter in frozen mini pie tart shells that I DID NOT MAKE. Once they were cooked, I tried to decorate them with blueberries in the shape of pi. Unfortunately, the blueberries were not very cooperative. However, they tasted good and at least a few of them resembled pi.

The next day was the infamous (at least for Julius Caesar) Ides of March (March 15). In the olden days, the Ides of March was the Roman New Year as well as the Roman first day of Spring. So there were lots of Roman celebrations on that day until Julius Caeser changed the calendar, added a couple of months named after himself and his heir, and changed New Year to January for military reasons. So the Ides of Month was no longer New Year, but the Romans being the partiers they were/are? continued at least some of the celebrations.

We had leftover pizza and tarts so I did make a big deal about food for that day. But my son had asked me to make some homemade hummus. I usually make chipotle hummus (we are both big on spicy food), but he requested I make a more springlike flavor this time. When I asked him what he considered to be spring flavors, he suggested chive, jasmine, or mint. I have no idea where to get food quality jasmine, and mint hummus sounds terrible to me. So chive it was! Fortunately, the good old Cary Farmers Market had some fresh organic chives, so I got those. I actually got some green onions/spring onions there as well, and used them both in our hummus.

So here is our Chives of March Hummus:

I put a ton of chives and onions in but it was still pretty mild. My son was expecting something more. However, even plain hummus is good, so we have been enjoying it. We had it heated up with some other greens in a whole wheat tortilla, which is how we usually eat it, and it was good. But if anyone has any ideas for other spring-season hummus flavors, please suggest it below in the comments.

Monday I was supposed to teach, but that was the tornado day, although there were no tornados, but school was cancelled. I didn’t make anything to celebrate Tornado Day.

Tuesday, however, was…

St. Patrick’s Day!

For years, I’ve made bangers and mash for St. Paddy’s Day (Irish sausages and mashed potatoes) because corned beef was HORRIBLE for the Irish people. But I can’t find bangers any more and now my son is vegetarian. So instead, I made colcannon, which is potatoes, onions, and cabbage, and some Irish Cheddar and Leek pies.

Are you seeing a common thread? Pizzas, pies, tarts, tortillas….I’ve got Pi Day/circles on my mind.

So I’m a better cook than I am a photographer. I know you can’t see it, but there really is a lot of leeks in the pie and a lot of cabbage in the colcannon. But they kind of disappear in the pictures.

We also had tart #2 for St. Patricks Day. I made some vegan faux Bailey’s Irish Cream, and used that to flavor my next set of tarts.

Wednesday I taught and we ate up leftovers. Thursday we had lunch with one of my friends. It was not technically the Spring Equinox yet, but for me it was our Spring Ladies Lunch (although my son joined us).

That meal featured an asparagus tart using puff pastry (DID NOT MAKE) and some lovely local North Carolina Shrimp from Local Seafood at the Cary Farmers Market. Their fish and other seafood is SO GOOD! Plus, we added our third tart. Mint sounded terrible to me for hummus, but I thought it was a great flavor for a Spring Tart.

However, we hadn’t eaten up all of our other tarts, so we put them all on display and we all had several varieties.

Friday was another multiple holiday. It was technically the Spring Equinox in the West. It was also Nowruz or Persian New Year. It was Eid, the ending ceremony of Ramadan. It was Home Group for my Spiritual Center, which is when we meet once a month for a potluck dinner and structured discussions about the theme of the month. I was hosting so I was busy with that.

But the holiday I chose to go with was Vikram Samvat, which is the Hindu New Year. I made Saag Paneer, which is a creamy sauce made with greens and served (for non-Vegans) with paneer cheese, which is a cheese that keeps it shape despite the heat. I made mine with some beautiful spinach and rainbow chard that I got…at the Cary Farmers Market! The sauce was vegan and served with basmati rice, and I air fried some paneer cheese for those who are not vegan to add in if wanted. I was too distracted to take a picture, but just imagine a deep green sauce over brown basmati rice with some lightly tanned cubes of cheese poking out of the green sea.

So it was another multicultural vegetarian (other than the shrimp) celebration of the advent of Spring. I hope your week was as delicious and as fun as mine was.