Rex Parker Does the NYT Crossword Puzzle: August 2025

Constructor: Abigail Martin

Relative difficulty: Easy (8:58)

THEME: Themeless

Word of the Day: IFTAR (Evening meal during Ramadan) —

Iftar is the fast-breaking evening meal of Muslims in Ramadan at the time of adhan (call to prayer) of the Maghrib prayer.
Iftar is the second meal of the day; during Ramadan, the daily fast begins immediately after the pre-dawn meal of suhur and continues during the daylight hours, ending at sunset with the evening meal of iftar.
In 2023, UNESCO added iftar to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

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Hello squad, it's Malaika here! Happy Friday to all the readers, but particularly Abigail Martin (if she's reading...) who made her debut with this lovely puzzle! This grid shape is such a treat, fun to fill as a constructor and fun to complete as a solver. You get these gorgeous columns of long entries running up and down the left and right side of the grid, holding everything in place and then eight more long entries sprinkled through out. (I have filled (a variant of) it once for NYT, and twice elsewhere; if you're a new constructor, I highly recommend it.)

In October 2023, the NYT ran these three grids on three Fridays in a row

This puzzle was so easy and so fun. Was it... perhaps..... too easy?? I can't tell if the NYT has been making their Friday puzzles easier, or if I've just gotten better at solving. I recall Fridays being hard and Saturdays being very hard. Now it seems that Fridays are as easy as Wednesdays, they just don't have a theme. Curious to see what y'all's thoughts are! And of course, who am I to talk.... I love making easy puzzles.

Let's go ahead and list out all the great long entries: we have STREET FOOD (with an almost-symmetrically placed CARNE ASADA), then SCAM ARTIST. SEAWEED SALAD, SPIDER SENSE, and PHOTOSHOOT (which has an almost-symmetrically placed CAMERA READY), plus STEEPLE CHASE and NEW RELEASE. Then ROSE PETAL, HOT CEREAL, and HORSE RACE. (ACCESS ROAD and LATE APRIL weren't particularly sparkly to me, but perfectly serviceable especially in the presence of the aforementioned great fill.) This is a bonkers high amount, the grid is truly stuffed!

I've been having a blast watching Known Crossword Lover Natasha Lyonne in the show "Poker Face"; Season 2 had a great episode about scam artists

Recently (quite recently! Like in my last ~six months of constructing), I've been thinking more about the clue/entry dynamic:

You can have a fun entry with a pretty standard, definitional clue (like [Finished with hair and makeup, say] for CAMERA READY)
You can have a pretty standard entry with a fun wordplay clue (like [Sew what?] for HEM)
You can have a fun entry with a fun wordplay clue (like [Phish-monger?] for SCAM ARTIST)
You can have a pretty standard entry with a pretty standard clue (like [Wise ones] for SAGES)

All puzzles are heavy on (4) (just by necessity; puzzles have lots of entries), and this puzzle felt very heavy on (1) as well. The grid was fantastic, but I would have loved to see a little more tricksiness from the clues. I wonder if the editors are saving that for Saturdays!

Bullets:

[Literally, "grilled meat"] for CARNE ASADA — I paused here when I thought this would be "nyama choma," which also means grilled meat (in Swahili), but realized that was wrong from the crossings
[Intuitive ability in the Marvel Universe] for SPIDER SENSE — I was ready to go on a rant about how this is called SpideY Sense, but I looked it up and it can be called either. In the Tom Holland movies, they call it the "Peter Tingle"
[Dad, in Korean] for APPA — I know this from the show "Kim's Convenience." I love when TV makes you smarter!!
[Insect that can reproduce with or without mating] for APHID — I knew this because today I had to write a crossword clue for this same entry and I read a substantial amount of the Wikipedia page, which included this fact, in order to brainstorm
[One of the three landlocked countries with four-letter names, aside from Chad and Mali] for LAOS — Fun little geography test here! Did any of you get it by visualizing a map of the world? Or did you wait for the crosses like I did?

xoxo Malaika

P.S. Since the notes below call out the upcoming Lollapuzzoola tournament, I should mention that I am writing one of the puzzles for it! I hope to see you there, and if you're there, I hope you enjoy my puzzle!

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