March 9, 2020 • 45 mins
In honor of our podcast’s official holiday, we’re celebrating all things Pi and pie! Our special guest is Lauren Ko: an artist, self-taught baker, and the founder of the wildly popular Instagram account @lokokitchen. We get the dish from Lauren about how she creates her incredibly vibrant and intricate geometric pies, how she navigated a 180º career shift to go all-in on baking, and why it’s perfectly ironic that she now reimagines a classic American dessert for a living. Prepare your palate for baking tips, inspiring creative advice, and a math treat at the end!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. Okay, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate Scott Campbell.
We're here to help you follow your curiosity, celebrate your individuality,
(00:20):
and embrace the and not the ore so you can
turn everything you love into a custom built career that's
as unique and dynamic as you are. If you feel
that one path may not be your only path, and
you call yourself a human bend diagram, then you are
in the right place, because when it comes to pursuing
your passions, we believe the limit does not exist. Happy
(00:45):
Almost Pie Day or Actual Pie Day or Belated Pie Day,
depending on when you're listening to this. It's the day
we count as our podcasts official holiday. That's right. We
kicked off t LDNY on Pie Day, and four years
later her we are ready to celebrate the unapologetic nerdiness
of March fourteenth with actual pie. That's right. Our guest
(01:07):
this week is Lauren co and amateur baker turned Instagram
celebrity thanks to the incredibly vibrant and intricate designs of
her one of a kind pies. We get the dish
Get it from la I do about how she creates
her geometric pies, and how she navigated a one hundred
and eighty degree career shift when she went all in
(01:27):
on baking. Lauren also fills us in on why it's
perfectly ironic that she now reimagines a classic American dessert
for a living and what American pie means to her,
and she gives us some tips for baking our own
ven Diagram pies so that we can celebrate Pie Day appropriately.
Quick audio note, we had some creative recording circumstances in
(01:49):
the making of this episode, so you may notice a
few differences in sound. In the name of embracing imperfection,
we hope you'll roll with it. Pie Day pun intended. Okay,
all this talk about pies is making me hungry, so
we need to get this episode started before I go
hunt down a slice of tripleberry pie. Oh that's such
a good idea, Christina. While you're at it, will you
(02:09):
drop ship me a slice of Jerry I got you?
You are the best. Lauren. Take us back to earlier
days before you put your pies on Instagram. What did
your life look like? What was your job? And we're
(02:30):
so curious if it fulfilled you or if you always
had other aspirations. So my first job out of college
was as a social worker in an emergency and domestic
violence shelter. Um. I got my degree in international studies
and social work and did that for a couple of years,
and then I lived in South America and did international
social work for a couple of years. And then, you know,
(02:53):
social work was really meaningful to me. It was I
felt really important to work for an organization that was
doing impactful, productive work. But it was really tough to
be doing frontline services, direct services, and so I started
pivoting and kind of moved into positions that were more
administrative and focused more on development and fundraising and things
(03:16):
like that. Still stayed in the nonprofit sector, and then
kind of moved around. I got married, moved to Boston,
and then, being from San Diego, immediately got over the
winter blizzards on the East Coast and told my husband
we had to move back to the West coast immediately. Um.
So then we landed in Seattle and I was working
(03:37):
in the higher education space when all of this crazy
pie stuff happened. So to say that my career path
has not been linear is exactly the way to put it.
And I never guessed that I would be making pies
for a living. So you said in a recent interview
that there's this kind of irony that you make pies
(03:58):
for a living because in your Chinese Honduran family, it's
not really a traditional apple pie ethos. So why pies
do you? Do you enjoy eating them? Or was this
more of a design attraction so more ironies? Um, it
was kind of an accident. So I moved to Seattle
(04:18):
three and a half years ago, and I was fun employed,
looking for a job, had some extra time on my hands,
and I was messing around on the internet as one does,
and just kind of stumbled across these really beautiful pictures
of pie on Pinterest, and they were like lots of
floral cutouts, lots of leaf cut outs, really beautiful but
not really my style. But it also was kind of
(04:40):
this impetus of huh. I've been cooking and baking for
fun my whole life, but somehow I've never made a
pie because non traditional American family, not a lot of
apple pies happening. So I just went for it. I
made a plaid lattice apple pie and it was fine.
Didn't change my life. It was just kin of like,
(05:00):
oh cool that happened, and I just added it to
my repertoire of things that I would make for fun
on the weekends. Shortly thereafter, I got a regular office
job and was just kind of baking here and there
for fun. And then fast forward a year later to
August two thousand seventeen, I started my local kitchen Instagram
account totally as a fluke. I just felt like I
(05:22):
was becoming that friend and putting too many food photos
in my personal account. It's good to have the self awareness. Yeah,
I just really wanted to keep them and didn't want
to be too obnoxious, so I just wanted a separate,
like holding place. It was just basically like a personal
photo album of documenting things that I was making. And
(05:43):
it just so happened that the first photo I posted
was of a geometric pie. You know, I was also
making like blueberry muffins and cakes and summer salads and
things like that, but it just so happened that the
first post was of a pie, and it got some
thing like six hundred likes, which it was also a
new account with like fifty followers. It was my husband,
(06:05):
my baby, cousin and maybe some high school people I
hadn't spoken to in a decade, so as a regular person,
totally blew my mind. I was a little worried. It
was like, are these trolls, at these bots, at these Russians?
What's happening? Should I put this back on private? Like
s O S? I just was like, Okay, I'm going
to post a few more pies, or like, post a
(06:25):
few more photos and see if this was like a
weird fluke. I kept getting like hundreds of likes on
my photos in a month, and I hit a thousand
followers and two months in Design Milk re shared one
of my pie photos and I had never heard of them,
saw that they had a million followers, and was just like, oh,
that's weird and nice cool, and then watched my phone
(06:49):
blow up that entire day. I gained eight thousand followers
in a matter of hours. All the news outlets started
jumping on MPR, BuzzFeed, Vogue, Oprah Magazine, like world just
completely blew up, and by December I hit a hundred
thousand followers. So why pies? It was an accident, a
(07:10):
happy accident, right place, right time, and here we are
it's happy for all of us because they are visual delights,
and it is no surprise to me that Design Milk
wanted to share immediately. One of the things about your
pies that's so special is how vibrantly colorful and intricately
geometric they are, and not just that, it's the way
(07:31):
you photographed them and the precision of your layouts. All
those signs point to a strong visual design background. So
we have to ask, Lauren, do you have any formal
training in art and design? I do not have any
formal training in art and design. I get that question
a lot, or if I'm a mathematician, if I'm an
engineer or an architect. Um Again, my training is in
(07:53):
social work and I have never worked in a professional kitchen.
I you know, never went to art school. So this
is kind of this really fun intersection of my appreciation
of art, design, banking, and feeding people I love. And
it's you know, a huge privilege to be able to
do this, but it's just kind of stemmed from a
(08:14):
humble nerd puttering around in her home kitchen and kind
of encountering the crazy aspect of going viral on the internet.
That's incredible. Did you know already that you had artistic skills,
Like have you always kind of been an artist for
fun and like doodled in your notebook? Yeah, I mean
(08:34):
I have always loved art and design. I love going
to art museums. Took just regular art classes in middle
school in high school and kind of drew and painted
for fun, but never really pursued it seriously. So I
definitely had creative outlets, but never imagined that it would
kind of intersect with food and that it would be
something that I would use to make a living. Later on,
(08:56):
your Instagram account blows up. You had a hundred thousand
followers in December. When did you decide to make baking
your full time pursuit? What was the catalyst to leave
your job and go after this as your life? I
would say the design Milk post was the catalyst. It
was never really like a slow burn. People are like,
(09:18):
were you slowly building or did everything happen? I just
feel like everything just kind of blew up and there
was a huge snowball. So I actually quit my job
January of two thousand eighteen, even though I had started
my Instagram account end of August two seventeen, I was
getting all these opportunities. I had to start a new
email account, and I couldn't answer all of these emails.
(09:38):
I was still working my desk job from you know,
eight to six. The sunsets at like four pm in
Seattle in the winter, and so I wasn't able to
bake on weeknights. I had to photograph and natural lights,
so weekends were just like marathon baking sessions. And I
was getting all these opportunities that seemed really crazy and
wildly out of my comfort zone. But it was clear
(10:01):
to my husband and I that something was happening, and
we just thought like I would regret it if I
didn't explore it. And this was kind of a moment
to kind of take advantage of. And yeah, I have
to acknowledge that it was very privileged and lucky to
have a partner who also had a study income, so
I was able to kind of bank on the security
(10:23):
of that to take this risk. Quit my job in
January to kind of ride the wave and see where
it would take me, and things essentially have not stopped since.
So fill us in a little bit, Lauren. What is
your sort of day in, day out look like and
what does your kind of business model of this piemaker
(10:44):
look like to you. Every day is different. I still
haven't really figured out a routine. Usually it's like Mondays
are my admin days, where I do all my grocery
shopping and try desperately to catch up on emails even
though I'm always behind, and I tried to kind of
concentrate a lot of baking to one or two days
a week. My business model for making income is I
(11:06):
do have a few brand partnerships where I work with brands.
