Food + good deeds 

Don't you love pie? If you have a special skill you are willing to spend a little time sharing, you can partake of some killer pie offerings at the Durham Inner-City Gardeners Pie Social and Skill-Sharing Silent Auction from 2 to 4 p.m. on April 19 (www.seedsnc.org/dig.htm). The DIG kids work at the SEEDS Community Garden cultivating fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers and mushrooms for sale at the Durham Farmers' Market.

Local bakers and restaurants, including Scratch Baking, Crook's Corner, Parker & Otis and Ninth Street Bakery are donating savory and sweet pies for the event, to be held at 706 Gilbert St. in Durham. A $10 suggested minimum donation gets you up to four slices of pie. Pie-lovers are also encouraged to bring their own plates and forks to the event.

And those random skills? The organizers want you to "donate a couple of hours sharing your favorite thing with someone—from magic lessons to pet-sitting, cartooning to mushroom hunting, bookshelf building to juggling." Guests will bid on spending time with you, learning your skill. If you have a skill to share, e-mail SEEDS organizer Kavanah Ramsier at kavanah@seedsnc.org.

Make it a weekend of desserts for a cause by starting at A Taste of Home, a benefit in support of homelessness prevention, at 8 p.m. April 17 at The ArtsCenter in Carrboro organized by Hidden Voices (www.hiddenvoices.org). The event features appetizers, wines, music, a silent auction and more desserts made by our local sugar wizards. Hidden Voices participants will make presentations about what food and home mean to them. (To read one such story, check out last week's Indy profile of Curryblossom Creations caterer Vimala Rajendran.) Tickets are $50 per person or $75 per couple and are available at www.artscenterlive.org. For more information, call 929-2787.

Here's an update on perhaps the most fun—and potentially gross—carbs-for-a-cause event: the annual Krispy Kreme Challenge, held Feb. 7 in Raleigh. In its sixth year, the event attracted more than 5,500 runners who could opt to run a total of four miles and ingest a total of 12 donuts, according to the Technician (the N.C. State student newspaper). This year, it also attracted an ESPN news crew, who participated and filed a five-minute video report. They interviewed runners, donut makers and even an NCSU food science professor. You can see it online at espn.go.com/video (search for Krispy Kreme).

If you missed the KKC but are intrigued by the athletics-plus-consumption combination, consider the second annual Doughman (www.doughman.org), which calls itself the "world's premier team relay quadrathlon." This year's "self-propelled culinary tour of Durham" stops at Blu Seafood, Dain's Place, Daisy Cakes, Four Square and Nosh. Each four-member team swims, bikes, runs and eats ... and tries to keep it all down. Cost per team is $85, and all proceeds go to SEEDS. Registration is open now.

Know about a fun food happening in the Triangle? Send it to Now Serving at food@indyweek.com.