Easy As...

Answer: 123123

Explanation: There are a few signposts in the grid, namely FIVE and PIE, indicating that we need to find five PIE words in the grid. All of these were clued to the pies themselves, making some sound relatively sensible as is (OREO and TACO), some a bit questionable (POT, which is referring to the company Banquet and their potpies, and HUMBLE), and one completely nonsensical as written ("Chatterbox" for MAG - but the bird MAGPIE makes sense for that!). So, all five of these entries are PIES: humble pie, potpie, taco pie (a yummy Tex-Mex casserole!), Oreo pie, and magpie.

WOWZA!!!! Mind blown - what a fantabulous meta!! I did not catch the 12/31/23 bonus but caught on to multiplying the five prime numbers together to see what popped out. Thanks for yet another year of elegant and entertaining puzzles!

I am currently hitting myself over the head for all the wrong answers I submitted multiplying by Pi. Not to mention I used lava pie as one of the desserts and didn't notice magpie until later. I went to multiply the 5 desserts and before I could multiply by pi for the umpteenth time, I get 123, 123 as an answer. I've never had such a huge doh! moment lol

I found the PIEs quickly enough. But then I was stuck wondering how TIMES was involved in a way that would get us from 5 themers to a 6-character answer. It was only when I stopped to think about #77, saw that it was 7*11, then saw that two of the 5 themers were found at 7 and 11, then saw that the clue numbers for the other themers were also primes, that I thought to multiply all five numbers together, thereby obtaining a 6-digit number! (Of course, the date shenanigans only work for Americans! :D)

Cool! I had LAVA in the mix for a while until realizing that the clues need to clue the whole word/phrase that includes PIE. Maybe it's more of a CAKE anyway (certainly not a sandwich).

Hahaha this was fantastic!! Thanks and Happy Holidays!

Thanks Mikey and Merry Christmas

Needed some help with the final step (kept thinking pi would be involved… like a 6-character formula including pi, though i wasn’t sure how i was going to type it in if I found it!)

Lol. Loved it! So, I said to myself, How do you get 6 "characters" (I noted letters weren't necessarily stated) from 5 "desserts" (not counting the "piece of cake" in LAVA cake)? ... I had to ruminate a bit, but I finally got the wild idea to you know what and saw that the answer couldn't have been a coincidence. Constructed by a math teacher, well... it finally came together in a nice AHA and made sense! Way to go! Great one, Mikey! :D

So much fun! Thank you for a math meta that did not require calculus … I found all the “pies” except TACO and started playing around with the calculator until a noteworthy six-digit number popped up

Early on, I went the LAVA route too, until I did that same googling with no good results. But finally OREO registered, and I changed my mind about what dessert to have. But then, with the help of my visiting engineer son, we over complicated things, trying to use 3.14 somehow. I was pretty sure the "pi" symbol wouldn't be required in the solution itself because of keyboard limitations, but I figured decimal points and other readily available characters would be fair game. Then, as promised, after I deciphered the last two nudges, simple plutification brought us to a beautiful and appropriate answer! Thank you, Mikey!

I also found the pies right away, but even with the TIMES in the middle, didn't consider multiplying the numbers until I saw your nudge.

Thanks for the puzzle, and Happy New Year!

Wow, intricate! Finally got there with the nudges. For funzies, here are my scribblings:

HP TOM ... RIDDLE? No, not accepted.
SLICES ... also not accepted.

RUMINANT ... cow pie
TEN TIMES PIE
TEN TIMES PI over E
PI-RATE

radius ... not accepted

TIMES
Easy as ... 123 but what to do with 1 and 2 and 3

I spent some time looking for hidden fruit pies. Not finding them, went with the pie words. Also wondering if there was a way to get 314159 or 314314… nope. Had a few wild guesses before noticing MAGPIE. Fun puzzle!

How could people solve this 8 days ago? I just got the email yesterday.

I bet I'm the only one that submitted PAHPAH. facepalm

Amazing! I also used LAVA at first, then decided OREO would be better. Love the date connection! Thanks for the New Year fun.

Silly me, I did 4 Pi x Pi first, then tried multiplying the numbers (since I knew they would give me a 6 figure number- that I figured from “characters “) but entered 6 instead of 7 by mistake. Once I put in the right number I knew that was it, very nice tie in to the end of the tear.

wow! thanks Mikey!