I essentially advertise for them through my Instagram account, and
then I also supplement by teaching classes and workshops in
Seattle and doing events around. I also have a book
coming out this fall. Is this a cookbook? Yes? So
my book coming out is called Peometry. It's a traditional
(11:28):
cookbook and there will be twenty five pies, twenty five tarts, um,
there will be crust and dough recipes. There will be
fifty fillings and also fifty designs. My designs look more
complicated than they are to execute. Obviously, I'm not a
trained pastry cheft. There's no crazy techniques. It's just a
little bit of patients and time, and this cookbook will
(11:48):
hopefully show trained professionals as well as home cooks as
well as you know what we call armchair bakers, that
they can achieve these works of art as well in
their own homes. This is very exciting. I fancy myself
to be an amateur piemaker, in which the pies that
I make are very delicious, but not very attractive. So
(12:09):
I'm very excited about your book in hopes that that
might up my design game. Obviously, flavor is the bottom line,
but it never helps to have something that looks nice too.
I have to say the title piometry, I know lights
both Christina and I up big time. Could you tell
(12:42):
us a little bit about your My American Pie Project.
The My American Pie Project as a collaboration with the
Residency NYC, which is a collaboration lab run by the
ad agency B B d O based in New York.
They had reached out to me looking for fun creative
partners and some new projects to kind of develop. So
(13:04):
did some brainstorming with them, and we wanted to obviously
take advantage of what I do and my medium and
also my platform um and also with my background in
social work, I'm always looking for ways to kind of
incorporate my professional training and also my personal passions with
what I do now. Sometimes it can feel a little
(13:24):
trivial or frivolous to make pie are on social media,
and there's so many things happening in the world, and
so many ways that I could be maybe a productive
or a proactive citizen, And so out of this kind
of desire of always looking for ways to incorporate a
lot of different things, we came up with this My
American Pie project, where we casted a group of individuals
(13:48):
with really unique stories who identify as Americans but maybe
have cultural backgrounds that are what people see as non traditional,
and we wanted to give people the upper tunity to
tell their stories and kind of share and speak to
especially this current political discourse, so the current tenor in
this country where you know, people are having a lot
(14:10):
of discussions about what it means to be American, who
gets to identify, who gets to tell people, um whether
they belong or not, And we thought it was a
great opportunity to kind of participate in that discussion while
also making pies and featuring them in perhaps a different light.
And they're incredible, yeah, especially when you see them right
(14:31):
next to the photo of the person whom they represent.
Think I got really lucky that we found some individuals
with really powerful stories. And one of my favorite parts
about this collaboration is just hearing the feedback and response
from people saying, I, you know, this story really resonated
with me, I really identified with this person, or you know,
(14:52):
this really opened my eyes to a completely different community
that I am not in touch with or was not
aware of. So it it's pretty cool to think that
something like pie are or that an Instagram account can
be an active participant in storytelling and also joining a
larger conversation about what's happening in this country. I love this,
(15:14):
you wrote in your own hashtag my American Pie post.
You wrote, I'm generally not Asian enough, not quite Latina,
so it seems both ironic and perfect that I now
reimagine a classic American dessert for a living. It's equal parts,
not traditional enough and not radical enough, but American all
(15:35):
the same. Do you have any words of advice or
encouragement for someone who feels like maybe they're too much
of something or not enough of something else. I think
just constantly being reminded that everybody is unique, but nobody
is alone. I think that's kind of one of the
biggest takeaways of this series and of the response that
we've gotten to a lot of these stories and post
(15:56):
is just people saying, you know, I identify with that,
or realize I'm not the only one, or you know,
I'm also an interesting mix. But this kind of opened
my eyes to see that it's okay to be different,
it's okay to not be entirely one thing. So just
you know, constantly reminding yourself that and those are things
that make you unique. But unique doesn't mean alone, that's right. So, Lauren,
(16:21):
we've been talking so much about your pies. We would
love to dig into your pie process a little bit,
being this our Pie Day episode after all, So let's
start with pre production, shall we call it? Where do
your ideas come from? And how do you go about
designing and planning your creations. So most of my inspiration
(16:41):
sources are non food related, so things like textiles, patterns,
string are anything with bright color. I have pies and
tarts and my Instagram feed that are inspired by patio
furniture and public bathroom floors and you know, bamboo purses
and may be a shirt that I saw some stranger
walking on the street wearing that I kind of stored
(17:03):
away in my memory bank for later. There's also I
need to bake something, and there are a batch of
apples that are going wrinkly in my kitchen. Or this
is on sale at the grocery store. So I'm inspired
by kind of tactile things, but also determined by what's
available to me. I remind people that I am a
regular person shopping at regular grocery store. So it's this
(17:27):
is on sale, this is in season, this is what
we're making. You see that geometric tile on the public
bathroom floor, how do you translate that into the actual
math of your pie. It may surprise you to know
that there is no math involved in what I do.
Math has always been my worst subject, so another irony
(17:49):
of this journey. I don't do any calculations. I don't
do any measurements except pertaining to the recipe. But in
terms of you know, design, it's I am often just
kind of ng it. I never draw things out. I
never do rough drafts. I just kind of get an
idea in my head. Maybe I'll scroll through some photos
saved in my phone and I will just go for it.
(18:10):
And pretty much everything you see in my Instagram feed
is just the result of a creative session. There are
definitely fruits that slice better or holds better, or certain
dough designs that I know will work better in certain configurations.
So sometimes that will help guide the sort of design
that I go with. But for the most part, it's
just kind of call it affliction of the crazy brain.
(18:33):
There's just stuff happening up there, and then you know,
stuff happens. So how long does it take to build
a pie? To go from an idea to the pie
sitting in front of you before you're putting it into bake?
How long does that go? And how many failures do
you have for every success? Every pie and tart is different.
(18:55):
Some of them are pretty easy to put together. Some
of the designs are also come together really quickly, and
then some of them take much longer. The thing with
pie is that there's a lot of steps and a
lot of resting time. So you know, something could take
me up to eight hours, but it's not necessarily eight
hours of me standing in my kitchen working. I usually
(19:16):
make a huge batch of dough one day and then
I let it rest in the fridge overnight so that
the next day, I can focus on the actual assembly
of the pie. Usually designs take me anywhere from thirty
minutes to maybe a couple hours for ones that are
a little more involved, And like I said, I don't
sketch anything out. I don't do any rough drafts. And
that's largely because I feel like the more concrete of
(19:38):
an idea I have, the more frustrated I am with
the final predict because you know, working with fruit and dough,
it's not like drawing something with a pencil. While you
have full control, you just kind of have to go
with the medium and see where it takes you. I
would say I don't have that many failures, but mostly
because they don't always have a concrete goal in mind
(20:01):
besides just having a finished product to show. Usually, whatever
I make, that's what it is. I'm sensing a second
book here with the title kind of like Zen in
the Art of Pie Making. It feels very in the moment,
it's very inspiring. We'll keep that in mine. I'm looking
for my next step. There's a life philosophy to be
learned here for sure. Naturally, Lauren, we would love to
(20:36):
make a ven Diagram pie for Pie Day, so we
would love to ask you for any pro tips, like,
for example, if we were thinking about putting a ven
diagram on the top of our pie, would you advise
us to use dough for the Venn diagram or would
fruit be a better choice? Are there any stumbling blocks
we should look out for? Either option works If you
(20:57):
are going to cut a design out of dough, I
recommend rolling out your dough, putting it on a sheet
of parchment, and then doing your design there. And the
once you have your design, slide a baking sheet under
your sheet of parchment, freeze it solid so that you
can just pick that design up as one piece and
then put it on top of your pie. Otherwise it's
soft and squishy and you run the risk of kind
(21:19):
of destroying that design that you worked so hard to
make when you're transferring to the pie. And also, the
golden rule of pie making is to keep everything cold
at every step, so chilling it having that rest time
in the fridge or freezer will definitely help. As for fruit,
things like mango and papaya slice really well, it's easy
(21:40):
to cut shapes out of them. Those are probably your
best bets for creating a very specific design on top
of the surface. I can tell you've made a few pies.
I'm like, I don't. I don't keep things cold, so
that probably explains why everything always kind of becomes a
bit lopsided. But time I take it out of the oven,
(22:02):
this is brilliant. Okay, I'm starting to get some plans
for my ven diagram pie for pie Day. I love it.
I love that you have a hashtag that's hashtag Yeah,
but what does it look like baked? And so curious?
Did you get this sort of fervent, rallying cry to
see the baked results of your own biked pies? Obviously,
(22:23):
when I started this Instagram account, it was just like
a fun endeavor. I got into it for the design
aspect of it, and it just so happened that my
medium was edible, that it was pie. I consider myself
more pie designer, more pie artists than baker. Although my
stuff is definitely edible at tastes good. Don't want to
(22:44):
waste time and food, So that's kind of why I
post a lot of pictures of the pies pre big,
because I love the precision. I spent all this time
on this design. I think we can appreciate the aesthetic
of any sort of art piece, even if it transforms.
