Bit of pork, but not in a congressional bill / WED 10-11-23 / Garlic in Guadalajara / People of northern Scandinavia / Alternative to mushrooms / Fitting way to invest in Campbell's / Nut once used as an ingedient in Coke

Constructor: Miranda Kany

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: CAJUN (29D: Cuisine with [circled letters], whose ingredients are the answers to the italicized clues) — theme answers are ingredients to JAMBALAYA (which is spelled out in circled squares scattered across the top and bottom rows):

Theme answers:

• ONION (16A: Real tear-jerker?)
• ANDOUILLE (17A: Bit of pork, but not in a congressional bill)
• PEPPER (26A: Stuff it!)
• CAYENNE (29A: Something that's red-hot in the kitchen?)
• CHICKEN (48A: Scaredy-cat)
• CELERY (50A: Stick in a salad?)
• WHITE RICE (64A: What pales in comparison to other carbs?)
• STOCK (66A: Fitting way to invest in Campbell's)

Word of the Day: LUCAS Sinclair (62A: "Stranger Things" kid) —

Lucas Sinclair is one of the four central protagonists (alongside Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson and Will Byers) of the Stranger Things franchise. 

He is one of the four original protagonists. He also serves as the main protagonist of the novel, Lucas on The Line. 

He is the older brother to Erica Sinclair, the best friend of Will Byers, Mike Wheeler, Dustin Henderson and Eleven, as well as the boyfriend of Max Mayfield. 

He is portrayed by Caleb McLaughlin, who also voiced Gary Goodspeed as a child in Final Space. (hero.fandom.com)

• • •

We've definitely had one of these "here are the ingredients to some food or beverage"-type themes before, and I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. I just don't get it. It's just a list. It's a list of ingredients. So what? Where's the "puzzle"? The cleverness, the wordplay, the anything? I see that the puzzle is desperately *trying* to make it seem like there are "puzzle"-like elements here ... the nonconsecutive squares spelling out "JAMBALAYA" strewn across the top and bottom of the grid ... the italicized clues, with their frequently strained attempts at wordplay. But non-consecutively spelling things is a giant shrug, and the cutesy "?" clues are just the ordinary type of clues one might see in any grid. And the thing is, those aren't even written with any kind of playful consistency, something that would give the theme clues some kind of coherence. They're just ... italicized. And then wacky ... but only sometimes? And the clues are about the food items themselves ... except when they're not? (i.e. the ONION and ANDOUILLE etc. are clued as what they are (foodstuffs), whereas CHICKEN ... is clued as [Scaredy-cat]). The theme clues should have something in common besides the fact that they're italicized. A common cluing approach or tone or ... something. But they're all over the map. Worse, the majority seem to want to do one thing (wackiness), but then a few just sit there and refuse to go along, so it looks not like a bunch of random clues but like a theme attempt that just went wrong or didn't quite work out. Further, PEPPER on its own seemed odd. Is it a GREEN PEPPER? A BELL PEPPER? I assume so, because the *other* kind of PEPPER, the hot one, is ... right next to it, so you get this awkward PEPPER CAYENNE sequence (which is like how the French or maybe Yoda would say CAYENNE PEPPER), with the adjectival part following the noun. The "funny" is bizarrely forced in some of the clues, especially ANDOUILLE (17A: Bit of pork, but not in a congressional bill). Why would I suspect pork meant congressional bill, as my first guess for what pork might be? It's like the clue is telling me what the misdirection *would have been*, if this had been a misdirection clue, which it isn't. The whole puzzle feels like a rough draft. Like it needed more time to cook.

Is the AJO in the JAMBALAYA? Do you put AJO in JAMBALAYA? Pretty sure you do, only here it's just sitting there, outside the theme, and in Spanish. A stray would-be themer. "Hey guys, what about me?" Sorry, AJO, I know you're in a central position, but you're not part of the action today. You just sit there and look fresh (it's been 28 years since AJO was in the grid!). I enjoyed learning AJO—the puzzle was so easy and the theme so straightforward that AJO felt like a real point of interest today. Had a nice false-theme moment when I thought ROCK MUSIC was going to be ROCK [&] ROLL at 14A: Output of the Rolling Stones, appropriately. An ampersand rebus!, I thought. But then no. Just a recipe. I like ANDOUILLE as an answer, and thought that since it was italicized and had a wacky-clue, maybe there was some wordplay going on in the answer ... stared at ANDOUILLE for a bit trying to imagine what that could be, then moved on, eventually discovering that no ... it's just a recipe. So the first two long Acrosses each gave me hopeful theme vibes, which made my eventual discovery of the actual theme that much more disappointing. The fill is pretty disappointing today too. A parade of STALES: ELWES, EENY, ACER, ICEE, RIRI, ENT, AEON, MUSÉE, ALOE, etc. None of it gruesome, but too much of it ho-hum. I enjoyed seeing ITHACA. I try to get up there several times a month to see a movie at Cinemapolis and maybe grab something to eat (this past weekend, it was Ethiopian food at Hawi). Here's a picture of me a few weeks ago in ITHACA with crossword constructors Robyn Weintraub (a Cornell alum, and Cornell mom, and Cornell booster) and Rachel Fabi (who teaches bioethics at Upstate Medical University in nearby Syracuse):

[I'm the tall one]

It's approaching peak leaf season, so it's a good time to get up that part of the country, or any part of the NE with deciduous trees. My maples are about a week or so from peaking. They're mostly shedding, much to the dismay of my constantly leaf-battling neighbor. We just let the leaves sit so kids can play in them and people can take pictures. One lady even asked if she could take a leaf home with her once, because she missed autumn and didn't have turning leaves wherever she lived now. I was like "uh, it's a leaf ... there are thousands ... so yes, please, help yourself!" Anyway, enjoy whatever fall beauty you've got. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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