Sink-or-swim competition? / TUES 4-28-26 / Part of a piano or loom / Kid-lit girl with a blueberry pail / Greek goddess of the earth / Some cantina fare

Hello, everyone, it’s Clare for the last Tuesday of April! Hope everyone has been enjoying it, as spring has (mostly) sprung, and we’re yet to get the most stifling heat possible. I got to hike yesterday with my pup midday without dying from the heat. She loved it and got exhausted and absolutely filthy and tried to refuse a bath. I’m crossing my fingers for my Penguins (now down just 2-3 in the series against the hated Flyers) and have been going to Washington Spirit NWSL games here in DC. I also started watching the F1 documentary on Netflix and have gotten very invested in the outcome of this season, so I may be watching come racetime here in the US in a few days. Not a whole lot else going on with me… but my sister is currently on day three of walking the Camino de Santiago via el Camino Francés (French Way). She’ll be walking about 15 miles a day for over 30 days to reach Santiago, Spain. So join me in wishing her a Buen Camino! 

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

Constructor: Hal Moore

Relative difficulty: Average for a Tuesday

THEME: SEEN AND NOT HEARD (58A: Like children, ideally, in an old adage … or a hint to a four-letter word hidden in 17-, 32- and 40-Across) — The word “seen” can be, well, seen in each of the three theme answers but isn’t pronounced in the phrases 

Theme answers:

• TIES UP LOOSE ENDS (17A: Handles a few unresolved issues)
• CLOSE ENOUGH (32A: Not perfect, but acceptable) 
• MISE EN PLACE (40A: Station set up in a kitchen)

Word of the Day: EDNA (57D: ___ Lewis, the "Grande Dame of Southern Cooking") —

Edna Regina Lewis (April 13, 1916 – February 13, 2006) was a renowned American chef, teacher, and author who helped refine the American view of Southern cooking. She championed the use of fresh, in-season ingredients and characterized Southern food as fried chicken (pan-, not deep-fried), pork, and fresh vegetables – most especially greens. She wrote and co-wrote four books, which covered Southern cooking and life in a small community of freed slaves and their descendants, including The Taste of Country Cooking and In Pursuit of Flavor… In 1979, Craig Claiborne of The New York Times wrote The Taste of Country Cooking "may well be the most entertaining regional cookbook in America". Food & Wine in 2025 said it was "widely regarded as one of the most important cookbooks of the 20th century." (Wiki)

• • •

Clever enough theme for a Tuesday puzzle, for which your enjoyment may have depended on how well you know — or at least how quickly you could get — MISE EN PLACE (40A). I know the phrase well, but it did take me a little bit to see it just because it looks so horrible (and confusing) when written out like MISEENPLACE. I think I had MISEExPxxx and just couldn’t see it. Luckily, the downs weren’t too hard, but I expect some people might’ve felt stuck there. The other theme answers were fine. That you don’t hear “seen” pronounced in any of the theme answers is interesting and adds a dimension to the NOT HEARD part of the revealer. I suspect SEEN could have appeared in any number of possible answers, though I may be overstating the range of potential theme answers. I’d always thought of the phrase as SEEN but NOT HEARD, though a Google search tells me the phrases are interchangeable. Regardless, while the theme didn’t help with the solve, the revealer was nice. 

There just weren’t a lot of answers that popped, which made the puzzle feel somewhat boring. My favorite was definitely WATER POLO (15A: Sink-or-swim competition?), and I love the use of TEA (21A: Gossip, slangily) to describe gossip. PAPAYAS (47A: Ingredients in some tropical smoothies) is fun. And I suppose CONTINUITY (10D: Script supervisor's concern) is a good long word. But I can’t drum up excitement for AXIS POWERS (29D: Coalition that opposed the Allies in W.W. II) or CANST (43D: "___ thou not minister to a mind diseased …?": Macbeth) or ARREAR (48D: Overdue debt) or GRAMMAR (27A: Linguist's concern) or… Looking back, it was hard to find much to describe about the non-theme answers because it all blended together in one ball of meh in my head. 

I didn’t like how vague 24A: Welcome at the door, say was. I originally had “let in” and then “see in,” and it turned out to be ASK IN. YES I AM as 4D: Emphatic confirmation doesn’t seem to fit because it isn't inherently an emphatic phrase. Phrases like ADD TO (22A: Build on) and AT IT (36A: Bickering) also don't inspire much interest. 

There seemed to be more proper nouns than usual, such as: SOSA, KROC, RUN DMC, OPI, ROSA, IAGO , PEETE, SAGAN, and EDNA. I learned today that Calvin PEETE and Rodney PEETE (49D) were cousins. The puzzle also had a sort of mini theme with words with their origin in another country: PAOLO, CIAO, TACOS, PESOS, SEÑOR, SERAPE, MISE EN PLACE, LOX, TRE, and SUNNI.

Misc.:

• I might’ve gotten the most excited today over SAL (33D: Kid-lit girl with a blueberry pail) in the puzzle. I hadn’t thought of “Blueberries for Sal” in so many years, but that was one of my favorite books growing up. 
• Seeing LOX (31A: Bagel topping) in the puzzle reminds me of how many times I’ve gone to a bagel place near me in DC called Call Your Mother. I moved just a few minutes closer to it, but I’ve already gone probably four times in the last few weeks to get a bagel with cream cheese, capers, and LOX. They’re so delicious. 
• I used to use OPI (5A: Nail polish brand) nail polish all the time. Then I started rock climbing, and my nails would chip after climbing just once. So I’ve barely had my nails painted at all in years. 
• For National Independent Bookstore Day this past Saturday, I went to a couple local bookstores and managed to snag a print from a special edition Inciardi print. The machine to get the print requires four quarters, and when I put mine in at one point, I realized it wasn’t working because I was trying it with three quarters and one PESO (46A: Coins of Cuba) I apparently brought back with me from Mexico. Oops! I also got the book “Lost Lambs” by Madeline Cash, which comes highly recommended from my sister, and “Weavingshaw” by Heba Al-Wasity, a fantasy book I’m already halfway into and loving! 
• In other very important news, BTS is now on tour!! I’m counting down the days until I get to see them in Baltimore in August and get to see something like this. 
• I’m feeling a little ACHY (1A: Sore) after my hike yesterday. And Red might be, too, after our many miles…
• 

(and a bonus

(a bonus pic from when Red wanted some of my happy hour TACOS (8A))

And that's all from me, folks! Have a great month of May.

Signed, Clare Carroll, who's always both seen and heard :)

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