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Blades used in Kill Bill / SAT 12-4-21 / Deadly household appliance according to Korean urban legend / Trousers named for an Asian country / Some transcript omissions / Classical music tradition from Hindustan
Saturday, December 4, 2021
Constructor: Nam Jin Yoon
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (will vary highly depending on your knowledge of the proper nouns, or lack thereof)
Word of the Day: Scoville scale (53A: They rate very high on the Scoville scale => HABANEROS) —
The Scoville scale is a measurement of the pungency (spiciness or "heat") of chili peppers, as recorded in Scoville Heat Units (SHU), based on the concentration of capsaicinoids, among which capsaicinis the predominant component. The scale is named after its creator, American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville, whose 1912 method is known as the Scoville organoleptic test. The Scoville organoleptic test is the most practical method for estimating SHU and is a subjective assessment derived from the capsaicinoid sensitivity by people experienced with eating hot chilis. [...] In the Scoville organoleptic test, an exact weight of dried pepper is dissolved in alcohol to extract the heat components (capsaicinoids), then diluted in a solution of sugar water. Decreasing concentrations of the extracted capsaicinoids are given to a panel of five trained tasters, until a majority (at least three) can no longer detect the heat in a dilution. The heat level is based on this dilution, rated in multiples of 100 SHU. [...] A weakness of the Scoville organoleptic test is its imprecision due to human subjectivity, depending on the taster's palate and number of mouth heat receptors, which vary widely among people. Another weakness is sensory fatigue; the palate is quickly desensitized to capsaicinoids after tasting a few samples within a short time period. Results vary widely (up to ± 50%) between laboratories.
• • •
 |
| My local CYBER CAFE, now no more... |
The puzzle just handed me a bunch of answers, which is the one substantial aspect of the solve that I almost want to fault it for. BORN AGAIN was a gimme. ANDIE, HENRI, ELLEWOODS, SADE, all gimmes. The sheer volume of handouts meant that I was never in danger of getting truly stuck. But while it's true that being on the easy side always makes a puzzle a little easier to love, this puzzle has far more to offer than mere doability. Wide-ranging fill, tricky clues, right on-the-money colloquial phrases ("SAY NO MORE" "NOTE TO SELF..."). I don't know what more you want.
I started this one out with a miss. Wrote in BOIL at 5D: Sterilize, in a way (SPAY). I knew 20A: Overdrawn account? was going to involve some kind of tale or story, but I couldn't get there with BOIL in place. I ended up inferring KISS at the end of 1A: [Perfection!], used that to get KAGAN, then saw BORN AGAIN, and the whole corner just bloomed from there. Wanted SKIMPED before STINTED (8D: Wasn't generous) (lots of shared letters) but that didn't slow me down much. After that, the only part of the grid that had me even semi-stuck came down below, when I wanted NO PET instead of NO FEE at 61A: Like many apartment rentals. I haven't rented an apartment in forever so I don't really understand the concept here. I don't remember paying fees for my rentals. Anyway, the crosses for FEE (where I had PET) were "?" clue followed by "?" clue (53D: Printmaker? followed by 41D: Masked warning?), so I floundered slightly. But only slightly. There are just too many opportunities for toeholds in this one. I had DROLL before DRYLY (47D: Deadpan), but not much else went wrong. Hardest answer for me, weirdly, was SIT-IN (43A: March alternative). I just ... couldn't find the right meaning of "March," and even -ITI- wasn't helping me. At all. I was stuck in the realm of music. Or months. Or "Little Women." Military-type walking occurred to me, but the protest angle just didn't surface at all. Sometimes our struggles seem head-shakingly bizarre in retrospect.
What else?
- I enjoyed writing in AC/DC, briefly scuttling it for ABBA, and then returning to AC/DC at 23D: Rock group whose name came from letters found on a sewing machine. I think band-themed sewing machines could spawn a sewing revival. I know I'd want an ABBA sewing machine, especially if it played music. "If you change your mind / I'm the first in line / Honey I'm still free / Sew some pants on me"
- I did not know CHINOS had anything to do with an "Asian country." I think I thought CHINOS had something to do with the fabric (??). Had no idea they were named after Laos.
- A DÍA is a Spanish day, and there are many Spanish days in a Spanish month (in this case, the moth of May: mayo) (33A: Bit of mayo?)
- An INDEX "points" you to where you want to go in the book (18A: List of pointers)
- The BASES are highly unlikely to be "loaded with singles," especially not in today's game, where singles are increasingly rare, but maybe the clue wanted me to think wallets. Or bars. Anyway, it's baseball (45D: They might be loaded with singles)
- Love the clue on ERS, a bit of unlikeable fill made interesting by an unexpected (and misdirective) clue. I thought the "transcripts" were related to student records, but they're court transcripts, where the uhs and ums and ERS are sometimes omitted I guess.
Enjoy your Saturday.
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117 comments:
Now four days in a row of wordplay heaven. In my view, this has been one of the best weeks of puzzles of the year – wit, fun, and extraordinary skill mixed in with luscious solves. Brilliance all around. Kudos to the constructors and editors. This year has been rife with new puzzlemakers, and maybe the growing of the crop has given more opportunity for cream, maybe the greater number of constructors has raised the bar. In any case, if it results in more weeks like this, we will have been extraordinarily gifted. I for one am filled with gratitude.
I think someone has kidnapped Rex and installed an imposter in his place. THREE days in a row of liking the puzzle? Can't be Rex.
Agreed with your entire write-up...right up to ERS.
Ridiculous.
OMG, quality through and through today. The novel grid design is icing, but what makes a puzzle great is the quality of the solve – lovely answers and clues, and a staccato of victories throughout, where you figure things out and feel good about it. And NJY’s puzzle brought a surfeit of all this.
Today, for me, brought “Hah!” after “Hah!”. I marked ten clues that were literally marvelous to me, I think the highest number I’ve ever marked. Meanwhile, my sensibilities were enriched with answers like CHEF’S KISS, NOTE TO SELF, SAY NO MORE, and EGREGIOUS. After filling in the last square I felt the great satisfaction that comes with earning a solve.
Some puzzles I finish, thinking, “Check; filled that one in”. And there’s some satisfaction in that. But at the end of my favorite puzzles I finish, thinking, “Oh, that was a special experience; I am elated and amazed.” Today was one of those. This was a masterstroke of a puzzle IMO, and I’m filled with praise and gratitude. Bravo, and encores please, Nam Jin Yoon!
The clue for ACRID, Nose-crinkling, could have been used for BIDETS. Talk about failing the breakfast test. And besides, everyone knows the alternative to toilet paper is a Sears catalog.
Quality puzzle - didn’t think it was quite as perfect as Rex but close. The diagonal symmetry does provide the interconnected smoothness and rhythm and an overall sophistication. CYBER CAFE and HOOKAH BAR fell flat for me as did including both STINTED and ASKANCE.
ELLE WOODS was an unfortunate long - but mostly fair crosses helped. Not sure I equate KEEP IT DOWN with “stay quiet”. I’m betting the over that the ERS clue will make @Lewis’ list for this week and deservedly so.
