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Big name in cast-iron cookware / SUN 12-19-21 / Long-tailed monkey / Chiwere speakers / Adjusts the spacing between as typed letters / Loud but friendly growl
Sunday, December 19, 2021
Constructor: Laura Taylor Kinnel
Relative difficulty: Medium (11:43 on the NYT site, which has an interface I'm not used to, so I felt like I was stumbling around a lot)
- PEANUT [bell shape] BUTTER // RU(BELL)A (23A: Little tyke / Flatter, with "up" // 6D: It was eliminated from the U.S. in 2004)
- SNICKER [heart shape] DOODLE // (HEART)FELT (33A: Relative of a tee-hee / Bit of marginalia // 36D: Genuine)
- GINGER [tree shape] SNAP // S(TREE)T ART (43A: Pep / Onesie feature // 40D: Some graffiti)
- TOLL [angle shape] HOUSE // T(ANGEL)O (52A: Ring / Hold, as inhabitants // 48D: Citrus hybrid)
- THIN [star shape] MINT // RE(ST AR)EA (69A: Reduce in volume / As new // 58D: Where to go on a trip?)
- FIG [elf shape, allegedly!] NEWTON // TRUE S(ELF) (85A: Kind of leaf / Scientist born on Christmas Day in 1642 // 56D: Personal essence)
- SHORT [cane shape] BREAD // BUC(CANE)ER (93A: Possible result of getting one's wires crossed / Moolah // 77D: Pirate)
- OATMEAL [man shape] RAISIN // TOO (MAN)Y (102A: Breakfast dish / Fruitcake tidbit // 88D: More than enough)
noun
- noun A South American monkey of the genus Cebus in a broad sense. See synonyms under saguin. (wordnik)
• • •
To Will Shortz's enormous credit, he single-handedly and mercifully put an end to the SAI craze of the 20th century. Looks like SAI appeared in two 1994 puzzles, which Shortz probably inherited from Maleska, and then poof, gone, nothing, nada, Never To Return ... until today. That damn monkey roamed the grid with impunity in the last century, with 66 appearances through 1994. And then: *zero* appearances for the next 27 years. And then, tragically: today happened. This makes me sad. But again, though the SAI-less streak has come to an end, it's probably best to focus on the 27-year achievement rather than the one-day failure. So kudos on over a quarter-century sans SAI. It's something to be genuinely proud of.
The fill gets awfully rough in a few places, most notably the west, where there's an awful ENG ANAT RAWR STAUB (?) EYER (!?) avalanche. The less said about Cy the SAI, the better (yes, I named him, now say goodbye to him). But the long Downs today are real winners, and the theme is pretty complex and dense, so I can tolerate the patches of rough fill better than I might have under normal grid conditions.
I had AIRS before ACTS, AN "M" before AN "I" , TIA before AVE, and DANE before FINN (before DANE decided to actually show up later in the solve, with the same clue). Also had WET before SOT because WET is a 1000% better answer and also I can't believe we're still doing SOT (120D: Teetotaler's opposite). Had trouble parsing DR. FAUCI (because of the DR. part) and had less than zero idea what a JASON'S Cradle was (100D: ___ Cradle (maritime rescue device)). That's it for non-thematic struggles, though. Solid, solid Christmastime work.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. today is the last day to support the Kickstarter for Peter Gordon's next round of Fireball Newsflash Crosswords (2022!)—20 high-quality current events crosswords focused on names and topics that are in the news at that moment. It's a great way to keep abreast of current events as well as learn names / places / topics before they start showing up in mainstream crosswords. The puzzles are very doable, with any significant difficulty coming primarily from the potential unfamiliarity of much of the newsworthy stuff in the grid rather than from brutally tricky cluing. And in my experience, all the potentially unfamiliar stuff is very fairly crossed, so you're unlikely to get truly stumped. If you're up for an entertaining and informative solving experience, I definitely recommend the Newsflash puzzles. More info here.
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125 comments:
Found this harder and a lot more fun than a typical Sunday offering.
Not sure if it counts as a malapop, but put DANE in at 26a before it turned up at 57a.
OLEIC ACID has acquired a bit of a bad name, as it’s used to deliberately induce diseases in animals (so that cures can be tested). Weird, because we’re supposed to be eating it.
Season To Taste
What could that mean? Season as in "Tis the Season" to Taste...COOKIE(s)? Or season as in seasoning your COOKIE(s)? I think the first option makes most sense to me, but it's kind of a stretch, so maybe I'm, wait for it....wrong.
I'm not a fan of the title not matching the theme, but that's a minor nit.
But, can someone explain...oh, I think it just dawned on me!
The rebus shapes are in the form of COOKIE CUTTERS and they actually, physically
"cut THRU" the various names of COOKIE(s). And of course COOKIE names themselves are "clued wackily" for hilarity and please stop making me type COOKIE.
Okay, so perhaps hilarity is too strong a word. How 'bout clever and cute? Except for that MAN rebus - kind of a cheat for gingerbreadMAN, but the limitations with that are obvious, so I'll allow it.
This was obviously an impressive feat of constructioneering - brava! - and for me at least, it was fun solving this one - double brava!
It felt like the Sundee I've always wanted.
Notes and Nits:
Re: STAUB
Maybe I'm shopping in the bargain basement, but the name I know for cast iron is "Lodge". It's 53Dpresent whenever I'm looking for a cast iron pan/pot/grill/ or stomach. STAUB? Not so much.
The POC ISBNS is ugly. I won't have it.
The long downs were a little unexciting, but seemed pretty fresh.
Overall, a very pleasant Saturdee eve.
🧠🧠.5
🎉🎉🎉.5
Tough but I had to track down a typo. Same problems in the TRUES ELF area as @Rex. Fun, seasonal, and clever. Liked it a bunch!
I thought the elf was a ghost at first, and was wondering if “true’s ghost” was just some phrase I’d never heard of.
The NW gave me the most trouble, as it often does. I liked that DR FAUCI crossed CDC.
Hah Hah Hah. Solved the whole thing without realizing that the second half of the cookies were also clued. Saw early on that we were getting unclued compound cookies going across and the shape as a word in the downs, so I didn’t need those second half clues, anyway. Easy and timely so 👍🏽.
I hope @Anoa Bob appreciates the authentic rebopodes today.
I downloaded the .puz file, opened it, and saw the note, quote: "This puzzle uses features which are not supported in this file format. The solving experience may be compromised. For the best experience, consider solving at the original source."
So I thought: hell yeah, just for once do it, so I did the online version. And it was fairly painful. And the only bonus was: I saw an outline picture in some squares which was a clue to a rebus. But in the end I still had to type in the rebus to get the "happy pencil" equivalent. So: I'm glad I tried, but I'll still stick with Across Lite thank you very much.
But: I did like the theme! It was worth it in the end, solving choice notwithstanding. COOKIE CUTTERS! Tis the season, no?