I think it can be beautiful at any stage. But
people have very very strong opinions about everything. So essentially,
(23:09):
my feed shows a lot of pictures of pre baked
pies and also the finished product of tarts. But people
were like, yeah, but what does it look like baked?
And when I first started, that was like of the
comments where people being like, yeah, but what does it
look like baked? Nobody cares. It's not real unless it's baked.
And it was just like a huge thing where I
was like, can't we just appreciate what it looks like
(23:30):
now even if it changes a little bit, and you know,
of course it changes. You stick something in the oven
for an hour at four hundred degrees, it will transform
a little bit. If I said, in an oven at
four hundred degrees, I'm not going to look the same either. Correct.
That was kind of my tongue in cheek way of
addressing those things and doing it in a way that felt,
(23:54):
you know, mostly positive and addressing it, but also doing
it in a way that felt right for me. The
more you tell me what to do, the more I
don't want to do it. But it was just kind
of like a fun way to tackle the onslaught of
people being unhappy and you know, having really strong opinions
about my work, which is, you know, anytime you do
(24:14):
something creative, it can be it can feel very personal.
It's such a clever way to own it. Are there
other mediums that interest you other than pies? Is pie
your creative soul mate? I don't know if it's my
soul mate, but it does consume my life currently, so
I don't find itself able to make time for a
(24:36):
lot of other creative outlets. But I do enjoy like
appreciating art. I like going to art museums, um. I
do these things called texture studies and my Instagram stories
where I kind of go out into the world and
take close up shots of things out in nature or
at the farmer's market, or just kind of like walls
and you know, storm drains that have really interesting textures
(24:57):
and patterns. I think currently pie is my singular focus,
which is yet another irony since I don't really have
a sweet tooth. I actually don't love pie that much,
so and people are like, it's so great that you
found your passion, and I'm like, oh yeah, well about that.
I really wish I lived closer to Lauren and we
(25:20):
could be We would be perfect neighbors. It's so true, Lauren,
so curious after these two years of being this full
time pie designer, do you consider yourself as an artist first? Yes?
I think I consider myself an artist first. That's kind
of how I felt since the very beginning, and I
(25:41):
don't think that has changed. Um. Again, I always want
to make sure my stuff tastes good, especially since I'm
giving it away to family and friends and neighbors and
donating it most of the time. Um, But I think
it's the design aspect that I really really love, and
I love being creative and making something new every time.
(26:02):
Thank you for joining us on our favorite Pie Day episode.
I mean, it's just it makes me want to eat
all the pie and also preorder your book. So this
podcast was the perfect fit since, um, what I do
as an intersection of a lot of different things, and
how perfect to celebrate Pie Day with you, Christina. I
(26:27):
can't believe that Lauren is able to make her stunning
architectural designs without doing any math. I know, it's truly
mind blowing when you look at her use of symmetry,
parallel lines, and infinite amounts of polygonal shapes. I love
it when you speak math to me. I knew you would. Yes,
(26:48):
that surprised me. I loved her comment that she doesn't
really have failures because she doesn't start out with specific
expectations for a pie and in dead figures out the
design and the execution of it as she goes. That
is so not how I take on progress, and really,
who know. I love the freedom that that perspective affords her.
(27:13):
I agree. It was really listening to her talk about
that was a true the artist at work moment, right Like,
It's so intuitive her approach, and I love that she
just trusts herself and her eye and the inspiration that
she's drawing from to just take her where she needs
to go. It was really a surprising twist in our
(27:34):
conversation and not at all what I expected a process
to look like, given how precise and impressive her creations are. Okay,
so I'm inspired to give this approach a shot as
I attempt to make my Venn diagram pie this week.
Oh my goodness, I cannot wait to see your pie. Wait,
should I take one too? Should we have a pie
off for Pie Day, please okays happening? By the way,
(27:59):
can I also say how happy I am to see
Pie Day really becoming a thing in the US, like
in a society that often says, oh, I'm not a
math person. It is so heartening to have a math
themed holiday become a staple of pop culture. You know. Yes,
I think we can call it that celebrate this amazing
(28:21):
irrational number and the power brings to circles everywhere. Oh
my gosh, I love that you're an advocate for circles
right now. That's no, It's so true, because I really
do feel like having a holiday that celebrates math. You know,
I think I like to think about it as being
inclusive to everybody, those of you who consider yourselves math
(28:44):
people and those of you who don't currently but by
continuing to hang out with us inevitably, will you know, Christina,
I'd like to think that our podcast has had at
least a little bit to do with the staple of
pop culture status that is Pie Day. I mean, it
seemed auspicious that we kicked off our show with our
first episode from South By Southwest on Pie Day four
(29:07):
years ago, and I'd imagine Admiral Hopper would be proud
of the popularity of Pie Day as well. I bet
she would speaking of our founding patron, Saint Grace Hopper.
I think it's the perfect moment to bring back another O. G. T.
L D Any moment, the Lightning Round. Oh that's right. Okay,
we hear you, longtime listeners. We do for those of
(29:30):
you who have told us how much you miss the
Lightning Round. We're here with a special Pie Day installment.
It's our Pie Day gift to you. It's our pie
version of an Easter egg in this episode. You're taking
this too far. I'm mixing holidays. It's getting messy. Okay, Okay,
here we go. Are you ready? Yes, I'm ready. Okay,
remember the rules of the Lightning Round. The first idea
(29:52):
that pops into your head. Do not make apologies, do
not come up with a better answer, Just go with it. Okay, yes, absolutely,
And I'm up to sharing and hearing justifications for answers
quickly if we feel so inclined, quickly, Let's keep it lightning. Okay.
Number one? What is your favorite number? Why? It's symmetrical.
It's one more than ten and I just like it.
(30:15):
I did name a website after it, even betties. Okay,
Oh my gosh, I'm saying too much already, Christina. What's
your favorite number? Five? The the irrational number because it
is the proportion that is the golden ratio, and that
it's the center of all things beautiful. Don't you have
a tattoo? A fee fine? I have the fifth Naci
(30:36):
spiral tattoo on my right shoulder. This is something that
I often forget about you, and every time I remember it,
I love you even more. Okay, Christina, you're turning to
go first. Share an early math trauma. When I was younger,
I was like two or three grades ahead of my
classmates in math, and I went to a very small school,
so the teachers would just give me the textbook of
(30:58):
two grades ahead, and I just went in the corner
during math class and I taught myself while the other
students had math class. So self driven. And when I
was in the fifth grade, I was working on a
pre algebra textbook from the seventh grade and it was
missing some pages and I was like, it's okay, I'll
just skip those, and you know, keep going, like what
what could I possibly need to learn on those few pages.
(31:20):
So it turns out those are the pages that walked
you through the precedence of the order of operations, right,
like my dear aunt Sally. Yeah, so that's where it
explained it, and I didn't learn it. And so for
like the next three math tests, I got all these
answers wrong, which is not like me. I usually got
a percent on everything. And I was like what, I
(31:41):
didn't know why. I didn't know why, and the teacher
couldn't explain why because this was from two grades ahead
of her. And so finally she called in the seventh
grade math teacher and was like, Okay, the answer key says,
she's getting them wrong. This girl usually gets them right.
She's a little indignant over it. Anyway, very long story
to say. I was for embarrassed because I didn't learn
(32:01):
Please excuse my dear aunt Sally until after the fact.
That's my math trauma. Don't imagine that skipped pages are
just going to go away. This is just such a
metaphor for filling in gaps and history. I mean, there's
just so much that I could apply that story too.
There's a lot. Okay, early math trauma. Okay, mine was
in fifth grade when we started learning algebra the way
(32:22):
that my teacher was teaching it, and she was very
kind and well intentioned. It just didn't work for me.
And I just remember looking at the board and they
were like two I don't know, wagons drawn on the
board and blocks in one if something about balancing both
sides of the equosion. I just did not translate, and
I just started falling behind. And I just have this
(32:43):
distinct memory of a classmate of mine who actually Christina.
As I'm telling this, I think she was the same
classmate that said I looked like a Gertrude, which I
shared back in episode one oh six. This class is
going to become like a recurrent character in your future memoir.
I can tell. What's so weird about school is that
I actually remember her being one of my closest friends,
(33:05):
which is like, I've got to I've got to take
that to the therapist. I just remember her doing this
dance when she got an a back on her test.
I still remember it was like the strange like double
straddle kick dance that she did in the classroom to
just tell everyone that she got it. And it just
added insult to my algebra injury. That somehow I eventually,
(33:27):
you know, figured it out, and then you know, got
to actually take algebra in high school and we got there.