The great Marc Bolin was definitely no INDIE - but did manage to write a song that included both SEINE and HENRI Desdemona
Highly enjoyable Saturday solve.
OMG, I finally gave kudos to a foreign word as an answer (I thought yesterday’s ETRE as clued was pretty cool) and today we get the killer Mayo/DIA one-two punch - with this one I shall just stand back in admiration as I concede that turning that into a Saturday-level clue/answer combo is pretty much brilliant.
I’m less enamored with the Notre Dame clue - I got the gimmick right off the bat and knew instantly that Paris would be too obvious - I visited the cathedral years ago, but don’t remember it being near/on the river. Will have to take that one on faith.
I was completely baffled by the clue on ERS until I read Rex - that’s an excellent example of a pretty brutal Saturday-level clue that doesn’t have to reach back to some nitwit from the 5th century to amp up the difficulty level. I wish the person who constructed this puzzle would contribute more often. Would love to gnaw on a Thursday or Sunday effort like this one.
Much easier than yesterday.
Nam Jin Yoon’s puzzles tend to be hit or miss for me, and this was a miss. He has a love of colloquialisms that Rex shares but I don’t.
Puzzle would have had a lot of work to do to win me back after that 1A clue. It tried, but ultimately failed. Asserting WELLS rather than vErne as the father of science fiction didn't help the cause, and the clue for GOT A SEC was probably the last straw.
Lots of plausible overwrites today: DRoLl before DRYLY, I foLd before I CALL, bARES before PARES, vErne before WELLS, CHIrp before CHICK.
This puzzle gets two loving write-ups from @Lewis. Haven't seen that before.
Followed in Rex's footsteps with so many of my misplaced guesses today. Skimped before stinted etc. Jalapenos went in before Habaneros, but I know those are /that/ spicy.
A number of answers were on the edge of knowing before they "Just popped in there." Elias was one. Elle Woods was another. I never know whether to think of Legally Blonde as a guilty pleasure or one of the best comedies ever made. It might be both.
Had no idea about Renée, but eventually, the née half clued me in. After quitting too early on some great puzzles this week I was glad to get the happy music on this one.
Boy Howdy. The PPP comes in at a paltry 15 of 70 (21%), just about as low as it goes for a NYTX, so I crinkled my nose at Rex’s will vary highly depending on your knowledge of the proper nouns, or lack thereof. Granted, that is always true, but today is a day where the number of Proper Nouns is about as low as we ever see, so should bother solvers hardly at all.
(PPP is Pop Culture, Product Names, and other Proper Nouns. 33% or more is high. 25% is typical)
Otherwise, what Rex and @Lewis said. I must say I was impressed with the non-endorsement passive voice of the WELLS clue. Sure, he’s been called that, but Verne and Shelley both were doing science fiction before HG, in Shelley’s case nearly a century before him. And, of course, that’s just the modern western canon. In short, WELLS has been called the father of science fiction, and immediately a whole bunch of people looked ASKANCE and said “Srsly?”
I’m finding repeated clues less and less charming as I do too many puzzles, but repeated clues for three letter answers that are symmetrically placed in a puzzle with diagonal mirror symmetry? Kudos. Or maybe I should say 💋 CHEF’S KISS 💋
👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
Like Rex, I knew almost all of the proper nouns (including ELIAS), but it still was tough.
Happy that I solve on paper. If I had solved online, it would have taken me a long time to learn that I misspelled EGREGIOUS. I had it with an extra E (crossing CHECK instead of CHICK).
Yesterday's was the sparkliest ever, 22 red plus signs in the margins. Today's had 13, about average for a Saturday, which is still very good.
The highlight for me was CHEFSKISS. I do that from time to time but I didn't know it had a name.
"Lewis, you seem to be in a very good mood today." "Yes, I did a wonderful crossword this morning." "Don't you do one every day?"
@kitshef - I like how we had the same reaction differently. You might be interested in this piece on WELLS from a recent New Yorker
Naticked at dia/elias. Never heard of the latter and just couldn’t see the former with Mayo not being properly capitalized. Just ran through the alphabet until I got my winning fanfare. Found this one very tough in general but that is expected for a Saturday!
Rex: mayo does not mean month in Spanish (that’s mes); rather, mayo is the specific month of May.
@Zy - Wells is a funny one. Wrote for more than 50 years all the way to the 1940s, but all the books that are more are less universally remembered (The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau) were published in a three-year period in the late 1880s.
I'll use this as an opportunity to plug the movie Time after Time.
Uncapitalized “mayo” a bit if a cheat. Hardly necessary in an already tough puzzle.
@Erin - months are not capitalized in Spanish, so 'mayo' is correct.
I'm right there with Lewis. What a wonderful, wonderful week this has been! Lots of wordplay. Lots of trickery. Lots of challenge. Lots of "suffering".
Today's was completely captivating and required all my attention. And I almost Naticked at the KATANAS/ETS cross. I never saw "Kill Bill" (nor will I ever) and I ran the alphabet when I had KA-ANAS. Somehow KATANAS seemed the most "familiar" out of all the 26 possibilities, so I wrote it in. ETS, as clued, made no sense to me whatsoever and still doesn't. But nothing else did either. By some miracle, I guessed correctly.
I have never heard of a CHEF'S KISS. Never, never, never. I can't wait to read the comments and find out if anyone else has. But when EGREGIOUS raised its head -- up and up from the bottom -- I knew that I would finish the NW after all.
Big hiccup at CHIuOS. First I had AuDra at 21A (thinking of McDonald, not McDowell), then changed her to AuDIE, which almost fit. But that left me with CHIUOS. What on earth were they?
I should have fixed it in the blink of a GOT A SEC, but it took me much too long to figure out what was ASKANCE.
And while I've written my share of NOTE TO SELF(s), I have never once written a "Dear future me". That clue baffled me no end.
There were, in fact, many bafflements to be endured here, but they were all fun ones. Excellent puzzle.
I had no clue about ELIAS Sports Bureau, that "I" was the last letter I filled in the puzzle, as a wild guess, and then I literally laughed out loud when I realized why "DIA" could be a "bit of mayo".
Well apparently I'm the only solver (so far) who is/was unfamiliar with CHEFSKISS, because in my reasonably long life this is the first time I've run into it, and needed pretty much every cross to get it. The ISS part was steering me towards some sort of BLISS, but that wasn't going to work. A poor day when you can't learn something.
I suspected the "bit of mayo" clue was going to be a little tricky, because the months in Spanish are not capitalized and "dab" would have gone in nicely. VERNE and WELLS having the same number of letters was a momentary slowdown too.
I knew ELIAS instantly but have yet to see "Legally Blonde", remembered KATANAS, and CHINO is Spanish for "Chinese", giving me an Asian country, even if it was the wrong one. Otherwise very smooth and enjoyable ride.
Great stuff, NJY. Nice Job You, and please accept the Saturdazo! prize along with the thanks of a grateful commentariat.
@kitshef -- I, too, wanted vErne before WELLS. But I never came close to writing it in. Why? How could the answer to "straight" at 7D possibly have ended in a "V"? It couldn't -- and so I sheathed my pen.