[Spelling Bee: td (Sat) 0. My week Sun to Sat: 0, -1, 0, -1, -3, 0, 0. Decent!]
Easy but so much fun. A good if brief escape from the crappy news of the day.
I had so much fun with this one, I didn’t want it to end. Love, love, love cookies, but I don’t usually make them, too much futzing around. Whip up a Cheesecake, throw it in the oven. Done. Cookies on the other hand are done in tedious batches.
When I was young we lived down the road from a convent called Norte Dame on the Lake, the nuns had a bakery there and made the best cookies known to man. I used to peddle my bicycle up there and spend some of my allowance money on the best peanut butter cookies you could wish for. Oh, the memories.
All Sunday puzzles should be this much fun.
The little icons for the cookie cutters did not show up when I printed the blank puzzle. So it made it difficult to figure out the rebus entries as there was no context to them in the accrosses. Also stop with Tha abes as five dollar bills. Never heard of that slang and it appears far too often. Many other clues if you have to have abe or abes in your answers. Other than that cool puzzle.
I don't know what was harder about this puzzle, figuring out the theme or just hacking through the fill?
At xwordinfo they seemed to imply that the rebuses will actually appear as outlines in the printed magazine version. I'll see when the paper comes out tomorrow.
All the sguares were blank in the print out I did tonight. Even though the squares are only 3/16 of an inch on a side I wrote all the shapes in as words except for the HEART. That I drew in.
Did the same people who gave us mwah come up with RAWR?
Nice debut cluing on STAUB and JASONS.
My initial reaction to Panza and marginalia was hunh?
I finished by writing in STAR. Before the lightbulb went off I actually wondered if SORTAR could somehow fit into the theme. It is a near kealoa. Whatever I enjoyed the solve.
yd -0
Hand up for the elf is a ghost. That sent me on a left turn to the wrong holiday.
I agree with @Rex's pitch about the Fireball Newsflash puzzles. They're fun and informative, and if they don't reach their funding goal (currently $1500 short) today they will disappear. Please consider a $14 donation to keep them going. Save Fireball Newsflash!
Fun Sunday that took me a while to figure out. One note - Yasiin Bey is his stage name Mos Def is his former stage name.
Is that a turkey? a chicken? Can't be. Maybe a (Christmas) dove? It wasn't until the surrounding letters closed in and TRUESELF was revealed (not the cheat function) that I could see the rebus as an ELF. Oh! It's just the head. I really liked this workout and had a lot, tons, a ton, lots of fun.
My aunt always spent Christmas with us when I was a kid. She always arrived with many cookies. One year she showed up with a brand new 1955 DINAH Shore Chevrolet.
Welcome back SAI. Never knew you were gone. Hell, I never knew you existed. Monkeys are fun!
I did not fill in the words so technical DNF, I guess. The symbols work fine and avoid the letter clutter.
Whew! This puzzle could not have been easy to design, with the cookie cutter images being placed in words of different lengths, vertically and horizontally, and, at the same time, not in the same position in every answer. Props, Laura, on making this work!
But enough of the technicalities. It’s the holidays, and solving among these cookies put me in the holiday spirit. At Christmastime, and only at that time, my wife Susan makes thumbprint cookies, using raspberry jam in the cookie’s well – my favorite cookies in the world. This puzzle got me thinking that she’ll probably make a batch today or tomorrow, and suddenly I felt like I was in my PJs in front of the hearth, with holiday music gracing the background, and during these amokkian times, what a sweet moment to bathe in.
So Laura, you warmed my heart and soul, and that’s invaluable and treasured. Thank you so much for this!
Thank you, Rex, for your delightful analysis of the ELF COOKIE CUTTER! Loved it! TRUE SELF was the last answer to fill in for me, because I couldn't come up with an ending with DUCK or HEN or BIRD! Not to mention the awful RAWR above the "whaaaat?" STAUB (which my wife had to confirm as a correct guess on my part). So I was staring at T _ _ E S (bird, duck, turkey, hen ...) until I got the potential Natick U and the lame R. Realizing, at last, that it had to be an ELF (in spite of what my eyes saw), gave me--
a connection to the Hidden Diagonal Clue for today:
______ moment (3 letters)
Answer: AHA (beginning in the extreme NW corner)
The puzzle was easy and holiday appropriate--good time!
I really don't get your dislike of Maleska, and he retired a long time ago. Please, stop. Shortz is way, way, way too cutesie of an editor. SAI is fill. You complain about fill all the time. Crosswords also teach us trivia we wouldn't otherwise know. All of us react to it in different ways, but many of your negative reactions I do not share in the slightest. That being said, I always enjoy your blog and thank you for doing it and providing this forum.
My favorite word was KERNS at 65A. Who knew? Also RAWR was new to me. Urban Dictionary sells a mug that has RAWR on one side, and the other side says: cats go rawr, not meow: that is kitten language. ($32.95. Ouch!)
Of course, an ABE (88A) is also called a FIN, but with one N, unlike the FINN at 27A. It's from the Yiddish/German word for five (voo den?)
I like calling it an Abe. It makes me feel like he and I are friends. I hope the Tubman $20 that eventually comes out is called a Harriet.
Enjoyed this. Nit: shoving the cookie cutter shapes in your face first by drawing them and then in the Downs makes it non intuitive that you should ALSO rebus them in as words. Then that part ends up as a chore you have to do to make sure you haven’t made another mistake. Booo.
Noticed CDC crossing the DR FAUCI - nice touch. On top of that, we had RUBELLA as the answer
I had a bizarre dream last night - one where @Rex had two blogs - this one, and another where he is generally nice in his reviews. Apparently he copied that review into this blog today.
@Rex - on the IOS app, I zoomed in on the shape you did not like, and it definitely was an elf. However, you cannot do that in the paper version, and possibly on other apps. Not zoomed in, it looked like the twitter bird to me. I get your point, as at least a good percentage of the solvers cannot zoom in for a better look.
I liked RAWR - cannot remember seeing that in a puzzle before. Had a dook with RE-STAREA
As far as solving the theme today, I do my typical acrosses to the bottom (with some downs if I stop that them to confirm the crosses. I did not even try the theme answers because I knew that the shapes were going to be something odd. I got COOKIE CUTTERS with no letters to help, as the shapes were enough of a clue. Then I thought - there must be a SNICKER DOODLE in here somewhere, and sure enough, there was. Routine solve from there on in. Enjoyable puzzle overall with little that I can complain about, especially given the solid theme and the restrictions that it places
This was really two puzzles: for those of us who had blanks in the rebus squares, it was a challenge; for those who had the little drawings, it must've been a breeze. I enjoyed the romp though I thought we were describing things that are hung on Christmas trees, not cookie cutter shapes. I expected the rebus squares would form a tree shape. Imagine my disappointment...
Well, that didn’t take long. After a much too brief one day hiatus, I see we decided to just throw four letters at the wall and call it a word (RAWR) - it’s so eerie, almost like WS had the DTs or something.