But yeah, never forget the victory days. I understand question
three per usual. Our lightning round is not lightning. We're
gonna get back on track. What is something about math
that you're like, huh? I mean, I feel like math
does this all the time, and I've encountered this doing
(33:49):
it again is I've tutored math. It's like, first you
learned that you can't take the square root of a
negative number, and then a few years later, fast forward,
you learned that you can. But answer is an imaginary number,
and I just just so imaginary numbers is my short
answer to that. But also, I feel like math really
(34:09):
in so many ways, it's just a bunch of people
coming up with rules that then they broke. That's my
little VENTI spiel on math. Okay, Christina, what's something about
math that you're like, huh? Why does the T I
eight three graph and calculator cost the same amount today
as it did twenty five years ago? Oh? Has there
(34:30):
been no inflation on the T I? I think it's
now the T I eighty four plus or something not inflation.
Why is the cost of technology not decreased? Like, what
is it about this calculator? It was when we were
in the ninth grade, was a hundred and ten dollars
and that much money. It's still like a hundred and
ten dollars, So why is there still I know they
(34:51):
make a color version now, but they absolutely still put
out the little gray and black screened one. Yeah, of
course they do. This is this is my point. Graph
Fink calculators have been cornered in the market by Texas Instruments.
There's a monopoly and these calculators. I should have kept mine.
I had an eighty three, and yes, I should have
(35:13):
kept them because I could have sold them twenty years
later at costs for the exact same price. There's some
joke to be made about imaginary numbers being in a
vedgeting strategy. Anyway, such a good one, Christina. Okay, Christina,
how have you used math in your life recently? Okay,
this is a fun story. I'll keep it brief. Today
(35:36):
I explained NPV net present value, which is a finance calculation.
I explained it to a room full of comedy writers
as we're trying to like come up with ways of
explaining this to other people, small business owners, people who
haven't taken, you know, finance classes at business school, and
(35:57):
I had to explain, like why how you discount It's
basically the opposite of compounding interest. How you discount future
cash flows in order to kind of take into account
inflation but also the riskiness of maybe never seeing that money.
And then you add that all up. They're called discounted
cash flows. You add that up in the sum. It's
(36:18):
a summation series. The some of that is an mp
D And I felt really happy that the numbers that
I did by hand came out to me the exact
same as just running the excel FORGULA. Christina Wallace, I
love when you speak finance to me. It's very very thrilling. Okay,
how have you used math in your life recently? I
(36:39):
feel like I really used math all the time, But
most recently I found myself literally having a real life
word problem, because do you remember how all those word
problems were, Like we're fencing a yard, Like there were
I feel like there were so many fencing a yard
word problems where you had to figure out how much
fence was needed back to high school math or how
much grass had to be cut. Well, my brother recently
(37:00):
redid the fencing in his backyard and sent me this diagram.
And it was so exciting, Christina, because I got to
use sokotoa if those of you remember that from high school,
signed co signed tangent to literally figure out the angles
of certain triangles. I had to draw in his very
irregularly shaped polygone. I wasnt perimeter of the polygon, but
(37:25):
I guess if it's an irregular polygon, it requires a
little bit of trigger. There was something though about like
the h O A needed to know that it was
a certain area, so I actually had to move into area.
And there was like a very old document that was
pulled from the city council. Okay, so did you do
all of these calculations only to come to the end
and you're like, the number is I'm making this up
(37:47):
a hundred and seventeen And he's like, great, they self
fencing in like, you know, bundles of fifties, so I'll
buy a hundred and fifty And you're like, but I
was so precise. You know, that would have been an
exciting moment because then I could have done a follow
up word problem and serve that up to my brother.
But no, it actually was very useful, and Scott was like, wow,
(38:07):
I mean there was shading. Only you could go back
and say, guys, someday you might try a house and
have to refence your yard, and that is how you
will use Sakota in your real life. You always do
those word problems like well, what am I going to
fence a yard? And then all of a sudden a
yard was being fenced in my adult little little do
you know? Okay, Kate, bring it home? Question five? What
(38:29):
is something about math that you love or fascinates you?
I love a couple of things. The number one is
I do love knowing that there's a solution sometimes two problems.
That's always nice and comforting. But something that I really
love is when you speaking of the graph and calculator, Christina,
when you graph those polynomial graphs and all of a sudden,
(38:50):
they just don't look like lines anymore. They look so
whacked out and so abstract and artistic. Like I just
love knowing that when you keep going and math, it
just keeps getting weirder, and that makes me like math
even more. Wait till you get to like fourth year
undergraduate math in college, and then they like the peak
(39:12):
open a door to graduate level math, and like, by
the way, everything you've been doing up to this point,
it's been important, but it has nothing to do with
the world you're about to enter. That only like sixteen
other people in the whole world will understand. I feel
like if you had told me when I was taking
algebra that math would be so like punk rock, I
would have loved to know that. You know, anyway, things
(39:34):
we learned later in life. Christina, Okay, math major, bring
us home. What's something about math that you love and
or fascinates you? I mean, do we have an entire episode?
We don't. This is the lightning round. Let's let's right,
I know. Okay, here's the quick answer. So my love
of from os last theorem. You know, from os last theorem,
(39:57):
and he basically took the Ace squared plus b squared.
You will see squared right, the Pagan them So back
in I don't remember when from old I should look
this up. It's like sixteen hundreds in France. He was
this like amateur mathematician. He wrote in the margin of
one of his books. He says, I have a perfectly
marvelous proof to prove that if you took that equation
(40:19):
A to the end plus b to the end equal
c to the end, that it's impossible for every end
other than two. So it works for the Pagan theorem,
but it doesn't work for any other end where end
is an integer. It couldn't be like a cubed plus
b c equal. So he was saying, um, you know,
I have a marvelous proof to this that the margin
(40:41):
is just too small to contain. And then he died
and no one could find his proof. And for the
next four hundred years, mathematicians all over the world chipped
away at this problem, trying to see if they could
prove whether they could prove or proved. They didn't really
care if he was right. They just wanted the answer. Somehow,
(41:03):
this amateur mathematician figured this out, and all these professional
mathematicians were like, what were you doing? How did you
do this? And they chipped away at it in small pieces.
They were able to prove that it was, you know,
impossible for certain ends, but not all ends, and so
you know, they kept working on this, and there's a
fabulous book on this where they go in and kind
(41:26):
of tell the narrative of all these mathematicians, there was
one who was about to commit suicide and was going
to do it right at midnight, and he you know,
tied up his life and got his everything in order,
and he had about like an hour to spare, so
he went to like the library to waste the hour
before he went to go through with his plan, and
in that hour, came across from os last theorem and
(41:46):
was like, I can't possibly die without knowing whether or
not this is true. And instead of saved his life,
did it saved his life? Instead of going through with
his plan. He lived a long and full life and
contributed you know, some of the math that that ended
up going towards this. Anyway, very long story short. It
was finally solved in n by this mathematician named Andrew Wiles.
(42:07):
He spent seven years in his attic by himself working
on this, and he pulled in pieces of mathematics that
didn't exist when Farma was alive. So obviously this wasn't
for mass solution. This is a new solution. And he
ended up having a couple of holes in the proof
and everyone was like, oh no, it's going to fall apart,
just like all the other ones have. But then he
(42:27):
solved those holes. He fixed the proof. It does stand.
It's like a ten pages and basically people assumed that
Farma was completely full of it and did not in
fact have a proof. But by putting that little riddle
in the margin of his book, he inspired four hundred
years of mathetitions to go and solve this problem. And
I just love it so much. The drama, the intergenerational
(42:51):
like narrative. There's a musical written about this, called for
Ma's Last Tango. I would hope so, oh my gosh,
the tangle became involved this, so anyway, the non lightning
Lightning Round version of this story, I'm so sorry, but
you know, math is pretty dramatic. You know, Christina, you
have utterly failed at the Lightning Round, but you have
(43:14):
succeeded in having me on the edge of my seat.
That is so incredible and supports I think our shared
theory that math is so theatrical and dynamic and interesting
if we just allow ourselves to keep digging into it
and discovering these stories, that's exactly right. This week, we
have a couple of challenges for you. One, see, if
(43:37):
you can apply Lauren's strategy of being flexible and adaptable
as you pursue a project no matter how much math
it seems like there is in it, and let us
know how that turns out. For you to bake your
own ven diagram pie and show us your handwork on
Instagram or Twitter. Yes, and as a little extra third project,
(43:58):
if you want to send us any of your answers
to our math Lightning Round, we would love to hear them.
You can reach us on Twitter or Instagram at t
L d n E pod or you can email us
at Hello at t L d n E podcast dot com,
or you can leave us a voicemail at eight three
three Hi t L d n E. That's eight three
three five three six three and then press what do
(44:22):
you press? Kate? Eight oh three right? So many letters
and numbers, but we know you guys got all of those.
Will link to Lauren's Instagram and her website, her upcoming book,
and our previous Kida episodes in the show notes, which
you can find at t L d n E podcast
dot com. Slash thanks so much to our producer Maya
(44:49):
Coole and Tu for tuning in. As always, please subscribe,
rate and review on Apple Podcasts. If you like what
you heard, it really helps us get the word out
to fellow human ven diagrams. Until next time, remember the
limit does not existed. The Limit does not Exist is
(45:10):
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah.