I've been gone for over a week spending time being a worry wart over the impending birth of our second grand baby. Our daughter is this little petite thing - standing about 5'2 in stocking feet (her brother is 6'3 - go figure) and she was as big as a house. Had her healthy (sumo) baby the other day. Little chubby tubby weighed in at 8.5 lbs.
So I'm back....Yikes. I need to get back in my groove. This was tres hard. Let's see....I had HENRI CHINOS and then I SANK into a BAA MOO conundrum . Oh wait...I got HOOKAH BAR after about 6 hours.
Sometimes (like today) you just have to re-group and take a big breath and just not give up. I did/I didn't. I had to cheat with INDIE BAND/CYBER CAFE/WELLS. Man, I just could parse those puppies. No amount of crosses helped.
Loved me some HABANEROS, though. We had some growing in (guess where?). Yep....Havana. My brother dared me to put one on my lips. Of course I did. If you think Goldie Hawn's lips look like the lipsology from hell, you should've seen mine.
Still can't figure out why Mountebanks are FAKES.
Now to go and catch up on the puzzles and comments I've missed.
< 13m so not bad eh wink wink nudge nudge...
I was going to go for "ABBA" until I realized that their name came from the initials of the members of the band.
Thx Nam Jin; a KISS of perfection, indeed! Excellent Sat. puz! :)
Med.
Great start in the NW, except for leaving the 'f' out of the CHE_SKISS / _AN cross (which I filled in as my last entry). Took a while to get that one.
The rest was a typical Sat. solve: bouncing around, slow, but sure.
Especially liked NOTE TO SELF.
A wonderful adventure this one was! :)
___
yd pg -l* (missing a 7)
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
In order for die to make sense, shouldn't mayo have been Mayo?
@kitchef, I did not know that. Thanks.
@Joe DiPinto from yesterday: I'd say you were in rare form, but it happens all too often! I took the toast to be a tribute to Nancy's Ludditism also - good find:) Top O'Themornin'
Now on to today's puzzle and Lewis/Nancy Universal...
Lately there have been far too many colloquialisms in the puzzles (three in this one). I suppose that's better than too much Simpsons and Harry Potter, but not by much.
Can anyone direct me to older puzzles, pre-Shortz? Whenever i look for a book of NYT crosswords, the only ones i can find are Shortz-edited. Is there a way to get to them online? (I subscribe to the NYT itself, not to any special puzzle subscription, if there is such a thing). I'd liked to find more challenging crosswords without rebuses and not so many pop culture references, etc. Thanks in advance.
Also didn't know Elias Sports. The Elias on my mind is Mark, who thankfully is trying to preserve democracy by suing states passing restrictive voting laws. Still, being a sports fan, STATS was easy.
Quite a gem. Challenging, even though I knew the proper nouns.
Terrific puzzle, great long answers, took my son and me a good long time (40 mins) but eminently doable for a couple amateurs. Only struggled with "STINTED" as being stingy, which I'd never heard before. Funny how all the words about being stingy start with STI--stiffed, stinted, stingy. Stilted is when your words are too short instead of your money. GREAT PUZZLE, innovative grid--thanks! lotsa smiles. --Rick
Am I the only person in the whole world who's never heard of this CHEFSKISS thing. WAGAN just looked wrong to me but parsing that first S with CHEF never crossed my mind. SWISS was the only way I could make sense of 1A. This completely ruined an otherwise terrific solve.
Some cartoonish gesture has become an emoji and a meme with no awareness whatsoever on my part and once again I've been PWNed by a term most any 20 something who's never done a puzzle would know.
Maybe if I'd slept on this one the Supreme Court Justice would have come to mind, maybe not. A single dnf is always two mistakes and I honestly don't know which of today's is more EGREGIOUS.
yd pg -1 (a 7 point cheese any finger sniffing chef would know, I'll take TUATARA over it any day)
Off to a roaring start when I plugged "cigar shop" right in there at 2 down. And then had to leave the premises when nothing seemed to fit. Had better luck in the east, and worked my way around without too much trouble before taking on the NW corner again.
I know I'm not the only one who uses this, but when you only get one entry in a large area of the grid, pull it out and take a fresh look at things. Aha, "born again" to the rescue.
I could go on about how clean and smooth this construction is but @Lewis has once again nailed it. And agreed, this has been a great run lately.
There must be a different take on "ers", no?
I finished this just a tad slower than yesterday's puzzle so very easy for a Saturday, not my usual expectation from Nam Jin Yoon puzzles. Smooth and clever, yes, but easy, no. I liked it.
On the other hand, if I'd been solving this in a tournament, I would have handed it in with an error. It was only after I finished solving that I noticed two ERS in the puzzle. 39A was obviously ERS (at least after I realized "transcript" referred to a written interview) but ErS over at 44A was only a bad guess because I could not understand what extraterrestrials had to do with admissions. But once I noticed the ErS dupe, I wrote in the T, liking KATANAS better than KArANAS anyway (is that "sweet lemon" justification?) Finally, after Googling ETS, I see the admissions tie-in.
DRoLl before DRYLY in the SW.
Every time I tripped over another F, I cheered for @Roo Monster. And Jeff Chen mentions that two F-ending answers (maybe he didn't notice CLIFF, which had a great forehead-wrinkling clue) were very unusual (34D and 24A).
Thanks, NJY!
KEEPSILENT for KEEPITDOWN held me up for a bit . . . .
As did PARE/PEEL . . . .
A lovely puzzle; the symmetry threw me for a bit; I dont think I've ever seen one quite like this.
To Z or ZU or whatever your moniker is, I'll say it again: it's not the number of proper nouns, it's where they are placed and how much space they control. So the longer names (movie character; Japanese knife) have far more impact on the puzzle solving than a mere Brian ENO or ETTA James.
Hey All !
Rare Diagonal Symmetry. Even Rarer Reverse Diagonal Symmetry. Dang, Nam. Usually (when used, which is Rare, as I said), Diagonal Symmetry goes from NW to SE. Nam decided to go from SE to NW. An ASKANCE Diagonal Symmetry?
Anyway, had a hold-up in NW. EGREGIOUS tough to see. Kept wanting iGnomIOUS, or some other non-word-that-sounds-like-a-word. After putting in STINTED (a correct guess) and KArAN (a wrong guess), saw CHEFS KISS, which led to EGREGIOUS, which got me to see BORN AGAIN (as had it ending with ArAIN from KArAN), which let me see FAN (head scratcher, that, for a while), which finally got me to change KArAN to KAGAN. Whew! Was expecting to hear the Happy Music after all that, but... Almost There! Argh! Turned out I had ELnAS/DnA for ELIAS/DIA. Dang Spaniards and their non-capitalized months!
Not Breakfast Approved Comment:
45A, Alternate to toilet paper - DIRTY ASS 😂
Nice puz, a few writeovers, can't remember all, but one is narROW to INAROW. F count time! Seemed like a bunch. Let's see...
yd -11 (including a pangram) ouch! should'ves 7 (silly brain)
Seven F's ( yep, good amount)
RooMonster
DarrinV
PPP has a way of being "Inside Baseball", but today it is literal with the Elias Sports Bureau.