Will all of those of you who pencilled in KERNS after reading the clue please step forward to the podium to accept your award now.
What an ambitious adventure this must have been to construct, with so many moving parts to keep track of. There’s a fair amount of esoterica (SANCHO, STAUB, TOAD Hall, the Isben babe . . .) but probably about average for a Sunday. I also had trouble with the ELF, but the others held up remarkably well, at least in the app that I used.
I thought the clue for I READ YOU (“Got it”) was kind of a COP out - it’s acceptable, but weak. Lots of good stuff as well - the mild misdirection in the clue for TRAILING AWAY for example. All-in-all, a pretty impressive job by the constructor.
Cute - timely theme and it obviously took some chops to build. The fill suffers from the oversized grid - there’s a lot of clunky stuff. Really liked the long downs - THE BEES KNEES and BRANCHED OUT stood out.
Lots of marginal trivia - although not tied to the rebus squares so crossing was fair. Hand up for thinking Lodge before STAUB. With Covid raging again in NY I’d rather not be reminded of it with the cross in the SW.
Rex’s Paul Kelly clip was nice - I’ll add my favorite from the great 58a.
Enjoyable Sunday solve.
I thought the ELF was a fish. Tail up top, head at the bottom.
Would have been funny if in the online version a warning came up saying that the puzzle contained cookies and asked me to accept before allowing me to solve.
I'm surprised Rex didn't comment on the very strange shortening of "gingerbread man" to MAN, and "candy cane" to CANE. I found that more annoying than the ELF.
Doing this on Across Lite was not fun. I had to keep looking at the PDF to see the shapes, and I was totally baffled by several, especially the Elf and the Man. Sheesh.
Printed puzzles have a totally different numbering system from the newspaper puzzles, which is hard to explain. Like Frantic Sloth I solved the puzzle before realizing the cookies solutions were obvious. Solving downward was easy-peasy, starting with "rubella."
The RING/TOLL connection took me forever to get, as to me a RING is for something joyous (a wedding) and TOLL is for something less so (a death, e.g.). And yet I really enjoyed this puzzle and it made a nice Saturday night solve to help distract me from the Patriots disaster at the hands of the Colts.
Haha, @Lewis at 8:29. Good, as I needed a grin to get over RAWR and SAI. And the elf shape, as mentioned. OTOH, loved The Bees Knees. And cookies, cookies, cookies, yum. My mom, who worked 40+ hours a week, still managed to bake all sorts of Christmas Cookies. So good. My undergrad alma mater is also that of Ruth Wakefield, creator of Toll House Cookies.
Good time.
Ah, that's why I hadn't seen SAI before... I thought I knew most of the monkey and apes, too. I think I have a Topps baseball card circa 1975 of Rusty STAUB, but my wife was the one who knew the cookware line.
I too didn't grasp the clever theme until the revealer. My hats off to LTK!
Rex must not have watched much TV in the 1970's or was too young? PEANUTBUTTER cookie reminded me of the TV ad:
"(Slow at first) Have... a-no-ther (now really fast) Nutter Butter Peanut Butter sandwich cookie."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_XLE9WZKTw
As we approach the holidays, may everyone be joyfully safe and healthy, and safely and healthily joyful.
@Southside Johnny - KERNing Matters. We also have a KERNing issue that used to pop up here fairly often, the NYTX print version KERNs “r” and “n” poorly and so they look like an “m”. When I could get the paper delivered at home I’d often have this problem, but now that I print a slightly enlarged version the spacing is sufficient. Note, too, that a DOOK results from a KERNing issue, there are no difference in spacing within answers so DO OK looks the same as DOOK.
@Z - omg, that’s too funny. Love the Massage Therapist. Thanks for sharing.
@Canon Chasuble - Huh? Yep. For example, on the app PEANUT BUTTER gets a single number, 23A, with two clues. In my printed version there is a 23A clue for PEANUT and a 25A for BUTTER. My guess is that there’s something in the coding that prevents them from doing the 25A numbering because it doesn’t fit the program’s parameters, looking like there ought to be a 25D, too.
This also explains, in part, why I never saw the second clues. I wasn’t anticipating a clue for 25A so never looked for it (or any of the second clues) as I solved.
This makes me wonder about test solvers. Do some solve the printed version and some the online version? It’s not unusual when a rebus or other trick is involved for the online experience to vary significantly from the print experience.
Can someone please explain the problem with SAI? I don't get the dislike for SAI, I didnt even remember it, I guess I got it from the crosses and never noticed it. Loved this puzzle. Learned KERNS. Yeah, the MAN in the gingerbreadMAN was a bit of a stretch , but it's a crossword and these things happen. And that was one weird looking ELF. I liked the DEGREES clue, I was barking up the wrong ttree for a bit with that one.
Thanks for the baseball card image of Le Grande Orange (aka Rusty Staub), Rex. As a baseball fan, I would much rather have had him in my puzzle instead of a maker of pots and pans!
I was there in old Shea Stadium for what should have been, in a world of poetic beauty and justice, Mr. Staub's final at bat in the majors. It was the end of the 1984 season on "Fan Appreciation" night, and the Mets staged a rally against the Phillies topped off with a walk-off, two-run homer by Le Grande Orange, It was his only homerun of the season and it made him, along with Ty Cobb, the only two major leaguers to hit homeruns both as teenagers and after the age of 40.* It was the perfect moment to hang up the cleats, but Rusty returned for an unmemorable final season in 1985.
* Gary Sheffield and Alex Rodriguez have made it a list of 4 players since then.
Nothing but fun!!!!
Didn't like it at first. I got the cookie thing right away and thought it would be boring. Then I realized that the shapes were involved in the downs and I kind of liked it again. Until I got to the end and had to go back and fill in all of those rebuses which spoiled the puzzle for me. Either cut them or don't, this was just irritating.
Best Sunday puzzle in ages!
Nice to see Rusty Staub pictured. I think he was one of the original Montreal Expos when baseball expanded to Canada. The French - speaking
fans referred to him as "Le Grand Orange". (Pronounced "ore - ange) (Pardon my French).
A better than average Sunday for me, but"rawr" ? Why are we afflicted with Rap names and this type of "fill" ? BTW, I know Mos Def as a blues performer. Did a great collaboration with Taj Mahal.
Happay Sundee.
Just chiming in to defend SAI as fill, as long as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles remain a thing. (They are still a thing, right?) Though it should be clued as the weapon, preferably with reference to Raphael.
While I'm here, I'll add that I was sure Rex would take this puzzle to task for HEART being the only rebus square not to hide the letters/change the meaning. Ah well.
Cheerful puzzle with a Scrabble-board center.
I wanted DR. FAUst to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It's time to reconsider his legacy.
So here's the puzzle for all of you who've been yapping and moaning that multiple letters squeezed into a square should not be called a "rebus". Saying that to be a rebus, it has to be an illustration. This, then, is your puzzle -- and I liked it a lot too, by the way.
