I got involved because I volunteered. My church's pastor gave a sermon that involved a pie chart and the idea was born that, to help illustrate the pie chart, pie should be served to each congregational member.
This idea was floated about in August and, at the time, it seemed like a simple idea, until September 26th arrived and the time was nearing to actually put the idea into action. "How many pieces are needed?" was the question asked. "Four hundred pieces." was the answer given.
Four hundred pieces of pie - now that's a lot of pie. Then the thought wheels began to turn about how to serve four hundred pieces of pie.......then the thought wheels began to turn about how to make four hundred pieces of pie. At even nine slices per pie, the thought of making that many pies was, well, mind-boggling.
Thus, the decision was made by the Baker Herself (not me) that lemon bars would instead be made and cut into tiny, pie-slice-like pieces. The Engineer Himself created a diagram that demonstrated how a 9X13 pan of lemon bars could be cut into the maximum number of tiny, pie-slice-like pieces.
It was a profile in ingenuity - all of those tiny pie-slice-like slices of lemon-bar dessert. The pans of lemon bars were frozen in order to make the slices easier to handle. Napkins were quartered, slices transferred to the napkins and trays were loaded.
Now came the hard part. Keeping the slices from being eaten until AFTER each service. Kids and adults alike were drawn from the farthest corners of the church by some instinct that told them a dessert was lurking somewhere in the building. Even after the trays were tucked away in the corner of a room (with a window in the door), kids would peek around the corner, through the window - perhaps hoping for a lapse in pie-slice guarding - but the pie guardians were not to be distracted from their jobs of keeping the slices safe until after the services.
In the end, the majority of pie-slice-like pieces were served to the congregants of the three services. Any leftover pieces were frozen and will be used on one of the other four, future Sundays that involve a pie chart.
Four times four hundred. That's a lot of tiny, pie-slice-like pieces.
Ancora imparo