Since I sometimes complain about Rex's complaints, I must say today he is really on the money with his praise and reminds me why I come here. Symmetry. The shape being reason why despite the difficulty, I was able to make continued progress until the happy music.
It's not good for speed solving, but I like to do all the clues in order to see what I get with no help. Not much today, but the 2nd pass using the crosses as G-d intended was a great joy.
So many fun, just vague enough to be difficult but give the "aha". march alternative for SITIN, taps for FAUCET., masked warning, etc.
A few less savory options for "toilet paper alternatives" came to mind before the elegant BIDET. I wonder if all those people who bought one during the Covid TP shortage are still using them. Maybe a good time to get one cheap on Ebay - would that be a good Xmas gift?
INAROW a nice callback to row house and home row, reminding us of the straightness of a row.
@SouthsideJohnny - I'm trying to figure out how someone could visit Notre Dame and not remember that there is a river in that part of the city. Our brains are funny things - took me a while to sift through Rhone, Loire to get to SEINE despite many visits...
A CHEF'S KISS is a gesture of putting one's thumb & 2 fingers on one's lips, kissing them, & pulling away the fingers while separating them - the chef's immodest sign that his dish is perfect. BTW did anyone else wonder if the blades used in "Kill Bill" were very stale bananas?
Agree. Unfair. Ruined whole puzzle. Could have been “Mayo bit?”
I’ve never thought of a BIDET as an alternative to toilet paper — a follow-up, perhaps? Hygienic accessory? But an alternative? That’s one bidet I will not be using. As ELLE WOODS might say: I object!
OK, Who ARE you? And what have you done with Rex??
Very nice. For me, just resistant enough and so rewarding, with one winning answer after another. First in: CHEFS KISS x KAGAN, the N of which got me NOTE TO SELF and then the crossing CHINOS. So everything unfurled smoothly until I hit the row with the ANDES, which did put up a barrier for a while, requiring a slow chipping away of the bottom third. Last in: ACRID x I CALL.
Favorites for me were the neighboring CYBERCAFE and HOOKAH BAR, the FREELANCE INDIE BAND, and especially YOGA PANTS over BORN AGAIN (@Lewis, even that promise can't make me get re-started with yoga).
Do-over: CHIrp before CHICK. Help from previous puzzles: SADE. No idea: ELIAS, KATANAS
After I threw in Chick and Henri, I went all the way down to the SW corner before I eked out Bidet. At that point I hated the constructor, his Egregious grid, and the New York Times in general. The feeling was visceral.
Rex said Rene was a gimme. Well, harsh my back-patting buzz as we said in the olden days. For some reason I thought that maybe Rene has something to do with renaissance, which might have something to do with the Latin for Reborn. I don't even know if that's true but things started flowing from there with at least glacial speed.
I eventually did a check, but the crazy things I'd done, with one small exception, were right. How could someone get me so excited about Faucets and Abodes. Ya know how, concise clever cluing.
After that check I fell in love in that way you do in those rare moments of life when you meet someone brilliant and you want to start by planting a big mwah on their brain (and now follow up with a Chef's Kiss).
Nam Jin Yoon, Brooke Husic. Those two, along with a couple others, make me excited about the new crop of constructors that's taking shape. But especially those two.
@Kitchef, @Z, et al, I was surprised by Wells. The New Yorker article was very interesting but didn't change my mind. I googed father of science f and Verne came up before I finished typing.
That and the other things popping up in the comments are minor nits for me (they'd magnify if they were my own 😀).
@Gill, Welcome back and Congratulations! What will this little one call you and your husband?
I'm with @mathgent / @pabloinnh / @puzzlehoarder in the 'hadn't heard the term, CHEF'S KISS camp'. Love it, tho. 🧑🍳 😘
The Origin of CHEFS KISS (Dave Burdge REC ~ YouTube)
Burdge writes:
"I wondered how such a phenomena was possible, a meme understood by all. Here's how it happened..."
___
td 0
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
Today I learned that days of the week and months are not capitalized in Spanish! Let that be a lesson to us all.
This played quite difficult for me, especially the NW because i had no idea what a HOOKAH BAR is and CHEFS KISS didn’t exactly jump off the page. I looked ASKANCE at the clues for CLIFF and DIA and wondered WOE a NO FEE apartment is. “Scoville” was a mystery and I was considering staging a SIT IN to protest the unfairness of it all when out of nowhere appeared the fetching ELLE WOODS, carrying Bruiser and wearing YOGA PANTS on her way to get her nails done. Finally an answer I could FETE!
I have never seen any of the Kill Bill movies but accidentally caught the last 15 minutes of one this past week while waiting for the next film on that channel to begin. They were swinging those KATANAS around every which way and seemed like every character displayed a FREE flow of blood. I had no desire to see MORE.
@GILL (8:47) Congratulations on that precious new bundle of joy!! Aren’t babies just the best? Glad to have you back.
Now If we can just get @Frantic back among us. In case you missed the posts last night, she is alive and well, just busy and otherwise occupied.
Re: chef's kiss – it's replaced "pearl clutching" as the most annoyingly unimaginative and tired expression on the internet. If you haven't heard it, you will. In spades.
@Nancy, I posted you a response late last night – there was no subtle reference intended with my toast post, I came across it while looking for something else.
In Re chinos, wait tilt rex learns about denim, dungaree, bikini, balaclava capris, tuxedo, jodhpurs. Etc
LOL. Too many comic books, not enough travel or intellectual curiosity in a certain PhD’s life.
@Number 2:
you may not know it, but it was true for decades. back when the catalog was printed on cheap newsprint; not much harder than TP today.
never had the opportunity to use a BIDET, but the teeVee has been running adverts for some recently. one that squirts warm water, no less. since the tankless water heater is all the rage these days, I know from experience that 5 minutes isn't out of the ballpark to get warm water to a second floor bathroom. which, I guess, means some kind of electric heater in the toilet. great. electricity and water mixing right with one's privates. and, anyway, how does one get rid of the water after use? sit there for another 5 minutes to drip dry? or do you just let your panties sop it up? or is that when you go for the TP?
Easy-medium. The excellent stack in the NW was on the tough side, but the rest was fairly easy and definitely easier than yesterday’s. Plenty of sparkle and Jeff at Xwordinfo gave it POW.
44a is no longer true for CA public colleges and universities.
ELLE WOODS was a gimme because “Legally Blonde” was one of my granddaughter’s favorite movies growing up.
Congratulations, @Gill, to you and your daughter. Maybe warn her? My third baby (and last, for reasons that will be evident) was 9.8 lbs. I am also 5”2, 115 lbs. (well not those last days!). I thought I was carrying a monster those last weeks. But that daughter is the most amazing person; she is worth every minute of discomfort. (To be fair, all my kids are fantastic.) The doc said the next would be 10 lbs; hubby went to the hospital the following week.
I, too, failed at the ELIAS/DIA cross. I’m too impatient to run the alphabet in the grid, and running it in my head was useless. But the puzzle was fabulous despite the DNF. There were so many places where I gave a little whoop when an answer lit up one of my neurons: CHEFSKISS, EGREGIOUS, FAUCETS, SAYNOMORE. I could go on but will spare you the monotony. I did want hetero for “straight,” but took it out when YARN and NOTETOSELF were so spot on.