Until I got to the revealer, I only understood what the puzzle was doing in the Down answers, not in the Across ones. The Down answers were obvious enough that I often skipped ahead and filled them in first. Across was a mystery: A "little tyke" is a PEANUT; he is not a PEANUT BUTTER. What became evident, though, was that if I filled in the first half of the answer as clued and then added something edible after the illustration -- something related to the answer but not related at all to the clue -- I would get a familiar edible item. I did not at that point relate it to a COOKIE. I probably should have, but I didn't.
As I've said before, I most like rebus puzzles when they're doing two different things in the Acrosses and the Downs. This accomplished that really, really well. And once I had the revealer, I was able to go back and change GINGER BEAN to GINGER SNAP -- by changing ENE to NNE and CON to COP (36D). (When you "get" someone, it can mean that you conned him, right?)
KERNS was a great big "Huh?" for me. Oh, yes, and I forgot to say I had a DNF. Never heard of a RAWR (????!!!!) Didn't know the cookware STAUB (well, when you don't cook...) and had no idea that rebus figure was an ELF. Hence, I couldn't get TRUE SELF.
But what's a mere DNF among friends? Nice, crunchy puzzle -- in both senses of the word.
Hey All !
Pretty neat concept. Got a warm fuzzy feeling when I saw the Downs would incorporate the names of the COOKIE CUTTER shapes. Decided not to put any letter in that space, and at the end of the puz, no Happy Music or Almost There. So, I went back through and put the first letter of whatever the shape was, and Then got the Happy Music. E.g., a B for the Bell. So, if you can't finish the grid on your various apps, try that.
I'm sure this wasn't the easiest grid to construct, so good job on this Laura. Never SAGged for me.
THE BEES KNEES was neat for me, as I once made a puz whose Themers were phrases made up of 5 of the same vowel. First one had five A's, second one, five E's (THE BEES KNEES), etc. Almost accepted, but couldn't get the (@M&A) U one acceptable to Will's standards. Even had two different U phrases, but still to no avail.
To the poster YesterComments about our little SB appendages. Sorry, but we'll probably keep doing it. It's been a much discussed topic over the last few years, we used to post warnings, ala **SB Alert** so people could avoid that paragraph, but even that got complaints. So @bocamp came up with shortcuts/code words. Sorry if it offends.
It can't be as annoying as the poster who counts F's...
As a matter of fact (skip next line if a B hater! 😁)
yd -4, shouldves 2
Six F's (one in the Chicken-ELF)
RooMonster
DarrinV
This puzzle was EXCELLENT. Solved it, as usual, in the paper NYT Magazine.
Wondering why the numbering is different in the online version - or at least, in Rex's diagram - he has up to 127A and 120D; paper version has 133A and 126D.
I, too, never even noticed the second cookie answers had clues - just filled them in with help from the first words before the rebuses (rebi?) and the crosses.
"Pep" for 'GINGER' had me wondering, but I looked it up afterwards and, yes, it makes sense.
The elf was a bit ambiguous, but, having seen many an Elf-shaped cookie cutter, I recognized it right away - think of a Keebler cookie elf-head.
Come to poppa, to a head, to AN END.12D was my last entry into the grid.
I'm certainly glad I ignored the warning and solved using my usual platform - getting the rebi was much more satisfying than seeing them given away by images would have been, even if it was a "cute" idea.
I love ginger snaps. When I was a kid, my Dad worked at the post office and many times he would come home with a plate of cookies someone had brought into the office. The gingerbread always sat uneaten; no one in my house liked it. But I was in college and working downtown when someone in the office brought in dark, dark, molasses ginger cookies. I loved them so much, I've been trying to recreate them ever since. Even using the darkest molasses I can find, I never get them to look anything like those long-remembered cookies. If anyone has a tip on how to turn my brown ginger cookies black, let me know!
Is a MAN cookie cutter a thing? That's what went through my head as I filled in 88D but, duh, I'm writing about gingerbread cookies and I have already forgotten the gingerbread man? Sheesh.
The clue for PJS, "Undercover attire?" was my favorite. And throwing in THE cat's meow off the THE only to come up short and then see THE BEE'S KNEES was the bee's knees!
Thank you Laura Taylor Kinnel, this was a jaunty Christmas puzzle.
The numbering on theprint puzzle is different from the one you show. .
Sometimes it feels like you can see the constructors personality shining through the clues and answers. This is one of those times.
A nice person who likes, bakes, and shares cookies. That's all I ask for in a friend. In this case, Laura Taylor Kinnel says her husband is the baker but I'm ok with that. I'll be his friend too, "How bout those Phillies Kinnel? Is that oatmeal raisin I smell?' When I met my husband he had a cookie jar filled with his homemade Tollhouse Cookies. He said, "I use two kinds of chips, dark and milk chocolate." A man who cared about cookies. Love at first bite.
There was a good bit of nostalgic fill, Eno, Abes, Sot, REM, Arp, Otoes, Mea. I enjoyed it. Welcome back guys. Try the Onion Dip.
Cop for Get took a little thought. As I remember it, saying "I copped a ______" was always used to announce something illicit obtained.
Is it Scandinavian week at the NYT?
The Elf is named Newton. Saw him, but loving the elf stories.
This was a pleasant solve. Just what I needed to take care of my Saturday-induced verklempt-atude.
Thx Laura; what a great holiday puz!
Med.
I did my usual Sun. bounce-around, a little here, a little there.
Took some time for the COOKIE CUTTER downs to sink in. After that it was pretty smooth, except for the NE. SNICKER DOODLE and LARS were new to me. Had I hEAr YOU before I READ YOU, so that whole section was slow to develop.
Enjoyed the solve! :)
___
yd 0*
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Guess I've been watching way too many episodes of "Christmas Cookie Challenge" on Food Network lately. The elf cookie cutter makes frequent appearances on that show, allowing me to recognize it instantly in today's puzzle. Great puzzle Laura!
Not that this will help...
Different Numbering
The print version and the online version have different numbers.
Online Version: Across theme answers have one clue number with the two clues separated by a slash.
Print Version: Across Theme Answers have separate clue numbers and clues for each word. For example 23A for PEANUT and 25A for BUTTER.
That was my thought exactly. "One of a pair used by Raphael"... feels like a gimme to me, and not nearly as obscure as many other things we see in fill.
I had trouble interpreting the elf also, but it didn't look like a chicken to me. I was thinking jester or clown, at first. It may have looked better because I was solving on actual paper, and the screen rendering may have distorted it.
Funny stuff...
A COOKIE based theme, with no OREO in sight!
