Literally, "dainty slice" / SAT 7-29-2022 / Hawaiian word for a mackerel / Pennsylvania city where Crayola is headquartered / The N.F.L. mascot Roary, for one / Future-altering decision point, metaphorically / They're bigger and lighter than skeletons

Constructor: Lance Enfinger

Relative difficulty: medium-ish? corners were easier, center was harder

THEME: none

Word of the Day: FBI (CBS drama from Dick Wolf) —

FBI is an American crime drama television series created by Dick Wolf and Craig Turk that airs on CBS, where it premiered on September 25, 2018. ... The series features an ensemble cast including Missy Peregrym, Zeeko Zaki, Jeremy Sisto, Ebonée Noel, Sela Ward, Alana de la Garza, John Boyd and Katherine Renee Turner. ... The series centers on inner workings of the New York office criminal division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). This elite unit brings to bear all their talents, intellect, and technical expertise on major cases in order to keep New York and the country safe. [note: raise your hand if, like me, you dropped in CSI off of the I despite knowing damn well that it's not a Dick Wolf thing; force of habit, I guess?]

• • •

Hey hi hello, it me again, occasional indie constructor Christopher Adams, who you may recognize from places like the AVCX+, where I occasionally edit puzzles and even more rarely have them published (though I'm very proud of this very recent collaboration). Filling in today for a puzzle by Lance Enfinger, a constructor whose name I don't recognize, and it's a pretty straightforward puzzle.

I found the NW corner pretty easy to get started in, especially with such a gimme like ENYA (the clue, [Singer who owns Manderley Castle in Killiney], just oozes Irish charm). That led pretty quickly to MOMA despite the vague-ASS ([Word added as an intensifier], and it's a great linguistic usage) clue there ([N.Y.C. cultural landmark], and no, I will not apologize for the convoluted grammar of this sentence). After MOMA was UP TOP (["High-five!"], and who the heck hyphenates that???), which made the letter patterns of all the across answers easy to see, and I was (momentarily) off to the races. (A little side-eye to COSMO, not because it's a bad drink (though I'm not a fan), but because imo "Cape Codder" didn't do enough to signal the short name of the drink as the answer. But it's Saturday, so :shrug:, I guess.)

from the always wonderful xkcd

Anyway, skidded to a halt in the middle of the grid, and bounced around for a bit; found the SE corner about as easy as the NW, but even less help in getting into the middle of the grid—while I had LEAD BALLOON coming down from the top, I only had ___ CASINO coming up, with no idea of what that word could be. (And, to be honest, I don't think that clue is very helpful—my understanding of whales is that they are high rollers, and while they're often enticed by comps that might possibly potentially include a hotel, I don't think the hotel itself is the draw here.)

What did help was getting the SW corner—loved the pairing of HELL NO and FRESNO for the -NO endings (and, similarly, loved LOGES / LUGES, and even wished they were closer together in the grid). Probably my favorite clue in the grid was the one for FILET MIGNON ([Literally, "dainty slice"]), since it makes perfect sense in retrospect and is something that I'm very well acquainted with but never knew; just a wonderful light-bulb moment when I figured that out. 

i couldn't not include a tom scott cooking video here

Coupled with ITCH (whose clue, [Scratch that], seemed to scream for an exclamation mark, but again, it's a Saturday) and SHOO, that was enough to get most of the triple stack. THREE-LEGGED RACE was the highlight for me; a fun entry with a cute repurposing of "tie". COUNT ONE'S LOSSES was, as almost all ONE'S phrases are, decidedly meh, and I STILL DON'T GET IT is a highlight in retrospect, though I definitely went through a few permutations of the last few words before figuring it out (I STILL...DOUBT THAT? DON'T BUY IT? DON'T SEE IT? etc.). Backing into the NE corner wasn't terribly hard, even though SLIDING DOOR could've really been any kind of door as far as I was concerned, given the clue—to me, opportunities (and the points where you make decisions about those opportunities) are just DOORS.

Overall, a fun way to spend a few minutes; I would've liked more fun stuff in the fill, but overall the vibe of this puzzle was "let's piece some things together from the clues and figure out these minipuzzles and maybe learn some things about ONO and FILET MIGNON and EELS and maybe other things that aren't food, like FRESNO" and you know what? That's fine, and I had enough of those "oh, that's a fun fact" or "oh, that's a clever clue" moments to enjoy the puzzle overall, even if there were a few things that didn't land for me.

Olio:

• A few clues I really liked that I didn't mention above: FLINT ("lighter" in the clue talking about putting things on fire, not about weight), SWINGS ("tires" as in tire swings, and not getting tired), and the double usage of [Pot holder] for BLUNT and CHEF.
• CRAIG (Bond between 2006 and 2021) — I am very well aware that Barry Bonds has an S in his last name, and has not played baseball in a long time, and this did not stop me from plunking in GIANT immediately.
• COT (Trig function, in brief) — Yay for math content; the only way this could be better if it were the inverse tangent, rather than one over tangent (but I'm biased).
• DORKS (Uncool sorts) — Can we just not with these cluing angles? Like NERDS, this is not necessarily a negative thing, so why do we have to clue it as such?
• SINEAD (Irish form of Jane) — Once again, the New York Times finds a way to clue a woman's name as anything but an actual famous person with that name. They also do this with MEL(VIN), but in my experience it's far more common for female names.

Yours in puzzling, Christopher Adams, Court Jester of CrossWorld

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