The Most Important Holiday

Pi Day. March 14th, 3.14. The one day a year the math nerds and pie people agree on something. After a week of rain that pushed The Big Pipe (Portland’s massive underground sewer system) to overflowing into the Willamette River, we finally got a beautiful, clear, sunny Saturday and we decided to get out and make the best of it.

Friday the 13th was yesterday. March 15th, the Ides of March is tomorrow.

But today, March 14th, belonged to pie.

A Hundred Vendors and a Very Good Hand Pie

Kay and I made our first stop of the day at the year-round PSU Farmers Market where about a hundred vendors were out in full force: fruit, veggies, baked goods, flowers, and more.

The real find of the morning was a sambusa from Alleamin African Kitchen, a Portland-based spot out of SE Stark I’d never encountered before. A crispy, flaky crusted hand pie stuffed with lentils, spinach, potatoes, and coconut. Still hot out of the fryer. Six dollars. No sauce needed, but it did come with a bonus green sauce that was spicy and lent a lot of brightness to an otherwise heavy eat.

We also picked up a couple salsas (one habanero based and the other a spicy mole) from Three Goats Farm, and after conducting a taste test we grabbed six beautiful brisket-stuffed multi-colored ravioli and a pint of pomodoro sauce from Foglia, a local pasta company whose naturally colored ravioli look more like modern art than Saturday morning groceries. That’s going to be a very good dinner tomorrow.

We filled our quintessential Powell’s Bookstore bag to the brim and vowed to return as many Saturdays as we could manage.

The Line. The Whole Line. And Nothing but the Line.

After an hour walking around the Farmer’s Market, we headed across the river to SE Division, bound for Lauretta Jean’s, named one of the 25 best pie shops in the country by Thrillist, and a perennial #1 in Willamette Week’s Best of Portland. They do Pi Day as a proper event: eight special flavors you cannot get any other time of year, one day only, with lines that start early and move slowly.

When we arrived, the line was down the street and around the corner. I thought it would move quickly. An hour in, it had moved maybe twenty or thirty feet. At that point I figured: in for a penny, in for a pound. I’m doing it for my readers. Ha.

Kay, sensibly, wandered off to browse the vintage clothing and jewelry stores in the area.

Just after the three-hour mark, when I was maybe another thirty minutes from the front door, she sauntered up.

With a bag full of pie.

She had run into friends from church ahead of me in the line and ended up hanging with them and was able to get some pie.

We ended up leaving with slices of the Mayan Chocolate Chess, Honey Black Sesame, Tiramisu Cannoli, and a couple slices of Banana Cream, because at hour three even Kay knew we earned the right to order multiples of our favorite (Pictures are from later at home. We had to get everything packed up to go so they aren’t the most photogenic shots, but the flavors were off-the-chart amazing).

The full Pi Day special menu also included Cherry Cheesecake, PB&J, Calamansi & Mango, Grasshopper, and Banoffee, most of which Kay reported were gone before I even got close to the door.

Since I didn’t quite make it inside, the interior photos are from a couple of weeks earlier when Kay and I went on a midafternoon date and she got the Banana Cream and I ordered the Bourbon Pecan à la mode and immediately knew I’d be back soon.

Wellspent. Very Wellspent.

Right next door to Lauretta Jean’s is Wellspent Market, which is exactly what a neighborhood specialty food shop should be and rarely is. The building is a hundred years old, originally a corner general store that carries olive oil, Japanese pantry staples, sake curated for the shop, housemade kimchi and miso, chile oils, and rotating specialty goods for your next bougie dinner party. They also stock Lauretta Jean’s products year-round and I left with a Lauretta Jean’s steak and veggie pot pie for tonight, a six pack of limoncello soda, and a few other items.

Pretty Boy Pizza: Detroit Style Pie Done Right

On the other side of Lauretta Jean’s is Pretty Boy Pizza, in collaboration with Little Beast Brewing. They still operate out of the outdoor tents from Covid days, comfortably holding probably close to a hundred people. After signing in via QR code and ordering online, they serve up Detroit-style pies: thick, airy, deeply crisped edges, served by the slice in what they call a Hunk (a 5x7 square).

I got the Grand Theft Autumn, vodka sauce, diced mozzarella, Ezzo cup char pepperoni, burrata, fresh basil, hot honey, and pecorino, along with a pint of the Embrace the Darkness Porter. Kay got the Chef’s Special covered in Italian Sausage, mushrooms and burrata. We sat outside under the tent heater as the sun dappled through the windows. What a way to spend the ‘holiday’.

I’m absolutely a fan and will be going back, as it’s so much better experienced in person than delivered via Doordash.

The Sum of the Parts

Is Lauretta Jean’s pie incredible? You better believe it! Is it worth a three-hour wait in line? Most definitely not. But what I won’t do for the story.

If you’re in this part of town on any other day of the year though, the combination of Lauretta Jeans’s, Wellspent and Pretty Boy alone is worth the trip, not to mention all of the other great shopping.

So, if you’ve never done Pi Day in Portland, do it like this.

Once.