RooMonster MMM, OREOs Guy
First, never by Lodge cast iron products. You do not want a pebbled surface. In 10 years you may finally have smoothed out the cooking surface, but you've put in 10 years of extra work to turn your purchase into a functional utensil. If money's an object, and when isn't it, buy a used one* where the cooking surface is polished smooth. You might think it icky, but you're going to heat it to 500F+, so anything that shouldn't be there is vaporized. If money's no object, don't go with STAUB. They're fine, but over priced. Get either Field or Smithey Ironware cast iron products. They too are over priced, but less so, and you're paying to keep Americans at work rather than for a fancy French pedigree.
*warning, collectors have run up the price of antique cast iron products. Vintage Griswold or Wagner cast iron runs to the multiple thousands of dollars.
I definitely thought the elf was an elf from the get go, so no issue with that here (print version). I'm a slow and fairly novice solver, and I took a stab at the revealer early, so I knew cookies were afoot from about the 25% mark, and it never occurred to me that it was anything other than an elf shaped cookie cutter. I can't imagine why anyone would clue SAI without a ninja turtles reference. I thought this was a great holiday puzzle with a well executed theme. I smiled a lot. I needed some smiles today.
Is it pedantic to point out that Finland is not considered part of Scandinavia? That bugged me almost as much as the ghost that claimed to be an elf.
STAUB is a noted competitor of Le Creuset, and maybe it’s just us cooks, but that clue with 5 letters was an easy LODGE or STAUB gimme…
Very fun puzzle! Very well executed! Kern and Rawr were new to me, and I’d totally forgotten the silly monkey.
But Staub was easy, although I, too, immediately thought of Lodge. Now I’m hungry, time to rustle up some cookies!
Was gonna say the same thing! I remember playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on my NES and Raphael's SAI was the second best weapon behind Leonardo's sword. Missed chance for archaic cross-referenced clues!
No shapes in squares in my printout, so the across feature was all but lost on me. With the "season" in the title, I thought we had a cookie name with a Christmas tree decoration in the middle, and the letters going down made a different answer, so at least that part was true.Had to get all the way to the revealer to think of them as cookie cutter shapes. Duh.
My mom was famous for cookies and everyone's favorite was her chocolate jumbles, which were usually doughnut shaped with vanilla frosting. For Christmas she used big Christmas shapes, like trees and big stars and snowmen, which made them better, no holes and more frosting. My wife occasionally makes them as a surprise treat for things like Valentine's Day, and I always get sentimental and mushy when she does.
So cookies and Christmas. If that isn't nice, I don't know what is. Amazing construction, LTK, so thanks for all the fun from someone who Loves This Kind of puzzle.
Very cute and clever Christmas puzzle that I thoroughly enjoyed. Also had trouble with the ELF. Certainly did not look like Will Ferrell or a Keebler rep.
Rusty STAUB is the only MLB player in history to have 500 hits for four different teams during his terrific career. IMO he belongs in the Hall of Fame ahead of several already inducted players. After his career he was a philanthropic force to be reckoned with, raising millions of dollars for NYC Catholic charities and the Police widow and orphans fund. He died in 2018 way too young.
Well, wow, this is an instant classic holiday puzzle. And I say this as one who could not for the life of me figure out what was eliminated from the U.S. in 2004. When I came here and discovered that it was RUBELLA, I figured that’s it had been so well eliminated that I didn’t even know what it was. Then I looked it up and realized it was German Measles. Ach, FRAU Kinnel, you got me there.
Delicious complex theme that works like a charm on each of its different levels. Love the idea of eacb COOKIE being cut literally into a SHAPE. IN GOOD SHAPE, indeed. Put it in the AMANA and let it bake. I can smell the cookies from here.
Not familiar with TOLL HOUSE cookies, so after being reminded of Ibsen’s NORA Helmer, I wanted DOLL HOUSE for 52A.
Never met a dog named FIDO and never heard a dog say RAWR.
Liked the ELF hiding inside of TRUE SELF. A reminder that the holidays are a good time to get in touch with our inner elves.
It's a xword puzzle, i.e., loose interpretation and flexibility rule. lol
"Scandinavia … is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties.
In English usage, Scandinavia can refer to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, sometimes more narrowly to the Scandinavian Peninsula, or more broadly to include the Åland Islands, the Faroe Islands, Finland, and Iceland.
The broader definition is similar to what are locally called the Nordic countries, which also include the remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen, and Greenland, a constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark." (Wikipedia)
___
0
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
RAWR From Wiktionary:
Etymology[edit]
Onomatopoeia, from a roar.
Interjection[edit]
rawr
(onomatopoeia, Internet slang, text messaging) An expression of great appreciation, a happy imitation of a roar, often to emphasize attraction.
I about barfed when I came upon the ONIONDIP after 8 different kinds of cookies. Maybe if you dip the SHORT BREAD into it, it’ll be ok.
A commercial about something brewed from a “Forest spirit” could hardly be called a DRY AD.
I thought that this was a lovely seasonal gift to solverdom. At first the ribeyes seemed too basic, since all you had to do was identify the shape and type the name in. This was very easy for me, and in our household we don’t have a “Chick emerging from an egg” cookie cutter so confuse things. Once the shape had been IDed, the corresponding Down answer was generally a gimme. But as I thought more about the difficulty of coming up with eight Christmas cookies, each with a distinctly two part moniker, and being able to slap in a known cookie cutter shape between them in an unrelated clue, I thought “Holy Laura Taylor Kinnel”! What an enjoyable Christmas gift.
SAI is an absolute gimme and a great answer for anyone who grew up with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
@Z, @Southside
Also enjoyed DON ATE YOUR USED GLASSES HERE.
The papers were delivered unusually late today but those outlines are definitely in the magazine version of the puzzle. They're clear as day and my solving experience would have been greatly degraded by their presence.
SAI was a complete unknown to me that went in off of the crosses. The weird thing about it is how much it's been used in the NYTXW over the years and yet it's not in the Scrabble dictionary. Why they would eschew such a made for Scrabble word is beyond me.
Like a number of commenters MAN was the one thing I questioned. I assumed it was short for gingerbread MAN which is strange because the puzzle had both GINGER and BREAD in separate entries.
The magazine version has a completely different set of additional clue numbers. The version I printed out last night had a single number for each themer with a slash separating the two clues for each one.
td -0. Another easy one.
Crazy but today my wife worked the nyt magazine puzzle and I worked the nyt online version. We discovered that the clue numbers were different in the print version vs the online version. Seriously 😳
@RAD2626 - and his restaurant served great ribs as well. Was the place to be after an afternoon baseball game at Shea.
Thanks Laura! This was a wonderful seasonal puzzle. Took my son and I 36 minutes, so pretty good for a big sunday puzzle with lots of interesting features--loved the cookie cutters, though I'm trying to ignore the contents of the puzzle--otherwise I'll start eating too much and gaining weight! Loved the little symbols and I thought the complexity of the theme was very creative. Thanks! -Rick
Loved the puzzle! Came easier than usual for me on a Sunday probably because baking Christmas cookies with my cutters is what I planned to do right after I finished the puzzle. I loved that the dual functionality of the images. Hats off to Laura. Thanks for a fun ride!