The Limit Does Not Exist is a production of I
Heart Radio. Okay, I'm Christina Wallace and I'm Kate Scott Campbell.
We're here to help you follow your curiosity, celebrate your individuality,
(00:20):
and embrace the and not the ore so you can
turn everything you love into a custom built career that's
as unique and dynamic as you are. If you feel
that one path may not be your only path, and
you call yourself a human bend diagram, then you are
in the right place, because when it comes to pursuing
your passions, we believe the limit does not exist. Happy
(00:45):
Almost Pie Day or Actual Pie Day or Belated Pie Day,
depending on when you're listening to this. It's the day
we count as our podcasts official holiday. That's right. We
kicked off t LDNY on Pie Day, and four years
later her we are ready to celebrate the unapologetic nerdiness
of March fourteenth with actual pie. That's right. Our guest
(01:07):
this week is Lauren co and amateur baker turned Instagram
celebrity thanks to the incredibly vibrant and intricate designs of
her one of a kind pies. We get the dish
Get it from la I do about how she creates
her geometric pies, and how she navigated a one hundred
and eighty degree career shift when she went all in
(01:27):
on baking. Lauren also fills us in on why it's
perfectly ironic that she now reimagines a classic American dessert
for a living and what American pie means to her,
and she gives us some tips for baking our own
ven Diagram pies so that we can celebrate Pie Day appropriately.
Quick audio note, we had some creative recording circumstances in
(01:49):
the making of this episode, so you may notice a
few differences in sound. In the name of embracing imperfection,
we hope you'll roll with it. Pie Day pun intended. Okay,
all this talk about pies is making me hungry, so
we need to get this episode started before I go
hunt down a slice of tripleberry pie. Oh that's such
a good idea, Christina. While you're at it, will you
(02:09):
drop ship me a slice of Jerry I got you?
You are the best. Lauren. Take us back to earlier
days before you put your pies on Instagram. What did
your life look like? What was your job? And we're
(02:30):
so curious if it fulfilled you or if you always
had other aspirations. So my first job out of college
was as a social worker in an emergency and domestic
violence shelter. Um. I got my degree in international studies
and social work and did that for a couple of years,
and then I lived in South America and did international
social work for a couple of years. And then, you know,
(02:53):
social work was really meaningful to me. It was I
felt really important to work for an organization that was
doing impactful, productive work. But it was really tough to
be doing frontline services, direct services, and so I started
pivoting and kind of moved into positions that were more
administrative and focused more on development and fundraising and things
(03:16):
like that. Still stayed in the nonprofit sector, and then
kind of moved around. I got married, moved to Boston,
and then, being from San Diego, immediately got over the
winter blizzards on the East Coast and told my husband
we had to move back to the West coast immediately. Um.
So then we landed in Seattle and I was working
(03:37):
in the higher education space when all of this crazy
pie stuff happened. So to say that my career path
has not been linear is exactly the way to put it.
And I never guessed that I would be making pies
for a living. So you said in a recent interview
that there's this kind of irony that you make pies
(03:58):
for a living because in your Chinese Honduran family, it's
not really a traditional apple pie ethos. So why pies
do you? Do you enjoy eating them? Or was this
more of a design attraction so more ironies? Um, it
was kind of an accident. So I moved to Seattle
(04:18):
three and a half years ago, and I was fun employed,
looking for a job, had some extra time on my hands,
and I was messing around on the internet as one does,
and just kind of stumbled across these really beautiful pictures
of pie on Pinterest, and they were like lots of
floral cutouts, lots of leaf cut outs, really beautiful but
not really my style. But it also was kind of
(04:40):
this impetus of huh. I've been cooking and baking for
fun my whole life, but somehow I've never made a
pie because non traditional American family, not a lot of
apple pies happening. So I just went for it. I
made a plaid lattice apple pie and it was fine.
Didn't change my life. It was just kin of like,
(05:00):
oh cool that happened, and I just added it to
my repertoire of things that I would make for fun
on the weekends. Shortly thereafter, I got a regular office
job and was just kind of baking here and there
for fun. And then fast forward a year later to
August two thousand seventeen, I started my local kitchen Instagram
account totally as a fluke. I just felt like I
(05:22):
was becoming that friend and putting too many food photos
in my personal account. It's good to have the self awareness. Yeah,
I just really wanted to keep them and didn't want
to be too obnoxious, so I just wanted a separate,
like holding place. It was just basically like a personal
photo album of documenting things that I was making. And
(05:43):
it just so happened that the first photo I posted
was of a geometric pie. You know, I was also
making like blueberry muffins and cakes and summer salads and
things like that, but it just so happened that the
first post was of a pie, and it got some
thing like six hundred likes, which it was also a
new account with like fifty followers. It was my husband,
(06:05):
my baby, cousin and maybe some high school people I
hadn't spoken to in a decade, so as a regular person,
totally blew my mind. I was a little worried. It
was like, are these trolls, at these bots, at these Russians?
What's happening? Should I put this back on private? Like
s O S? I just was like, Okay, I'm going
to post a few more pies, or like, post a
(06:25):
few more photos and see if this was like a
weird fluke. I kept getting like hundreds of likes on
my photos in a month, and I hit a thousand
followers and two months in Design Milk re shared one
of my pie photos and I had never heard of them,
saw that they had a million followers, and was just like, oh,
that's weird and nice cool, and then watched my phone
(06:49):
blow up that entire day. I gained eight thousand followers
in a matter of hours. All the news outlets started
jumping on MPR, BuzzFeed, Vogue, Oprah Magazine, like world just
completely blew up, and by December I hit a hundred
thousand followers. So why pies? It was an accident, a
(07:10):
happy accident, right place, right time, and here we are
it's happy for all of us because they are visual delights,
and it is no surprise to me that Design Milk
wanted to share immediately. One of the things about your
pies that's so special is how vibrantly colorful and intricately
geometric they are, and not just that, it's the way
(07:31):
you photographed them and the precision of your layouts. All
those signs point to a strong visual design background. So
we have to ask, Lauren, do you have any formal
training in art and design? I do not have any
formal training in art and design. I get that question
a lot, or if I'm a mathematician, if I'm an
engineer or an architect. Um Again, my training is in
(07:53):
social work and I have never worked in a professional kitchen.
I you know, never went to art school. So this
is kind of this really fun intersection of my appreciation
of art, design, banking, and feeding people I love. And
it's you know, a huge privilege to be able to
do this, but it's just kind of stemmed from a
(08:14):
humble nerd puttering around in her home kitchen and kind
of encountering the crazy aspect of going viral on the internet.
That's incredible. Did you know already that you had artistic skills,
Like have you always kind of been an artist for
fun and like doodled in your notebook? Yeah, I mean
(08:34):
I have always loved art and design. I love going
to art museums. Took just regular art classes in middle
school in high school and kind of drew and painted
for fun, but never really pursued it seriously. So I
definitely had creative outlets, but never imagined that it would
kind of intersect with food and that it would be
something that I would use to make a living. Later on,
(08:56):
your Instagram account blows up. You had a hundred thousand
followers in December. When did you decide to make baking
your full time pursuit? What was the catalyst to leave
your job and go after this as your life? I
would say the design Milk post was the catalyst. It
was never really like a slow burn. People are like,
(09:18):
were you slowly building or did everything happen? I just
feel like everything just kind of blew up and there
was a huge snowball. So I actually quit my job
January of two thousand eighteen, even though I had started
my Instagram account end of August two seventeen, I was
getting all these opportunities. I had to start a new
email account, and I couldn't answer all of these emails.
(09:38):
I was still working my desk job from you know,
eight to six. The sunsets at like four pm in
Seattle in the winter, and so I wasn't able to
bake on weeknights. I had to photograph and natural lights,
so weekends were just like marathon baking sessions. And I
was getting all these opportunities that seemed really crazy and
wildly out of my comfort zone. But it was clear
(10:01):
to my husband and I that something was happening, and
we just thought like I would regret it if I
didn't explore it. And this was kind of a moment
to kind of take advantage of. And yeah, I have
to acknowledge that it was very privileged and lucky to
have a partner who also had a study income, so
I was able to kind of bank on the security
(10:23):
of that to take this risk. Quit my job in
January to kind of ride the wave and see where
it would take me, and things essentially have not stopped since.
So fill us in a little bit, Lauren. What is
your sort of day in, day out look like and
what does your kind of business model of this piemaker
(10:44):
look like to you. Every day is different. I still
haven't really figured out a routine. Usually it's like Mondays
are my admin days, where I do all my grocery
shopping and try desperately to catch up on emails even
though I'm always behind, and I tried to kind of
concentrate a lot of baking to one or two days
a week. My business model for making income is I
(11:06):
do have a few brand partnerships where I work with brands.