What I love about certain puzzles is that blissful moment when you just KNOW the right answer. SPAY and OBESE went in without a thought, as did, honest to god, BIDETS with no crosses. Yay me!
Fun, successful (for me) Saturday. Thanks, Nan Jin Yoon.
I was very proud of myself for getting 'memo TO SELF' from the second O; mand, did that hold me up.
I've seen the first part of Kill Bill, but never heard the swords named; my son insists that if I see the II it will all make sense, but I haven't found the motivation. Anyway, I looked that one up. I also looked up ELLE WOODS; I love the movie, but just couldn't remember the name of the character. That got me to take out paris for SEINe, and the whole SW came together.
But that central square! No idea about ELIAS (I was looking for something less proprietar, maybe related to the Olympics or a single sport), and to my shame never thought of the Spanish month. I kept going back to the Irish county, even though that really would have had to be capitalized. I finally searched for Ella's Sports Bureau, and the answer came up.
Jules Verne published Journey to the Center of the Earth two years before Wells was born; but he's got Wikipedia immunity -- they assign the name to both of them, along with Hugo Gernsback. Three fathers sounds a little kinky to me.
@Rex, I'm afraid you're losing your touch, trying to troll us with the suggestion that CHINOS refer to Laos. Nobody took the bait.
Now I'm trying to figure out the advantage of an AC/DC sewing machine. I found a Youtube video, but it was 28 minutes -- TLDV (too long/didn't view)
CHINOS are named after Loas? I put them in assuming they were named after CHINA. Actually looked it up. Yes they are named after China. Per Wikipedia:
> As the cloth itself was originally made in China, the trousers were known in Spanish as pantalones chinos (Chinese pants), which became shortened to simply "chinos" in English
@Rex you are totally right about the rareness of "BASES being loaded with singles." Its crazy how much baseball has changed in just a decade where the "three true outcomes" have completely taken over.
@nyc_lo - If anything, toilet paper might be used as a follow-up to the bidet, to dry off, not the other way around. We have one spray bidet in the house and, as any bidet user will tell you, it's so much more hygienic than using TP. Think about it: when you get your hands muddy do you just wipe them off with paper, or run them under water to get them fully clean. It may very well not be for you, though, but I have saved so much in toilet paper since getting one, and my butt glistens and farts rainbows.
@SouthsideJohnny; It’s interesting that you didn’t realize that the Notre Dame cathedral is near the Seine as you had to cross it to get there. The cathedral sits on an island in the river.
@TJS Re. Cigar Shop, I first thought it had to have something to do with BBQ. That mucked things up for a while.
@Carola, Wow on your first two in's. I didn't know that fact about Kagan and was just indignant. By the time I got to "Make Whole" for Fix, I thought, "This guy has to be lawyer! Sure he knows the Harvard dean!
@Anon 10:56, Maybe it's just you. The solve is such an individual experience as it's happening, unless you have a partner to work with. Think it over.
@GILL I
MAZEL TOV!!!
Google "Chef's kiss emoji"
I got “ers” pretty quickly, but “dia”??? Gosh, I got the solve, but still didn’t get the clue until Rex explained it. That one stung me.
Shouldn’t “Mayo” be capitalized? That just seems unfair!
Whoops, wrong link posted above. This is what it should have been. (But enjoy the music while you're there.)
BIDET vs TP
Based on a recommendation here a few years ago, I use these.
@Shirley F, you can solve all the pre-Shortz puzzles online at XWord Info. https://www.xwordinfo.com/Calendar?type=pssolve
Any day that Rex & @Lewis agree is fine work is indeed applauded in our ABODE and worthy of Jeff’s POW award on that other blog—which it did receive. More of a challenge than Nancy’s (and Will’s) effort, but equally enjoyable to solvers. Nam Jin Yoon is rapidly becoming worthy of his own entry in @Zster’s lexicon of PPP.
I really, really wanted tuatara on the recent Spelling Bee.
Agree with Rex altho I didn't know Elle Woods. I'll look for this constructor again.
My favorite posts this morning.
Kid Phoneme (8:08)
kitshef (8:32) (8:34)
Gill I. (8:47)
rjkennedy98 (11:25)
Peter P (11:31)
Not in Dutch either
There is so much to love about this puzzle! Great clueing in about every way, and the ONLY thing that truly messed me up was “Bit of mayo”(uncapitalized).
Like @Z and others I tend to think of Verne as being the father of sci fi, but like @Nancy I kept it blank due to the V. That said, I DNF’d in the small section with DAB instead of DIA and the B made me unable to see ATLAS as a possibility. This is all on me because I just could not conjure up WELLS. Kind of funny since I managed to Seuss out the rest of the puzzle but such is life.
As for all those that didn’t know CHEFSKISS…even though we ALL really DO know it (visually), I think it has only been a “phrase” recently. Yes, I’ll Google that now. At any rate I thought it had been a clue or answer in the last few years because that is the only reason I was familiar with it.
I enjoyed your puzzle yesterday @Nancy!
Out of curiosity about what makes a jalapeño spicy, I put a single seed on the tip of my tongue. About a nanosecond later I spit (spat?) it out violently and for the next 15 minutes or so my tongue burned intensely like it had been stung by a fire ant. I can't imagine doing something like this with the much higher Scoville rated HABANERO(S) as happened with GILL I. @8:47. Lordy, just the AROMA of HABANEROS makes me shrink back in fear!
The Scoville Scale assigns numbers to different peppers' "heat" but in reality it's more of a ranking than a precise scale. It relies on subjective ratings from tasters and that can vary considerably from taster to taster. The "heat" intensity also varies within one species of pepper.
A friend who spent a couple of years in India in the Peace Corps told of naively eating a pepper that was so hot that afterward he was struggling just to breathe. Some locals gave him yogurt to eat and that saved the day. I think milk will also lower the burn. Water? Beer? I've tried both and they do nothing to turn down the flame.
mayo is totally fair. It's Saturday. But Sp. maybe shoulda been at the end of the clue. Too easy? perhaps. But then why does 5D have "in a way" after "Sterilize"? It's a very short walk from sterilize to SPAY. Why the extra help?
JD,
Gee, I don’t think it’s just me. I was agreeing with someone who posted at 9:50. So, at the very least, there’s two of us. But I very much doubt it. As the soul at 9:50 points out it’s how the ppp is arrayed in the puzzle that’s crucial not simply the amount of it.
What’s more, some people like ppp, others don’t. To say that a puzzle has too much or too little of it is silly. It’s simply a matter of taste.
Anyone else hate the Charmin Bear TP ads?
Somebody is gonna gleefully tell you that they don't capitalize the months in Spanish. Not me, though, I'm on your side. This came up a few months ago. .
As is our habit, my wife (!) and I solved together on paper today. I believe this was a first — zero write-overs! She got 1A immediately, but hesitated to write it in until I wrote in FAN for 4D, confirming the F in CHEFS KISS.