@Bill 12:06
See my original post. Or don't! I'll redo it here. 😁
Either write the entire Rebussed word in, or what worked for me was just putting the first letter of the shape, ala B for the Bell.
@Others
If you come in late to the blog, chances are your question has already been answered. Granted, you'll have to read everything, and sometimes it's a lot. Example, @Z answered the "two different numbered grid" questions, he even bolded it.
Next Sunday is Christmas day. Let's hope for a Christmas themed puz, not just another SunPuz. Or why would this one be run today? Don't let me down, Will!
Roo
Loved it!
Yet another obvious error that any competent copyeditor would have caught: A FINN is *not*, *not*, *not* a Scandinavian. Just ask one. They style themselves as Nordics. Finnish is not a Scandinavian language. As if that weren't enough, in the online puzzle, at least, you have to enter the name of the shape over every graphic in order to get Mr. Happy Pencil. They don't tell you that, of course.
Dreadful Sunday. They are getting to be a habit.
At the risk of further rebus "yapping and moaning" (really @Nancy?), using drawings of "things" rather than multiple letters in a single square is more in line with its meaning in Classical Latin, how it's used in "rebus puzzles" like the the olde timey TV game show "Concentration" and how linguists, philologists and historians use the "rebus principle" to explain how ancient hieroglyphic and pictographic writing systems evolved into modern alphabets. And OFL didn't even use the term in today's write-up.
It did, however, take a major TOLL on the quality of the fill to make it all work, as has already--and probably will continue to be---noted by the commentariat.
Well, enough crying, whining, whimpering, grousing, ranting, mewling, nit picking and over thinking out of me for one day. Not to worry though, there's plenty left in the tank!
(I did like seeing the magnificent ODETTA in the grid. If you've never heard her sing, get thee to YouTube and give yourself a treat.)
I'm sorry. . . But. . . Exactly how is "WET" a BETTER clue for "Opposite of a teetotaler", than SOT??. . . Answer - It isn't. . . Good day.
Found this an easy solve. Got the theme revealer quickly, then the grid fell pretty fast. Didn't time myself but this has to be one of my fastest Sunday solves ever.
STAUB -- I mean, he was a popular baseball player IN NEW YORK for several years and played in the World Series for the Mets! Why not clue it that way?
Liked this one. Can't be too critical of SAI because, as Rex says, it's been 27 years. Hopefully, at least another 27 before we see it again.
I enjoyed this one … breezed right through it and got the cookie theme very quickly (not with peanut butter, but with the second one. Funny, as much as I was enjoying it, I kept thinking that you were going to skewer it. I’m glad you didn’t!
Tom T,
That is one of my favorite baseball trivia questions. Stab is also the answer to another. He’s the only MLB player to have 500 hits for 4 different clubs. I can’t recall the complete list of players who’ve done it for 3 teams. It’s close to 10 guys.
Here’s one for you. Name the players w (at least ) 400 home runs without ever having hit 40 in a single season.
I’ll double check, but it’s at least 4 players.
Crud. Sorry Rad2626,
I was so surprised to see Tom T’s post I stopped reading and didn’t see yours. My apologies.
So, please include yourself in my 400HRs but no 40in a season club.
@Southsidejohnny 8:06 - I am stepping forward on KERNS. It helps that my wife is a copy editor, and she taught me about kerning in the early days of personal computers. Per my recollection, it has to do with spacing letters so that the gaps between letters in a word does not look odd. For example, if an "I" and "M" were spaced the same, the "I" would look like it had large white spaces on both sides whereas the "M" would look normal (or the "I" is normal and the "M" would look squeezed in, if you made the "I" the standard space). She used to get mad that some word processing programs did a poor job of getting the kerning right, or at least with some fonts.
SPOILER ALERT if you are thinking about @Anon 2:10's trivia question.
@Anon 2:10 - I know two of them -- probably my two favorite players ever: Stan Musial, Eddie Murray. Eddie had over 500 career, without even hitting 35 in any one season.
this is the sunday funday i miss. i really enjoyed today. i also just baked nine dozen cookies and an apple-pear crisp on friday for xmas with my dad's side of the family yesterday, and will do it all again later this week for my mom's this weekend. so i was definitely in the right mindset for this puzzle! :)
i saw the cookie cutters immediately (including the elf, which while i agree isn't a traditional cutter shape, i didn't have any trouble deciphering) but it took me a long, long time to figure out those squares were also rebus squares for the down clues, so that held me up for awhile, especially wondering what the heck "TOOY" was. of the themers, GINGER for "pep" is...ehhhhh and TOLLHOUSE is not a type of cookie, in my opinion. i guess if someone said they were bringing TOLLHOUSE, i would assume they were bringing chocolate chip cookies, but it's not a given. didn't ruin the theme or the puzzle or anything, just the weakest of the bunch for me. (PEANUT BUTTER cookies however, are very much cookies.)
in non-cookie news, ever the typography nerd, i was happy to see KERNS. somewhere i have a zip up sweatshirt with the word KERN in large letters across the front. the zipper runs through the middle of the word you see, so you can literally KERN the word KERN as you zip it up. bought it at a typography convention ages ago. (you can use "tracking" to adjust the spacing between all the characters in any given...thing evenly and simultaneously, and "kerning" will adjust the spacing between individual characters. extremely useful especially with off the beaten path fonts used in graphic design.)
had LODGE before STAUB, but also being a cooking nerd, i had both ready to go in the ol' brain should one not work out. FAIRY before DRYAD and ARETHA before ODETTA held me up in the east for a bit. and finally, shoutout to adam sandler's "the chanukah song" for teaching me about "the late DINAH shore-ah" which i otherwise wouldn't have gotten ;)
Kitshef,
Yep. Don’t share the Eddie Murray love, but in fairness I am an NLer so it may be that I’m not as familiar with him as I should be.
Musial is criminally underrated these days. He retired as the NL leader in just about every hitting statistic. Just ungodly!
Oh, I’m 99% sure Murray went to high school with Ozzie Smith. How’s that for a high school team?!
@Lewis jam thumbprints are a favorite in our family too. i started making them because my sister has never liked chocolate, but even the chocolate lovers enjoy them. i've done raspberry jam, strawberry rhubarb preserves, lemon pie filling, cherry...all good. but a couple years ago, a friend in portland, OR sent me some marionberry fruit spread. i filled half the jam thumbprints with that and they were the #1 crowd pleaser. thankfully my cross country pal has been willing to keep the tradition going each christmas! (the thumbprints also remind me of cookies my godmother's mom would make - she was a talented baker and cake maker - called "naughty boys." shortbread sandwiched with jam and a hole in the center of the top cookie, dusted with powdered sugar. my grampa really liked those.)