I essentially advertise for them through my Instagram account, and
then I also supplement by teaching classes and workshops in
Seattle and doing events around. I also have a book
coming out this fall. Is this a cookbook? Yes? So
my book coming out is called Peometry. It's a traditional
(11:28):
cookbook and there will be twenty five pies, twenty five tarts, um,
there will be crust and dough recipes. There will be
fifty fillings and also fifty designs. My designs look more
complicated than they are to execute. Obviously, I'm not a
trained pastry cheft. There's no crazy techniques. It's just a
little bit of patients and time, and this cookbook will
(11:48):
hopefully show trained professionals as well as home cooks as
well as you know what we call armchair bakers, that
they can achieve these works of art as well in
their own homes. This is very exciting. I fancy myself
to be an amateur piemaker, in which the pies that
I make are very delicious, but not very attractive. So
(12:09):
I'm very excited about your book in hopes that that
might up my design game. Obviously, flavor is the bottom line,
but it never helps to have something that looks nice too.
I have to say the title piometry, I know lights
both Christina and I up big time. Could you tell
(12:42):
us a little bit about your My American Pie Project.
The My American Pie Project as a collaboration with the
Residency NYC, which is a collaboration lab run by the
ad agency B B d O based in New York.
They had reached out to me looking for fun creative
partners and some new projects to kind of develop. So
(13:04):
did some brainstorming with them, and we wanted to obviously
take advantage of what I do and my medium and
also my platform um and also with my background in
social work, I'm always looking for ways to kind of
incorporate my professional training and also my personal passions with
what I do now. Sometimes it can feel a little
(13:24):
trivial or frivolous to make pie are on social media,
and there's so many things happening in the world, and
so many ways that I could be maybe a productive
or a proactive citizen, And so out of this kind
of desire of always looking for ways to incorporate a
lot of different things, we came up with this My
American Pie project, where we casted a group of individuals
(13:48):
with really unique stories who identify as Americans but maybe
have cultural backgrounds that are what people see as non traditional,
and we wanted to give people the upper tunity to
tell their stories and kind of share and speak to
especially this current political discourse, so the current tenor in
this country where you know, people are having a lot
(14:10):
of discussions about what it means to be American, who
gets to identify, who gets to tell people, um whether
they belong or not, And we thought it was a
great opportunity to kind of participate in that discussion while
also making pies and featuring them in perhaps a different light.
And they're incredible, yeah, especially when you see them right
(14:31):
next to the photo of the person whom they represent.
Think I got really lucky that we found some individuals
with really powerful stories. And one of my favorite parts
about this collaboration is just hearing the feedback and response
from people saying, I, you know, this story really resonated
with me, I really identified with this person, or you know,
(14:52):
this really opened my eyes to a completely different community
that I am not in touch with or was not
aware of. So it it's pretty cool to think that
something like pie are or that an Instagram account can
be an active participant in storytelling and also joining a
larger conversation about what's happening in this country. I love this,
(15:14):
you wrote in your own hashtag my American Pie post.
You wrote, I'm generally not Asian enough, not quite Latina,
so it seems both ironic and perfect that I now
reimagine a classic American dessert for a living. It's equal parts,
not traditional enough and not radical enough, but American all
(15:35):
the same. Do you have any words of advice or
encouragement for someone who feels like maybe they're too much
of something or not enough of something else. I think
just constantly being reminded that everybody is unique, but nobody
is alone. I think that's kind of one of the
biggest takeaways of this series and of the response that
we've gotten to a lot of these stories and post
(15:56):
is just people saying, you know, I identify with that,
or realize I'm not the only one, or you know,
I'm also an interesting mix. But this kind of opened
my eyes to see that it's okay to be different,
it's okay to not be entirely one thing. So just
you know, constantly reminding yourself that and those are things
that make you unique. But unique doesn't mean alone, that's right. So, Lauren,
(16:21):
we've been talking so much about your pies. We would
love to dig into your pie process a little bit,
being this our Pie Day episode after all, So let's
start with pre production, shall we call it? Where do
your ideas come from? And how do you go about
designing and planning your creations. So most of my inspiration
(16:41):
sources are non food related, so things like textiles, patterns,
string are anything with bright color. I have pies and
tarts and my Instagram feed that are inspired by patio
furniture and public bathroom floors and you know, bamboo purses
and may be a shirt that I saw some stranger
walking on the street wearing that I kind of stored
(17:03):
away in my memory bank for later. There's also I
need to bake something, and there are a batch of
apples that are going wrinkly in my kitchen. Or this
is on sale at the grocery store. So I'm inspired
by kind of tactile things, but also determined by what's
available to me. I remind people that I am a
regular person shopping at regular grocery store. So it's this
(17:27):
is on sale, this is in season, this is what
we're making. You see that geometric tile on the public
bathroom floor, how do you translate that into the actual
math of your pie. It may surprise you to know
that there is no math involved in what I do.
Math has always been my worst subject, so another irony
(17:49):
of this journey. I don't do any calculations. I don't
do any measurements except pertaining to the recipe. But in
terms of you know, design, it's I am often just
kind of ng it. I never draw things out. I
never do rough drafts. I just kind of get an
idea in my head. Maybe I'll scroll through some photos
saved in my phone and I will just go for it.
(18:10):
And pretty much everything you see in my Instagram feed
is just the result of a creative session. There are
definitely fruits that slice better or holds better, or certain
dough designs that I know will work better in certain configurations.
So sometimes that will help guide the sort of design
that I go with. But for the most part, it's
just kind of call it affliction of the crazy brain.
(18:33):
There's just stuff happening up there, and then you know,
stuff happens. So how long does it take to build
a pie? To go from an idea to the pie
sitting in front of you before you're putting it into bake?
How long does that go? And how many failures do
you have for every success? Every pie and tart is different.
(18:55):
Some of them are pretty easy to put together. Some
of the designs are also come together really quickly, and
then some of them take much longer. The thing with
pie is that there's a lot of steps and a
lot of resting time. So you know, something could take
me up to eight hours, but it's not necessarily eight
hours of me standing in my kitchen working. I usually
(19:16):
make a huge batch of dough one day and then
I let it rest in the fridge overnight so that
the next day, I can focus on the actual assembly
of the pie. Usually designs take me anywhere from thirty
minutes to maybe a couple hours for ones that are
a little more involved, And like I said, I don't
sketch anything out. I don't do any rough drafts. And
that's largely because I feel like the more concrete of
(19:38):
an idea I have, the more frustrated I am with
the final predict because you know, working with fruit and dough,
it's not like drawing something with a pencil. While you
have full control, you just kind of have to go
with the medium and see where it takes you. I
would say I don't have that many failures, but mostly
because they don't always have a concrete goal in mind
(20:01):
besides just having a finished product to show. Usually, whatever
I make, that's what it is. I'm sensing a second
book here with the title kind of like Zen in
the Art of Pie Making. It feels very in the moment,
it's very inspiring. We'll keep that in mine. I'm looking
for my next step. There's a life philosophy to be
learned here for sure. Naturally, Lauren, we would love to
(20:36):
make a ven Diagram pie for Pie Day, so we
would love to ask you for any pro tips, like,
for example, if we were thinking about putting a ven
diagram on the top of our pie, would you advise
us to use dough for the Venn diagram or would
fruit be a better choice? Are there any stumbling blocks
we should look out for? Either option works If you
(20:57):
are going to cut a design out of dough, I
recommend rolling out your dough, putting it on a sheet
of parchment, and then doing your design there. And the
once you have your design, slide a baking sheet under
your sheet of parchment, freeze it solid so that you
can just pick that design up as one piece and
then put it on top of your pie. Otherwise it's
soft and squishy and you run the risk of kind
(21:19):
of destroying that design that you worked so hard to
make when you're transferring to the pie. And also, the
golden rule of pie making is to keep everything cold
at every step, so chilling it having that rest time
in the fridge or freezer will definitely help. As for fruit,
things like mango and papaya slice really well, it's easy
(21:40):
to cut shapes out of them. Those are probably your
best bets for creating a very specific design on top
of the surface. I can tell you've made a few pies.
I'm like, I don't. I don't keep things cold, so
that probably explains why everything always kind of becomes a
bit lopsided. But time I take it out of the oven,
(22:02):
this is brilliant. Okay, I'm starting to get some plans
for my ven diagram pie for pie Day. I love it.
I love that you have a hashtag that's hashtag Yeah,
but what does it look like baked? And so curious?
Did you get this sort of fervent, rallying cry to
see the baked results of your own biked pies? Obviously,
(22:23):
when I started this Instagram account, it was just like
a fun endeavor. I got into it for the design
aspect of it, and it just so happened that my
medium was edible, that it was pie. I consider myself
more pie designer, more pie artists than baker. Although my
stuff is definitely edible at tastes good. Don't want to
(22:44):
waste time and food, So that's kind of why I
post a lot of pictures of the pies pre big,
because I love the precision. I spent all this time
on this design. I think we can appreciate the aesthetic
of any sort of art piece, even if it transforms.
