Panegyric poet / WED 3-8-23 / Fabulous fabulist / Marine fish that's also the name of a hairstyle / Saskatchewan's second-largest city, after Saskatoon / Former Wyoming representative Liz / Reverse a thumbs-up for, on Facebook

Constructor: Miranda Kany

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Guacamole" — theme answers are ingredients for guacamole, clued as recipe instructions. The word "Guacamole" is spelled out by shaded (here, circled) squares that you are supposed to read clockwise starting from the top:

Theme answers:

• ONION (3D: "One small red minced, for crunch and tang")
• GARLIC (4D: "Three cloves minced, for depth and aroma")
• SALT (11D: "One teaspoon, pink or black, for emphasis")
• CILANTRO (22A: "1/2 cup coarsely chopped, for bright (or soapy) flavor")
• AVOCADO (40A: "About two cups cubed, after peeling and pitting")
• JALAPEÑO (55A: "One seeded and minced, for heat")
• CUMIN (53D: "1/2 teaspoon, for a little extra flavor ... really, try it!")
• TOMATO (49D: "One vine-ripe chopped, for texture and color")
• LIME (57D: "One small juiced, for citrus notes, and to preserve color")

Word of the Day: TINO Martinez (13D: Baseball's Martinez) —

Constantino "Tino" Martinez (born December 7, 1967) is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, and Tampa Bay Devil Rays from 1990 through 2005. He also served as a hitting coach for the Miami Marlins in 2013. He is known as "Tino", a shortened version of his first name, but was also nicknamed "The Bam-tino" after his home run in game 1 of the 1998 World Series. Formerly a third baseman, Martinez was the first round draft pick for the Seattle Mariners in 1988 out of the University of Tampa, where he starred during his time on campus. During his 16-year MLB career, he scored 1,009 runs, drove in 1,271 runs, and hit 339 home runs. He had 100 or more RBI in six different seasons and was twice named to the All-Star team. (wikipedia)

• • •

The real [Baseball's Martinez] 

Well I love guacamole, but this puzzle ... I don't know. I don't think I get it. That is, it's just a list of ingredients. That is all that it is. It seems to try to make up for this with some shaded (circled) squares that spell the "revealer" ("Guacamole"), but those squares are ... what are they doing? Are they supposed to form the outline of an AVOCADO? I can almost imagine that, if I squint and also am very generous. But if random squares that you read "clockwise" are still random squares. It is not going to be hard to find any of these letters in any given grid, and in a very choppy, high word-count grid like this, you can probably make a very vague "clockwise" scheme come out pretty easily. It's possible that the large amount of theme content (*Nine* ingredients!), made filling the grid more of a challenge than filling a similarly-shaped grid would've been under less demanding circumstances, but still, the "clockwise" revealer is kind of a dud, and it's a dud that's trying to make up for an insubstantial theme. This puzzle is just missing some essential *crossword* element. It doesn't seem playful or gamelike. It's a list. And the addition of CUMIN ... trust me, I do not want to get into the Guacamole Culture Wars ("Peas! How dare you!"), and I have no doubt that CUMIN is, as the clue suggests, quite good in guacamole, but its presence here is so painfully, obviously about making the ingredient list come out symmetrical that it had me going "really? come on." It is the notable outlier, as far as standard guacamole recipes go, and it knows it (the clue wouldn't be trying so hard to convince you it was valid if it was in fact valid) ("... really, try it!"). Overall, it's hard to be excited about this one, except insofar as I am always in some small way excited about guacamole. But I'll try the CUMIN. I promise.

The fill isn't great. I nearly took a screenshot early on because I got that NW corner feeling again today—the feeling when I'm only a few answers in and I can tell already that things aren't going to go well. ECO EON EELS ... OK, but then LUI on top of that? Yeesh. The rest of the grid had similar problems with stale repeaters. ODIST!? That's twice this week I think for that one—a word only a crossword could love. The only part of the fill I really like is the REGINA MULLET SPEEDO stack. Getting quite the picture—of a pasty Canadian dude with a bad haircut in tight swimwear. In my head, he's drinking Labatt's. He's got a MACAW on one shoulder and a MYNA on the other. He is a heroic figure of freedom. He should be on coins. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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