@RooMonster 10:16 - good observation about OREO. However, mid-solve, I was sure that we were to have one. I had the -EO (that would become CLEO) and almost wrote in the cookie without reading the clue. We also have the OREO wannabes - OTOE and AERO
@Acrosticians-
Finished today's Acrostic and the quote contained a word I'd never seen before. Without using the reveal feature, I wonder if this happed to anyone else. (?).
@Bill 12:06 - on the IOS app in the past, sometimes you would not get the happy music if the rebus was the last answer. I think they fixed that, but it is possible that the website has the same issue. To check, erase any single letter in the puzzle and then type it in again. If you get the music, then it is the rebus issue. If not, then there is probably a typo somewhere
I loved this, though the last bits in the northeast and RU[BELL]A were hard (the latter because the cut-out images did not print; I was lucky that, half-way through doing the puzzle in pencil, when I got the revealer, I remembered that those weird shapes had been there when I printed, which explained the spaces in the cookie names, and why I couldn't get the downs there).
@Bill i always solve on the website - when there are rebus answers i used to just type the first letter of the word to get the happy music, and that would do it. then (thanks everyone here!) i learned i could press the esc key and actually type in the whole word (or multiple letters or what have you) in the one square. that's what i did today. either should work :)
@anonymous 2:08 (and every other "STAUB is a baseball player" commenter - variety in cluing is necessary to keep puzzles interesting for those who have solved for years, and it also minimizes the wheelhouse effect. The clues would satisfy different groups of solvers, maybe with some overlap. I could have gotten STAUB off the baseball clue, and the cooking one was new to me. But hey, I learned something (and even more with the discussions on what makes a good cast iron cookware).
As for SAI, same thing applies here. My personal belief is that both answers are known by too few - this is a better Saturday word, and it needs to be crossed fairly to prevent a Natick. I know of neither the monkey nor Raphael's weapon, so I have to depend upon the crosses. Today, the crosses were fair enough IMO
@pabloiinnh
Yeah, I never heard of it, either.
Well, many of these are not Christmas cookies, we have some Girl Scout cookies, a copyrighted recipe from Nestle, and one small fruit cake. Granted, the cookie cutter shapes are generally used for sugar cookies at Christmas time. Guess that's good enough and it's a double theme puzzle. Cookies and Christmas cookie shapes.
That fruit cake has some weird blob in the middle which I thought was a ghost until the very end. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why all the other shapes used their full names and the Spirit in True Spirit used only the "pirit" part. Had to look at Rex to see it's supposed to be an Elf. Right. DNF on the puzzle because of that.
Pretty impressive construction. Would have been wildly impressive if those cutter shapes had worked both ways. ;>)
I have no problem in a puzzle which uses "sia" and which also has neither "oboe" nor "oreo" in it. And a cookie puzzle at that!
@Anon 3:01. Reminds me of another bit of trivia. Eddie Murray is the only player ever to lead the majors in batting average, without leading either league.
@Trey i agree - personally, i have never heard of any STAUB except the cooking vessel, so a baseball clue would have stymied me. SAI i didn't know at all (neither the ape nor the TMNT weapon), but after the initial pass over the clue, i forgot it was there and crosses did the work so all was well.
@Pablo & @JC66 – re the Acrostic: I feel like someone here used that word in the comments pretty recently, because I recognized it and knew what it meant, although I hadn't really been familiar with it before.
It doesn't come up in a standard Rex search. I'll look through some of the recent comment threads for it.
As for the trivia question posed by Anon 2:10. I immediately knew who wasn't in that group, Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline. In 22 seasons with Detroit his best HR year was 29 (twice). His career total was 399. (BTW, true fact, the battery was named after him.)
Rusty STAUB played 3+ seasons as a Tiger, '76-'79.
@pablo: my quote looked normal. As did the first-letter thing.
@stephanie -- Loved your post and I'll have to ask Susan to try the marionberry!
The theme was actually fun for once. I don’t understand the problem with the elf cookie cutter. On my ipad, it looked exactly like an elf, and I knew what it was right away.
Is anyone else reeling from Rex's inhuman ~11.5 minute solve time (unless that was meant to be 1:1:43)? Christ...mas.
With Swiss (and I think most of my HS students thought that was sorta Swedish) roots the clues usually just give us Alps or the Are the. fun theme
Had me restarting Tante Ollie's Weinacht cookies called "buebe spitzlies or "little boys things".
Probably a version exists in many cultures with whatever euphanism.
Any nibbles?
I really enjoyed solving this week’s puzzle. It was cleverly constructed, timely themed and just the right level of perplexity. It also made me smile & reminisce about the Sundays I spent solving crossword puzzles with my Dad, who’s been gone for 25 now. if you’d only include “Quiet valley” and “Rose of ____” in the same grid, It would have been a gift from above.
P.S. Am I the only one who got hung up on DEGREES and REST AREA
What a brilliant holiday romp!!!
For Rex, until such time as he rounds out his cutter collection ...
https://i.imgur.com/wyLb96X.png
Is it just me who can’t see a fig Newton and remember the 80s commercial that clearly says they’re not cookies, they’re “fruit and cake”!?!
https://youtu.be/0MY9dTz181I
Yet another vote for LODGE STAUB??? Never heard of it, and I've watched all the high-class cookie shows. Let's go ask the wiki... "Staub is a premium French enameled cast iron cookware and bakeware manufacturer"
Fur cryin out loud!!! Premium French enameled cast iron cookware??? Le Creuset is the answer.
Let's see some more...
Le Creuset 7.5 qt dutch oven $409.95
Staub 7 qt dutch oven $394.95
(prices courtesy Amazon)
Premium my sphincter!!!
Late to the party today and for the last several weeks really. As she saw my husband through the last eerks of his final ill ess with such constant and tender care, so I have been doing for my sweet avatar cat, Meriadoc ba/k- “OC” who we finally helped leave this world comfortably and in my arms yesterday. Morning. Her sister-cat, Perigrine a/k/a Pip and I are mourning our companion but doing our best to begin to adapt.
Pip had lost her leader in all things mischievous and her friend on whom she could rely for a professional face and ear grooming. She was frustrated this morning when she couldn’t get a satisfactory face cleanse simply by licking a paw and rubbing it around her eyes. I tried to help with a warmed kitty wipe (something I never knew about until one of the wonderful vet techs introduced them to me to help clean up OC’s face after “difficulty” with liquid meds), and that helped but clearly wasn't the same. As I write, Pip has finally settled behind my knees on the couch - the place OC has claimed as hers. Perhaps PIPPY is beginning to understand.
Settled in, I can say about today’s puzzle is that it comforted me enormously. This is a puzzle that my Gran would have loved. Right away, she, as I in fact did, would have understood that for some strange reason we needed to out a “BELL” between PEANUT and BUTTER. Her Sunday “rule” was “just go with it” and stay alert.