I think it can be beautiful at any stage. But
people have very very strong opinions about everything. So essentially,
(23:09):
my feed shows a lot of pictures of pre baked
pies and also the finished product of tarts. But people
were like, yeah, but what does it look like baked?
And when I first started, that was like of the
comments where people being like, yeah, but what does it
look like baked? Nobody cares. It's not real unless it's baked.
And it was just like a huge thing where I
was like, can't we just appreciate what it looks like
(23:30):
now even if it changes a little bit, and you know,
of course it changes. You stick something in the oven
for an hour at four hundred degrees, it will transform
a little bit. If I said, in an oven at
four hundred degrees, I'm not going to look the same either. Correct.
That was kind of my tongue in cheek way of
addressing those things and doing it in a way that felt,
(23:54):
you know, mostly positive and addressing it, but also doing
it in a way that felt right for me. The
more you tell me what to do, the more I
don't want to do it. But it was just kind
of like a fun way to tackle the onslaught of
people being unhappy and you know, having really strong opinions
about my work, which is, you know, anytime you do
(24:14):
something creative, it can be it can feel very personal.
It's such a clever way to own it. Are there
other mediums that interest you other than pies? Is pie
your creative soul mate? I don't know if it's my
soul mate, but it does consume my life currently, so
I don't find itself able to make time for a
(24:36):
lot of other creative outlets. But I do enjoy like
appreciating art. I like going to art museums, um. I
do these things called texture studies and my Instagram stories
where I kind of go out into the world and
take close up shots of things out in nature or
at the farmer's market, or just kind of like walls
and you know, storm drains that have really interesting textures
(24:57):
and patterns. I think currently pie is my singular focus,
which is yet another irony since I don't really have
a sweet tooth. I actually don't love pie that much,
so and people are like, it's so great that you
found your passion, and I'm like, oh yeah, well about that.
I really wish I lived closer to Lauren and we
(25:20):
could be We would be perfect neighbors. It's so true, Lauren,
so curious after these two years of being this full
time pie designer, do you consider yourself as an artist first? Yes?
I think I consider myself an artist first. That's kind
of how I felt since the very beginning, and I
(25:41):
don't think that has changed. Um. Again, I always want
to make sure my stuff tastes good, especially since I'm
giving it away to family and friends and neighbors and
donating it most of the time. Um, But I think
it's the design aspect that I really really love, and
I love being creative and making something new every time.
(26:02):
Thank you for joining us on our favorite Pie Day episode.
I mean, it's just it makes me want to eat
all the pie and also preorder your book. So this
podcast was the perfect fit since, um, what I do
as an intersection of a lot of different things, and
how perfect to celebrate Pie Day with you, Christina. I
(26:27):
can't believe that Lauren is able to make her stunning
architectural designs without doing any math. I know, it's truly
mind blowing when you look at her use of symmetry,
parallel lines, and infinite amounts of polygonal shapes. I love
it when you speak math to me. I knew you would. Yes,
(26:48):
that surprised me. I loved her comment that she doesn't
really have failures because she doesn't start out with specific
expectations for a pie and in dead figures out the
design and the execution of it as she goes. That
is so not how I take on progress, and really,
who know. I love the freedom that that perspective affords her.
(27:13):
I agree. It was really listening to her talk about
that was a true the artist at work moment, right Like,
It's so intuitive her approach, and I love that she
just trusts herself and her eye and the inspiration that
she's drawing from to just take her where she needs
to go. It was really a surprising twist in our
(27:34):
conversation and not at all what I expected a process
to look like, given how precise and impressive her creations are. Okay,
so I'm inspired to give this approach a shot as
I attempt to make my Venn diagram pie this week.
Oh my goodness, I cannot wait to see your pie. Wait,
should I take one too? Should we have a pie
off for Pie Day, please okays happening? By the way,
(27:59):
can I also say how happy I am to see
Pie Day really becoming a thing in the US, like
in a society that often says, oh, I'm not a
math person. It is so heartening to have a math
themed holiday become a staple of pop culture. You know. Yes,
I think we can call it that celebrate this amazing
(28:21):
irrational number and the power brings to circles everywhere. Oh
my gosh, I love that you're an advocate for circles
right now. That's no, It's so true, because I really
do feel like having a holiday that celebrates math. You know,
I think I like to think about it as being
inclusive to everybody, those of you who consider yourselves math
(28:44):
people and those of you who don't currently but by
continuing to hang out with us inevitably, will you know, Christina,
I'd like to think that our podcast has had at
least a little bit to do with the staple of
pop culture status that is Pie Day. I mean, it
seemed auspicious that we kicked off our show with our
first episode from South By Southwest on Pie Day four
(29:07):
years ago, and I'd imagine Admiral Hopper would be proud
of the popularity of Pie Day as well. I bet
she would speaking of our founding patron, Saint Grace Hopper.
I think it's the perfect moment to bring back another O. G. T.
L D Any moment, the Lightning Round. Oh that's right. Okay,
we hear you, longtime listeners. We do for those of
(29:30):
you who have told us how much you miss the
Lightning Round. We're here with a special Pie Day installment.
It's our Pie Day gift to you. It's our pie
version of an Easter egg in this episode. You're taking
this too far. I'm mixing holidays. It's getting messy. Okay, Okay,
here we go. Are you ready? Yes, I'm ready. Okay,
remember the rules of the Lightning Round. The first idea
(29:52):
that pops into your head. Do not make apologies, do
not come up with a better answer, Just go with it. Okay, yes, absolutely,
And I'm up to sharing and hearing justifications for answers
quickly if we feel so inclined, quickly, Let's keep it lightning. Okay.
Number one? What is your favorite number? Why? It's symmetrical.
It's one more than ten and I just like it.
(30:15):
I did name a website after it, even betties. Okay,
Oh my gosh, I'm saying too much already, Christina. What's
your favorite number? Five? The the irrational number because it
is the proportion that is the golden ratio, and that
it's the center of all things beautiful. Don't you have
a tattoo? A fee fine? I have the fifth Naci
(30:36):
spiral tattoo on my right shoulder. This is something that
I often forget about you, and every time I remember it,
I love you even more. Okay, Christina, you're turning to
go first. Share an early math trauma. When I was younger,
I was like two or three grades ahead of my
classmates in math, and I went to a very small school,
so the teachers would just give me the textbook of
(30:58):
two grades ahead, and I just went in the corner
during math class and I taught myself while the other
students had math class. So self driven. And when I
was in the fifth grade, I was working on a
pre algebra textbook from the seventh grade and it was
missing some pages and I was like, it's okay, I'll
just skip those, and you know, keep going, like what
what could I possibly need to learn on those few pages.
(31:20):
So it turns out those are the pages that walked
you through the precedence of the order of operations, right,
like my dear aunt Sally. Yeah, so that's where it
explained it, and I didn't learn it. And so for
like the next three math tests, I got all these
answers wrong, which is not like me. I usually got
a percent on everything. And I was like what, I
(31:41):
didn't know why. I didn't know why, and the teacher
couldn't explain why because this was from two grades ahead
of her. And so finally she called in the seventh
grade math teacher and was like, Okay, the answer key says,
she's getting them wrong. This girl usually gets them right.
She's a little indignant over it. Anyway, very long story
to say. I was for embarrassed because I didn't learn
(32:01):
Please excuse my dear aunt Sally until after the fact.
That's my math trauma. Don't imagine that skipped pages are
just going to go away. This is just such a
metaphor for filling in gaps and history. I mean, there's
just so much that I could apply that story too.
There's a lot. Okay, early math trauma. Okay, mine was
in fifth grade when we started learning algebra the way
(32:22):
that my teacher was teaching it, and she was very
kind and well intentioned. It just didn't work for me.
And I just remember looking at the board and they
were like two I don't know, wagons drawn on the
board and blocks in one if something about balancing both
sides of the equosion. I just did not translate, and
I just started falling behind. And I just have this
(32:43):
distinct memory of a classmate of mine who actually Christina.
As I'm telling this, I think she was the same
classmate that said I looked like a Gertrude, which I
shared back in episode one oh six. This class is
going to become like a recurrent character in your future memoir.
I can tell. What's so weird about school is that
I actually remember her being one of my closest friends,
(33:05):
which is like, I've got to I've got to take
that to the therapist. I just remember her doing this
dance when she got an a back on her test.
I still remember it was like the strange like double
straddle kick dance that she did in the classroom to
just tell everyone that she got it. And it just
added insult to my algebra injury. That somehow I eventually,
(33:27):
you know, figured it out, and then you know, got
to actually take algebra in high school and we got there.