Oddly that gave us only SSN, off the S in KISS, then we skipped over to the NE and everything just fell into place heading south and southwest, in record speed for a Saturday until we met some resistance in the NW. We never got stuck, really, just slowed down. I wish I’d timed us, just out of curiosity.
We got married just before last weekend (the Friday after Thanksgiving), and Saturday/Sunday were spent relaxing after all the arrangements that tied us up for the week before.
Who knew an elopement could be so stressful??
Glad to be back to a somewhat normal routine, so I’ve got the bandwidth to say hello here in the Rex Parker comments.
It has a little hot air dryer to dry you off...
When built into the toilet, it has a little electric hot air dryer to dry you off... electric heated sear as well! Lol... Of course if you prefer wet panties, we're not judging or anything...
Oddball puzgrid symmetry, today. Cool. M&A likes oddball. But that NW immediately scared off the M&A. Started our solvequest downwind, at SRI/SITIN/SEINE/BIDETS [last 3 of those kinda make a neat phrase, btw]. M&A did that there NW corner last. Saved on precious nanoseconds.
staff weeject picks: BAA & MOO. Mini-theme. Also, neat runt-rolls of SAYNOMOO & BAAKES.
Had VERNE b-4 WELLS and BARES b-4 PARES and FOOT b-4 HOOF. No biggie. Helped, that I knew of everything in this very smoothly-filled SatPuz.
Particularly liked the NOTETOSELF & FAN clues. dis-honrable mention to that DIA clue, but I reckon the Spanish folks don't capitalize their month names?
fave fillins: KATANAS. KEEPITDOWN. NOTETOSELF. EGREGIOUS/FAUCETS. ASKANCE. CHEFSKISS.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Yoon dude.
Masked & Anonymo1U
**gruntz**
Bidet? It’s spelled Biden. But we can all agree that the bunghole is central to the point.
@JD 11:39 - One of my favorite time sinks is reading food blogs and recipe websites, with all of the comments, where one encounters one CHEF'S KISS after another - usually when commenters note how they added something to the recipe as a crowning touch.
Perhaps Wells is widely seen as the "father of science fiction" as we usually define it in the Western world, but Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe both preceded him by decades. And Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley preceded THEM by decades.
@Anoa Bob -- it's the capsaician in chile peppers that gives them the impression of being spicy. Most of it is contained in the seeds and, from my understanding, even moreso in the ribs (the white or light-colored stripes) that run on the interior of the pepper from pole to pole. That's why a lot of recipes will instruct you to remove both to remove heat. (This also removes some bitterness from the peppers, as the seeds have some bitterness/astringency to them.) You get used to it from prolonged exposure as your body develops a tolerance.
Note their are other chemicals that get perceived as "hot" or "spicy" by humans. Mustard, wasabi, horseradish all get their heat from allyl isothiocyanate. It's a completely different type of heat -- more of a sharp, nose-clearing one and one that does really linger on the tongue the same way caspaicin does. I am not aware of a heat scale for those. In my experience, that type of heat dissipates very quickly and causes more of a burn in the lungs and nose than peppers which can linger for ten to twenty minutes on my tongue and down my esophogus. (That said, I'm quite used to heat by now, and habaneros are used routinely in my food.)
Similarly, peppercorns derive their spice from piperine -- once again, a very different type of "hot" than from capsaicin. My Polish father was very used to horseradish and allyl isothiocyanate and could eat prepared horseradish by the spoonful, which proved to be too "hot" for his Mexican coworker. Conversely, the Mexican co-worker could handle the heat of arbol chile peppers fine, while it would make my father gag.
And, yes, Spanish does not capitalize the names of months. Nor does French. Nor does Italian. Nor does Hungarian. Nor does Polish. Nor do probably many other languages. Same goes for days of the week. Don't assume other languages follow the same capitalization rules English does. Why would they?
Watching Big and enjoying just how beautifully they shot Playland. There’s a medium CU of Hanks and you can see the Sound in the background. Not the marina of course, ( that would clutter the frame) but it makes me smile knowing it’s there all the same.
Why wasn't mayo capitalized?
Been in sunny northern Cali (Santa Rosa) with my kids and for the first time (thanks to the pandemic) doing in person Grandma Duty with my (hopefully) soon to be adopted granddaughter! Got back early yesterday morning (air travel right now is just horrendous) after spending an entire night in Denver while Delta tried to find enough personnel to run the airport and an available flight crew for the flight I booked a month ago (to give the airline time to make sure it had what it needed. My mistake I guess.
Whilst stuck in Denver I did all of this week’s less today’s. What a fun week overall abd a great Re entry for me. I hadn’t intended to take a week of solving off, but î was so busy cooking and visiting and playing that I just found myself breaking a very long streak and not caring a bit. I had nit seen my kids for almost 2 years exactly and meeting my clever, funny, sweet artistic overall wonderful 9 year old (currently) foster granddaughter was the icing on the cake, cherry on the sundae and the extra gravy on my mashed potatoes. To make things even better, her 9th birthday was the day before Thanksgiving.
And getting to solve almost an entire week if good puzzles, topped off by today’s brilliant one just closes out a terrific vacation. The clever clues, fresh answers and tough sledding made today the best Saturday offering in a cery long time. Loved it. Didn’t figure out why 39A was ERS until just before I started this entry. Fabulous clue - “transcripts” meaning written memorialization of spoken wirds. As in how the heck many deposition transcripts have I read in ny 40 years practicing law?!?!?!?
Great week iff. Glad to be back. Loved this puzzle!!!
Thanks for the welcome back, amigos/amigas. I sure do miss this blog when I'm gone - even for a few days. It's truly my morning fix and I learn lots of "stuff."
@Mals. 11:17. Good gravy, girl. You made my eyes sting. Danielle couldn't get up from the couch. But, but 9.8 lbs????? Holy tamales with an HABANERO pepper.
Speaking of hot. @Anoa B....I like hot but I don't like the torture chamber. I like to keep my lips and my tongue all in its place. I do use Serrano and jalapeños but I remove the seeds; then I wash my hands 5,000 times. If used in moderation, I love them, and after I've made a good enchilada verde I do a CHEFF KISS.
Speaking of BIDETS. We got one at the start of COVID. Nary a tissue to be found anywhere and I was tired of borrowing bog paper from my neighbors. We ordered a "Tushy Spa" from Amazon and it arrived in one day. Best investment ever. Leaves you clean as a polished apple. Also, you can get them with a warm air dryer. See, you can just sit on the John and read your newspaper in peace knowing that when you get up, you will smell like lilacs in the field.
Speaking of tushy. @Anonymoose1:16...You mentioned not liking the Charmin Bears ad. Well, I don't know if you've seen the latest use wipe ads, but there's one called "Pooppoerment." A bunch of women are sitting on the loo and loudly exclaiming "It's time for women to talk about poo." I kid you not. Have you seen it?
@Ocean 1:24. En hora buena. Hope you reach the almost 37 years my husband and I have.
@Nancy, amiga. Just finished your puzzle. I loved it - as usual....Can't wait for your and Lewis opus....