And so I did, looking, though for things that have to do with Christmas Rather than cookies, as our constructor intended. Because I got all the way down to THIN MINT solving mostly by downs (those seeming to land more squarely in my half-speed wheel house today). However, when I solved THIN MINT going across the bell rang that “oh, the theme answers are all cookies and the Christmas words indicate the shapes of cutout cookies (as Gran called her famous secret recipe sugar cookies). Lightbulb: Yes, Virginia, they are COOKIE CUTTERS!! I love it. A very old school Sunday puzzle. But tight, and clever and with a zinger reveal made even better because I sussed it out without reading ahead!
Gran would have loved this one. It is certainly an “old school” Sunday, but it is cohesive and clever and most of all is a themed puzzle that requires some thinking to get to the theme. And has a theme that is tight.
Grans and Mom used to make over 40 varieties of cookies to gift at Christmas and of course to share at home throughout the season. Favorite of everyone was Grab’s secret recipe sugar cookies. She called them “cutouts”, and made them throughout the year: hearts for Valentine’s day, shamrocks for St. Patricks’s etc. And yo date, the recipe only goes from mother to daughters and/or sons with a caveat that thisnis a family recipe.
Sonthe cookie cutter theme brought Gran close today when I need her energy and the wonderful loving stories her memory always brings.i’ve gone ontoo ling, but have a cat story to share - maybe tomorrow if I can write mire easily. Thanks for indulging me by reading. .
@Pablo 3:07
A lot later, but I know what you mean. I've heard the word but I don't think it's yet "in the language". Although a useful word, especially for those of us who have been hearing impaired since childhood (measles).
@Anon 6:16 - Even worse, Rex isn’t even top tier fast. I think his highest finish ever at ACTP was something like 34th. Some truly fast solvers post their times here. Google “Dan Feyer” videos if you want to be awed by solving speed (I think Agard is the reigning speed champ but I’m not aware of him posting any videos).
@Michiganman - You do realize somebody will believe you, don’t you?
Rusty STAUB was also a Tiger for awhile, but will always be my second favorite Tiger named Rusty after Rusty Kuntz. Kuntz has probably the shortest sacrifice fly in World Series history, driving home Kirk Gibson. (the video is six minutes, but the sac fly replay is shown in the first minute)
My cast iron is Lodge (my newest one) and then several Benjamin & Medwins that are probably 30 years old. No idea if those are especially good or especially bad but I do know they’ve served our needs forever. Despite knowing more about baseball than cast iron, I appreciated the clue variety.
Speaking of … @We all figured out your hobby - Why is smooth better and what’s the argument on the other side? (we know there’s an argument on the other side because there always is)
For those engaged in the "Certain Scandinavian" kerfuffle: read up the wiki article. tl;dr -- Finland has been, for about the last 2 centuries, more involved with Russia than any other country. Oh, and it was once 'owned' by Sweden.
Syndicated Solvers Spoiler Alert for Three Weeks in Syndiland’s Future
Almost Forgot (for those of you who don’t visit every day) - We had the Finland discussion just this last Tuesday.
@pablo & JC66 – Well I didn't find the "unusual" Acrostic quote word in any comments thread going back to December 1. But I'm positive someone here used it in a post recently. I picked up its meaning from context that day, and then remembered it when doing today's acrostic.
@Joe D
Thanks for checking. You're probably right, but I have no recollection. Maybe we can ask @Nancy., 😂
The high percentage of non-words in the fill apparently bothered me much more than most of you. On the other hand, I was coming down with a 24 hour stomach bug when I did this, so I might have been a tad crankier than usual. If such a thing is possible.
A lot of names, and obscure words (SAI, JASONS, KERNS, STAUB (I had LODGE initially), but still got through the whole thing until ... 'personal essence'. What was that picture? TRUESPIRIT?
And I want to see a live video of someone completing this in 11 minutes! Sure, my 30+ was slow, but I can't even read the clues and type the answers in 11 minutes.
My thought about SAI was that I'd bet 100x more people know about the pronged dagger than know about the obscure monkey, thanks to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (they're the weapon Raphael uses). Anyway, pretty fun puzzle!
I thought the elf was a ghost which made no sense ...took me a little to realize it was an elf. I thought this was a good one...better than many, lately.
I'm late since my local paper prints the Sunday one week later and the daily puzzles three weeks later. My printed puzzle omitted the second part of the clues for the theme answers (which wasn't too much of a roadblock but caused a bit of confusion) as well as the image for 37 down. I still finished with a great time but was curious where a breakdown like this occurs. Is it on the syndication side or my local paper not translating the puzzle in whatever form it was given to them? Good puzzle otherwise. Sai was new for me, and I'll keep it in my back pocket in case it shows up again over the next few decades.
I had to groan when I saw DRFAUCI in the puzzle today. He's on TV nearly every day, and now he's "infected" the puzzle too!
If yer gonna havva blankety blank rebus, and yer gonna put in yer own pichers, make sure the pichers look like the thing that they represent. And make sure they are THERE. Mine had no heart - making this a heartless puzzle.
The "elf" looked like a dove, and "angel" like a gingerbread man...you get the picher. Better than the pichers in this puz.
Which I done got anyway, 'ceptin' for the heart. (see above)
Diana, the heartless Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Uh-oh, cookies. Wheat. However, they do make a gluten-free variety, and they're not bad. The FEW that I do eat.
This was hard because of a lot of unknowns (a non-baseball STAUB??) and also because my paper had no figure between SNICKER and DOODLE except 37. I had to supply the heart on my own.
Hardest part for me was the "chewy" center. I had three or four things in 72-across before THIN*MINT. What broke it was my sudden realization of where you "go" on a trip, heh heh.
Cool to place a star in the exact middle. But shouldn't the angel be on top? Oh well, CANT (corners) have everything. Good, appetizing puzzle. Birdie.
LET'S UNITE
For DINAH to be INGOODSHAPE was INNATE
IN TERMS of AMANAS me IN bed,
BUTTER SNICKERs were such HEARTFELT TRAITS,
while RAISIN' YOU IN AWAY to get BREAD.
--- DR. LARS NEWTON
@D,LIW - my puz was also heartless, so I drew one in after figuring what was missing. So I dealt with my own HEART on there. I also thought the elf looked like a bird/dove/something other than elf.
@bluestater is decidedly wrong. One of Finland's official languages is Swedish, which is definitely Scandinavian. Therefore . . . (At one point I was attempting a Scandinavian Area Studies minor at the U of MN)
The corners just CANT.
Sorry ARI, SELENA if you've seen her. Yeah baby.
And . . . @lefty, I thought fish wrap was more dignified than bird cage liner.
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune carries the Sunday NYT on a 2-week delay, so I didn't see it until January 2. The grid was also different. For the 'across' clues running through the images, there was a number to the right of the image, and there were 2 separate clues. For example, 23A was "Little Tyke" and 25A was "Flatter, with 'up'". Total count was 133 instead of 127.
The Strib grid also had the missing heart.
Fun solve, with a pretty clever theme.
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