But yeah, never forget the victory days. I understand question
three per usual. Our lightning round is not lightning. We're
gonna get back on track. What is something about math
that you're like, huh? I mean, I feel like math
does this all the time, and I've encountered this doing
(33:49):
it again is I've tutored math. It's like, first you
learned that you can't take the square root of a
negative number, and then a few years later, fast forward,
you learned that you can. But answer is an imaginary number,
and I just just so imaginary numbers is my short
answer to that. But also, I feel like math really
(34:09):
in so many ways, it's just a bunch of people
coming up with rules that then they broke. That's my
little VENTI spiel on math. Okay, Christina, what's something about
math that you're like, huh? Why does the T I
eight three graph and calculator cost the same amount today
as it did twenty five years ago? Oh? Has there
(34:30):
been no inflation on the T I? I think it's
now the T I eighty four plus or something not inflation.
Why is the cost of technology not decreased? Like, what
is it about this calculator? It was when we were
in the ninth grade, was a hundred and ten dollars
and that much money. It's still like a hundred and
ten dollars, So why is there still I know they
(34:51):
make a color version now, but they absolutely still put
out the little gray and black screened one. Yeah, of
course they do. This is this is my point. Graph
Fink calculators have been cornered in the market by Texas Instruments.
There's a monopoly and these calculators. I should have kept mine.
I had an eighty three, and yes, I should have
(35:13):
kept them because I could have sold them twenty years
later at costs for the exact same price. There's some
joke to be made about imaginary numbers being in a
vedgeting strategy. Anyway, such a good one, Christina. Okay, Christina,
how have you used math in your life recently? Okay,
this is a fun story. I'll keep it brief. Today
(35:36):
I explained NPV net present value, which is a finance calculation.
I explained it to a room full of comedy writers
as we're trying to like come up with ways of
explaining this to other people, small business owners, people who
haven't taken, you know, finance classes at business school, and
(35:57):
I had to explain, like why how you discount It's
basically the opposite of compounding interest. How you discount future
cash flows in order to kind of take into account
inflation but also the riskiness of maybe never seeing that money.
And then you add that all up. They're called discounted
cash flows. You add that up in the sum. It's
(36:18):
a summation series. The some of that is an mp
D And I felt really happy that the numbers that
I did by hand came out to me the exact
same as just running the excel FORGULA. Christina Wallace, I
love when you speak finance to me. It's very very thrilling. Okay,
how have you used math in your life recently? I
(36:39):
feel like I really used math all the time, But
most recently I found myself literally having a real life
word problem, because do you remember how all those word
problems were, Like we're fencing a yard, Like there were
I feel like there were so many fencing a yard
word problems where you had to figure out how much
fence was needed back to high school math or how
much grass had to be cut. Well, my brother recently
(37:00):
redid the fencing in his backyard and sent me this diagram.
And it was so exciting, Christina, because I got to
use sokotoa if those of you remember that from high school,
signed co signed tangent to literally figure out the angles
of certain triangles. I had to draw in his very
irregularly shaped polygone. I wasnt perimeter of the polygon, but
(37:25):
I guess if it's an irregular polygon, it requires a
little bit of trigger. There was something though about like
the h O A needed to know that it was
a certain area, so I actually had to move into area.
And there was like a very old document that was
pulled from the city council. Okay, so did you do
all of these calculations only to come to the end
and you're like, the number is I'm making this up
(37:47):
a hundred and seventeen And he's like, great, they self
fencing in like, you know, bundles of fifties, so I'll
buy a hundred and fifty And you're like, but I
was so precise. You know, that would have been an
exciting moment because then I could have done a follow
up word problem and serve that up to my brother.
But no, it actually was very useful, and Scott was like, wow,
(38:07):
I mean there was shading. Only you could go back
and say, guys, someday you might try a house and
have to refence your yard, and that is how you
will use Sakota in your real life. You always do
those word problems like well, what am I going to
fence a yard? And then all of a sudden a
yard was being fenced in my adult little little do
you know? Okay, Kate, bring it home? Question five? What
(38:29):
is something about math that you love or fascinates you?
I love a couple of things. The number one is
I do love knowing that there's a solution sometimes two problems.
That's always nice and comforting. But something that I really
love is when you speaking of the graph and calculator, Christina,
when you graph those polynomial graphs and all of a sudden,
(38:50):
they just don't look like lines anymore. They look so
whacked out and so abstract and artistic. Like I just
love knowing that when you keep going and math, it
just keeps getting weirder, and that makes me like math
even more. Wait till you get to like fourth year
undergraduate math in college, and then they like the peak
(39:12):
open a door to graduate level math, and like, by
the way, everything you've been doing up to this point,
it's been important, but it has nothing to do with
the world you're about to enter. That only like sixteen
other people in the whole world will understand. I feel
like if you had told me when I was taking
algebra that math would be so like punk rock, I
would have loved to know that. You know, anyway, things
(39:34):
we learned later in life. Christina, Okay, math major, bring
us home. What's something about math that you love and
or fascinates you? I mean, do we have an entire episode?
We don't. This is the lightning round. Let's let's right,
I know. Okay, here's the quick answer. So my love
of from os last theorem. You know, from os last theorem,
(39:57):
and he basically took the Ace squared plus b squared.
You will see squared right, the Pagan them So back
in I don't remember when from old I should look
this up. It's like sixteen hundreds in France. He was
this like amateur mathematician. He wrote in the margin of
one of his books. He says, I have a perfectly
marvelous proof to prove that if you took that equation
(40:19):
A to the end plus b to the end equal
c to the end, that it's impossible for every end
other than two. So it works for the Pagan theorem,
but it doesn't work for any other end where end
is an integer. It couldn't be like a cubed plus
b c equal. So he was saying, um, you know,
I have a marvelous proof to this that the margin
(40:41):
is just too small to contain. And then he died
and no one could find his proof. And for the
next four hundred years, mathematicians all over the world chipped
away at this problem, trying to see if they could
prove whether they could prove or proved. They didn't really
care if he was right. They just wanted the answer. Somehow,
(41:03):
this amateur mathematician figured this out, and all these professional
mathematicians were like, what were you doing? How did you
do this? And they chipped away at it in small pieces.
They were able to prove that it was, you know,
impossible for certain ends, but not all ends, and so
you know, they kept working on this, and there's a
fabulous book on this where they go in and kind
(41:26):
of tell the narrative of all these mathematicians, there was
one who was about to commit suicide and was going
to do it right at midnight, and he you know,
tied up his life and got his everything in order,
and he had about like an hour to spare, so
he went to like the library to waste the hour
before he went to go through with his plan, and
in that hour, came across from os last theorem and
(41:46):
was like, I can't possibly die without knowing whether or
not this is true. And instead of saved his life,
did it saved his life? Instead of going through with
his plan. He lived a long and full life and
contributed you know, some of the math that that ended
up going towards this. Anyway, very long story short. It
was finally solved in n by this mathematician named Andrew Wiles.
(42:07):
He spent seven years in his attic by himself working
on this, and he pulled in pieces of mathematics that
didn't exist when Farma was alive. So obviously this wasn't
for mass solution. This is a new solution. And he
ended up having a couple of holes in the proof
and everyone was like, oh no, it's going to fall apart,
just like all the other ones have. But then he
(42:27):
solved those holes. He fixed the proof. It does stand.
It's like a ten pages and basically people assumed that
Farma was completely full of it and did not in
fact have a proof. But by putting that little riddle
in the margin of his book, he inspired four hundred
years of mathetitions to go and solve this problem. And
I just love it so much. The drama, the intergenerational
(42:51):
like narrative. There's a musical written about this, called for
Ma's Last Tango. I would hope so, oh my gosh,
the tangle became involved this, so anyway, the non lightning
Lightning Round version of this story, I'm so sorry, but
you know, math is pretty dramatic. You know, Christina, you
have utterly failed at the Lightning Round, but you have
(43:14):
succeeded in having me on the edge of my seat.
That is so incredible and supports I think our shared
theory that math is so theatrical and dynamic and interesting
if we just allow ourselves to keep digging into it
and discovering these stories, that's exactly right. This week, we
have a couple of challenges for you. One, see, if
(43:37):
you can apply Lauren's strategy of being flexible and adaptable
as you pursue a project no matter how much math
it seems like there is in it, and let us
know how that turns out. For you to bake your
own ven diagram pie and show us your handwork on
Instagram or Twitter. Yes, and as a little extra third project,
(43:58):
if you want to send us any of your answers
to our math Lightning Round, we would love to hear them.
You can reach us on Twitter or Instagram at t
L d n E pod or you can email us
at Hello at t L d n E podcast dot com,
or you can leave us a voicemail at eight three
three Hi t L d n E. That's eight three
three five three six three and then press what do
(44:22):
you press? Kate? Eight oh three right? So many letters
and numbers, but we know you guys got all of those.
Will link to Lauren's Instagram and her website, her upcoming book,
and our previous Kida episodes in the show notes, which
you can find at t L d n E podcast
dot com. Slash thanks so much to our producer Maya
(44:49):
Coole and Tu for tuning in. As always, please subscribe,
rate and review on Apple Podcasts. If you like what
you heard, it really helps us get the word out
to fellow human ven diagrams. Until next time, remember the
limit does not existed. The Limit does not Exist is
(45:10):
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah.
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