No. Months in Spanish aren't capitalized. They are enero, febrero, marzo, abril, mayo, junio, etc.
@Anoa Bob - I'm told that chewing on your hair will neutralize the heat. Alas, mine is too short to test this theory and mrsshef has so far not agreed to let me chew on hers.
@ Gill I - huzzah!
@oceeanjeremy - congratulations!
When I hear Rex rant on the NYT’s male oriented puzzles I have take an ASKANCE look at the disingenuity. (He hasn’t for awhile I admit)
Never has he included the loaded sports trivia in the puzzles as proof of that bias…because he is in love with sports trivia. ‘Fashion’ related trivia or similiar female weighted clues aren’t balancing out the scale. You can do the Inkubator puzzles and get a sense of how it looks with femaie orientation (which is fair in their case because that is how it is advertised)
Welcome back, @GILL and thanks for the shoutout! And for your lovely email too, which I just answered. Your wonderful comments on the blog have been missed.
But I don't understand all you hot peppers lovers at all. Having a burned tongue, lips, throat, esophagus, etc is not my idea of fun. I mistakenly ate part of a pepper in some Thai dish where I wasn't expecting it -- and I was beyond furious at the chef for putting it there. My mouth burned for hours and if there was anything remotely enjoyable about the experience, I'm damned if I know what it was. I love you all, but I think you're all nuts.
Why isn’t “mayo” capitalized? The point was raised at 8:19 and answered at 8:34 a.m.
@unknown 9:50 - I’m guessing you didn’t see my response the last time you made this point. First, I don’t disagree it’s just harder to account for. Second, the percentage is good enough most of the time. Third, Have you never seen my rant when the theme is PPP based?
I will add that you raised an unusual one for PPP answers. Normally I dislike when a word isn’t PPP gets clued as PPP (for example, if INDEX had gotten a Dow Jones clue). KATANAS, though, might be an exception. I may be wrong, but my suspicion is that a majority of NYTX solvers who know KATANAS only know it because of the movies, so this may be the rare instance where cluing a word that isn’t PPP with a PPP clue actually makes the answer more accessible.
@Beezer - I guess I wasn’t very clear. I do not consider Verne, or anyone really, as the “father of science fiction.” Just in the traditional western canon whoever wrote Beowulf, Homer, or whoever wrote Gilgamesh have as much claim. (Damn - just googled “early science fiction” and it turns out Wikipedia has a pretty well sourced page on the debate.)
@JC6612:01 - Apparently local waste water treatment plants hate those things because they don’t break down the same way TP does and so cause problems for their systems. Maybe the manufacturers are making progress in that area.
mountebank
Seems to me that it is now one of those words that separates the SAT 800 scorers from the SAT 775 scorers and isn’t used anywhere else much anymore. I’m looking at the examples from the web that M-W provides and some of them feel like the writer wanted one more derogatory term, pulled out Rogets, and said, “here’s a good one.”
@Peter P:
Don't assume other languages follow the same capitalization rules English does. Why would they?
What??? MAGA,man. All those Sh!thole Countries are required to do all things the American Way. If they don't, we'll make the Ruskies picking on Ukraine look like a middle school nuggie contest.
@Anonymous (12:10 PM)
Thx for the pre-Shortz puzzles link. :)
@Anonymous (12:10 PM) / @Mary (12:26 PM)
Agreed re: 'tuatara'! Still hunting for yd's missing 7.
___
Finding today's 'Stan Newman's Hard Crossword' (Surface-to-Air Missive) challenging.
___
Peace ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🕊
[Perfection!].
My first thought was OOH LA LA with some kind of hand motion. Then even better bunched fingers to the lips and a near whispered MMMWAH as a pantomime kiss as the fingers move up out and apart. But I never knew a name for it even though I was picturing a chef. Italian not French maybe. My one cheat for a Saturday despite unknowingly picturing the answer nearly perfectly in my mind. How tragic and how wonderful all at the same time.
Surprised how many knew ELLEWOODS. I've seen all the Blonde movies but only knew the WOODS name because it is a family name on one side of my family that includes 2 lawyers and a municipal judge in Cleveland. My grandmother had 5 brothers: a farmer, a blacksmith, a train engineer, a doctor and one of the of the lawyers. Seems so all-American. They could have made up the half the cast of most 1950s westerns. ELLE I had to work out. Took about 2 hours and had to change 3 things before the music played. Very proud none the less.
With Rex. Wonderful puzzle. Nice connections in the fill. Just read the across lines and the down lines. Truly wonderful language. ELLEWOODS as along ppp is about as bad as it gets. That is to say pretty good floor. And 1A is the ceiling.
@Nancy
Yes, I think they dumbed it down a bit more than you would have liked. Crunchy is usually your middle name (or Will's) when it comes to clues.
I found the puzzle tough but enjoyable. Took a long time to finish, accounting for my late comment.
Shirley F: Don't know if your question is already answered but if it hasn't: There are places you can go to and access past puzzles. WWordInfo.com is one of them. You may have to pay to access all the puzzles, but then you have to pay to get the current puzzle.
Z: I would comment on one of your comments, but I'd be afraid of composing a spoiler. So, in a bit ...
Just got back to the blog after a long day (0 comments when I wrote my initial post), only to find that my post disappeared in the ether. Two days in a row! Does that happen to others? If it matters, I was posting from an iPhone - I will occasionally get an error message (something about needing to clear my browser cache before posting), but there was no error message today.
I have had one post removed/denied in the past by a moderator (I assume because I made a tangential comment about the following day's puzzle), but that time there was a notation that it was removed. Nothing today to indicate that I crossed a line, although I cannot imagine what I said that could have been an issue.
I haven’t noticed anyone commenting on this, but one of the most fascinating parts of the puzzle to me was finding out that FANs are a deadly appliance in A Korean urban myth. The constructor has a Korean name, so he presumably knows this from experience. If he is reading this, or if anyone else knows, I want more information on this!
Liked the puzzle - just the right level of challenge for a Saturday, and some beautiful clues.
@Trey
Any idea of what you did say? I thought I saw an early post by you, but hell, it could have yesterday or last week.
Well...I looked up the etymology for Mountebanks 26D because I actually thought it was some sort of FORD but turns out its FAKES. I had never heard the term before...
It comes from Italian about a quack who mounts his bench to hawk his wares....[monta-in-banco]. And then I said to myself: Tuttu Frutti....no amore mio. I will never remember nor do I particularly care.
Trey: A tried to comment today and something strange happened. I had to lock on Publish Your Comment twice to get is posted. And the photo verification acted weirdly. After you click that button, you should see a message at the top to the comment to the effect that your comment will appear after it is approved. If you see that message and your comment never appears, one of the moderators must have become irritated by your post. Mike Sharp does include his email address on the Home Page. If (and only if) you see the message, your comment doesn't post, and you have no clue why, perhaps you could ask him directly what's going on. But that would be a last resort because I don't think he likes to be inundated with email messages.
@albatross shell 6:37
I remember commenting that my Saturday time was about a minute faster than Friday, which gave credence to the comments yesterday by some that the Friday puzzle was Saturday-level. I commented on SANS SERIF, which I got off of the SA, and I commented that there were few 3-letter words, but those that were there were often crosswordese or abbreviations.
Noted that I had many write-overs, such as AglANCE for ASKANCE, floCK for CHICK, tOlEt for NOFEE. Also that it took me awhile to see WELLS even though I had LLS. Nothing controversial there.
@pmpdm 6:42 - I sometimes post on my phone and sometimes on my computer. I get the message about the post being published upon review on the computer, but I do not think I see it when I post on my phone. I have learned to copy the text of my posts to make sure I do not get an error message, as I have lost many posts (some of them quite long) due to needing to clear my browser cache. I never had that problem before upgrading my phone, but I tend to get that at least once a week now, sometimes an hour after clearing the cache, and sometimes a few days after clearing.
I think it must be the Deep State or aliens. There can be no other logical explanation (insert smiley face here)
@Peter P, yeah, I learned the hard way that pretty much everything inside the pepper has fire. I used to think that the Scoville Scale was a precise measure of the amount of capsaicin but now I see it's based on taste testers' subjective ratings. I think it's still a good scale in terms of ranking peppers by there amount of heat.
@GILL I. I also learned the hard way that wearing nitrile gloves are the way to go when preparing peppers like jalapeños and serranos. Before I started wearing them it seemed that no matter how much I washed my hands post prep I would still get lingering burning sensations, sometimes around my mouth, nose or eyes when I unthinkingly touched there.
@Nancy, the secret is to start with very low heat and work your way up a little at a time until you find the right combination of heat and flavor. No easy thing to pull off unless you do your own cooking. I like the flavors peppers add to foods and now think that the Southern cooking that I was brought up on is rather bland.
Couldn't get enough traction the first time through to make any progress.
I just had habanero sausage for dinner tonight yet went for scorpion (pepper)(didn't fit) as high on the scoville scale.
And how could you get CHEFSKISS from the obscure clue [Perfection!] without any crosses?!?! So vague could've been anything. Unless, i guess, it's been used before.
First female dean of Harvard Law?!?! I can't name any dean of Harvard Law - or any Harvard school - or any School of Law.
Usually if I can't finish a Saturday I look at the solution and say AAH yes, I get it, but not today. Too many stretches between clue and answer for my taste.
@Anoa Bob -- For me, "the right combination of heat and flavor" is all flavor and no heat. You don't need heat to get flavor. As a matter of fact, I think that really hot foods disguise the dishes they are meant to enhance. How can you taste anything with a burning tongue?
If it [happily] doesn't burn, I call it "spicy", not hot, and I do love spicy. I love horseradish, for example, which I spoon liberally into Bloody Marys, and wasabi on my sushi, but I use wasabi with great care. There's no such thing as too much garlic and no such thing as too sharp a mustard or too pungent a cheese. I love Sate Sauce. I love Worcestershire Sauce. But to say that food is "bland" unless your mouth is on fire makes no sense to me. I suppose I could build up my heat tolerance slowly as you suggest -- but why on earth would I want to?
To add my $0.02 to the uncapitalized mayo, I know that in Spanish, months are not capitalized, however, the clue was not "un poco de mayo", which is perfectly fine. It was "A bit of mayo". In English, months are capitalized, regardless of what language is used for the name of said month. It's still a proper noun within an English sentence. I believe "A bit of Mayo" would have been the correct usage as the clue is primarily written in English, not Spanish.
I’d say only English capitalizes months and days of the week. But there may be another one.
Deja vu all over again. Wrong name for the puzzle. Patti Varol and Doug Peterson instead of Nan Jin Yoon. Cluing was too cutesy by half. More mediocre under-edited stuff. What can I say? Oh… Hold the MAYO.
In Syndieland we get the puzzle about a month later than the one that first appears in the NYT. This one is the December 4, 2021 puzzle. The constructors listed in my newspaper did have a puzzle which appeared on December 4. But not in 2021. Patti Varol and Doug Peterson’s collaboration puzzle was published on December 4, 2020 (not 2021). So it appears the wrongly-attributed contributors listed in syndicated publications lately were all off by one year.
https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/4/2020
So many good bits.
So many strange bits. Mwah? Is that a CHEFSKISS? well...ok I guess
Won't even go into the mayo - too sticky for me.
Got some crosses here and there, but a dnf for sure. I even had BAA where MOO ended up for a while. Tee hee.
NOTETOSELF - SAYNOMORE about the ACRID AROMA.
One final note - I seem to agree with the Koreans - turn off the FAN.
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Too young in crossword years to possibly finish this one
I wanted VERNE too but balked at entering a final V for 7 down. Maybe something-TV...but surely not for "straight." My hesitation was wise. When I got it, I thought, of COURSE it was good ol' Herbert George and his xword staple ELOI. Don't understand why they were so afraid of you-know-who; in crosswords the score must be ELOI 784, MORLOCKS 17.
Beautiful ANDIE MacDowell was not only today's DOD--she was my way in! I didn't notice Renee right away, but yeah, that too was a rare Saturday gimme. Still, the clues provided suitable resistance for the day, and I'd rate it medium at least. SE was hardest, as I didn't know KATANAS. Plus that admissions thing with ETS was a big HUH? Glad ETA was there on the down to ice the E. Birdie.
SANS CHINOS
BAA, I'll SAYNOMORE ASKANCE,
I'm BORNAGAIN TO FREELANCE,
I've GOTA FIX
TO CALL the CHICKs
who SIT there IN the YOGAPANTS.
--- CLIFF KAGAN
I was right there with OFL in his review until he used the word 'whimsical'. Hate that word and what it suggests.
God bless the inventor of YOGAPANTS, except when worn by the OBESE. Which happens far too often.
SADE - SAYNOMORRE.
NOTETOSELF: Really good Sat-puz.
First, “Follower of an ‘I’m late’ text, in brief” (ETA)?. Yes, I’m late,
again, like Alice's rabbit.
Second, ERS, ETS, DIA (all as clued?). PARES (“Strips”) instead of PeelS? Well, okay. Then KATANAS and ELIAS? Hmm.
Third, it’s not WELLS; Isaac Asimov is the top science fiction writer for most, isn’t he?
Fourth, I like CLIFF for “Face to scale” -- though I didn’t get it.
@fogman, re: the syndi puzzle with the wrong constructor names. Thanks for sleuthing out where those names came from. Is your paper the Vancouver Sun? I'm trying to figure out if it's the local paper, or Postmedia that's messing this up. The constructor names been wrong all week.
It’s a glitch affecting Postmedia newspapers chainwide including the Montreal Gazette, Vancouver Sun, Kingston Whig Standard etc. I sleuthed it out by looking up the constructors on Jeff Chen’s excellent website Xwordinfo.com and they ones named in error were all published on the same date but in 2020 not 2021.
Syndicationland chiming in here. I appreciate the mayo misdirection - I had DAB in and so DNF - but some indication of a language other than English? italics maybe?
@thefogman, thanks for the info about how widespread this is (and for doing the sleuthing). I used to do computer programming, but I can't even think of how that error could have come about. I'll check again tomorrow and see if there is a way to write to Postmedia if the name is still wrong.
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