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Fondita offerings / THU 7-23-26 / Gospel musician Tribbett / Unleavened South Asian flatbread / Org. with a list of popular baby names / Original N.Y.C. subway line / Pollution portmanteau / Symbol of rebirth in ancient Egypt / Cabinet dept. since 1889
Thursday, July 23, 2026
Constructor: Damon Gulczynski
Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium
 |
| [DEATH STAR (1A)] |
Theme answers:
- DEATH STARE / ESPOUSE (1A: More than just a disapproving look / 14D: Champion, as a cause)
- NAPE / NASCENT (10A: Scruff of the neck / 15D: Budding)
- EQUIPPED / ESTAB. (21A: Outfitted / 26D: Sign abbr. meaning "founded in")
- ROLE / RAMBLED (36A: Part in a play / 40D: Didn't stay on topic)
- SWAN SONG / THING (49A: Last hurrah / 34D: Unnamed article)
- DENY / UNREADY (63A: Not admit / 39D: Ill-prepared)
Puri (also poori, IPA: [puːɾiː]) is a type of deep-fried flatbread, with an unleavened wheat dough. Puri originated from the northern Indian subcontinent, where it is one of the most common flatbreads; it is a staple food in parts of the subcontinent. It resembles chapati but is deep-fried. Similar deep-fried breads from the region include bhatura, luchi, and kachori.Puri is made of wheat flour, typically atta, which forms a dough with oil and water. This is rolled into circles that inflate while deep-frying. Due to the cooking method, puri is high in fat and calories. Puris are commonly served as a breakfast or snack, typically paired with other foods. It may be paired with savory foods, such as potato or chickpea curry, or with sweets. Variants of puri may use different types of flour or add puréed vegetables to the dough. Other variants are stuffed. Small, spherical puris are used for panipuri and sev puri, while flat puris are used for papri chaat and bhel puri; these dishes are classified as chaat.
Foods resembling puri may have existed in ancient India, and recipes were recorded by the fifteenth century. Puri is often served on holidays and other events. It is also served as in Hindu prayer as prasadam, offerings to deities. (wikipedia)
_with_Maida_Poori_(_Deep_Fried_Puffy_Bread).jpg)
• • •
I think the stack in the NW is probably the nicest part of the puzzle. DEATH STAR(E) is a great themer, and over ENCHILADAS and IDLE GOSSIP, you've really got something there. After that, things kind of descend into blah. I've never heard the term "The Devil's radio" before. I've heard "IDLE hands are the Devil's plaything." But I didn't know the Devil had a radio as well as a plaything. Even after I got IDLE here, GOSSIP didn't leap out at me. I think I'd say "IDLE CHATTER" before "IDLE GOSSIP" ("chatter" googles about twice as well, though "gossip" is completely legit). I needed crosses to remember NISAN and NAMIB, and I totally forgot POORI (despite the fact that it was "Word of the Day" just two years ago). This is just the second appearance of POORI. Weirdly, there has been just one appearance of PURI (which wikipedia has as the primary spelling), fifty years ago, and that wasn't clued as a flatbread, but rather as an [Indian pilgrimage center]). I say "weirdly" because I'd expect the four-letter spelling of a word to take off in the crossword before the five-letter spelling. Maybe POORI is the dominant English-language menu spelling? I don't know. I do know that thinking about POORI is making me hungry, so I'm gonna wrap this up now so I can go make the coffee and then eat.
Bullets:
- 13A: Fondita offerings (ENCHILADAS) — weird: when I typed [define fondita] into my search engine (Duck Duck Go) just now, the third hit was a site with today's NYT crossword answers. The first hit is an Italian-English dictionary. Either "fondita" is not a widely used term or search engines really, truly have become useless. Actually, it seems "fondita" is a diminutive form of "fonda," "a tavern, inn, or small restaurant." For Spanish speakers, "fondita" is undoubtedly a common term. I've never seen it before.
- 43A: Desert for which an African country is named (NAMIB) — that country: Chad. Jk, it's NAMIBia. five-letter desert starting with "N," my brain defaults to NEGEV. Sadly, getting the "B" today did not help, as NEGEB is an acceptable alt spelling of NEGEV, which I know only from doing crossword puzzles for over three decades (12 lifetime NYTXW appearances, though none since '08). Thanks, crosswords! Experience has its drawbacks. I really should've remembered that the NEGEV / NEGEB is in the Middle East, not Africa. The "for which an African country is named" ultimately helped me sort things out.
- 28D: Coffee or tea specification (ICED) — not for me. Well, rarely for me. Mostly I can't stand ice in my drink, any drink, unless it's in my cocktail in giant cube form. Ice is too cold and it dilutes and takes up space where actual tasty beverage should be. Sometimes I really want an iced coffee, though, but always "light ice" ... and then they show me the cup with the ice in it and I'm like "... lighter." I like cold drinks cold (esp. my cocktails), I just don't like ice to be physically present.
- 20D: Org. with a list of popular baby names (SSA) — my mom was a lawyer for the SSA, but that did not help me here. I think of "social security" in relation to old people, not babies. I wanted AKC here briefly. Puppies are babies!
[Matilda is the purest chocolate lab you'll ever see (1:59)]
That's all for today. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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21 comments:
Similar to Rex - I liked the trick - makes it fun to play but the overall product is quite flat. The hidden letter game fell completely with NAPE x NASCENT.
Down By The Water
The big guy summarizes the fill nicely - it’s weak at best. I like IDLE GOSSIP, SLOOPS and SCARAB. The grid constraints to add the extra black create all that short stuff - a lot of it is sticky. The editor was UNREADY to polish this one up.
Bryan Ferry
Fun Thursday morning to figure out initially but nothing behind the curtain.
Swan Upon LEDA
Easy-Medium. Something of a slog. Got the "missing letter" idea quickly, never realized what the randomly-placed missing letters spelled until after the solve, when it was spelled out. I was too lazy to check after I got the revealer ("Oh, so that must be what they spell.") Extra credit, though, because all the theme answers spell valid words without the hidden letters.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
My 58D long stretch was an Eon before it was an ERA.
The unnamed article at 34D was THIs before it was THIN[G]. That made MOLTEN (45A) difficult to see.
Ban before DEN[Y] for not admit at 63A, fixed quickly by CREPE (63A).
I need to brush up on my Greek mythology. I had hErA for Helen of Troy's mother instead of LEDA (54A).
WOEs:
Erykah BADU (38A), who apparently sang about Tyrone.
Gospel musician TYE Tribbett at 60D.
Quickly worked crosses and downs, figured out the extra hidden letter ruse quickly so when I got to DARK at 62A, confidently completed DARKMATTER, finished up the rest of the puzzle but something was clearly amiss in the SW. Took a minute to write out the hidden letters and AAH, ENERGY. Undid my mistake and done. And so necessarily to the google I went and got a great lesson on the difference between dark matter and dark energy. It’s always a great start to the day when I learn something before 6 AM.
Today’s puzzle did something to me.
I opened the grid expecting a straightforward encounter. DEATH STARE. ENCHILADAS. A-ROD. I thought I knew what I was dealing with. I was wrong.
Then came IDLE GOSSIP—“The Devil’s radio”—and I felt the first flicker of danger. The puzzle was hiding something. I could sense it. Every clue seemed to lean closer, whispering just enough to make me want more.
And then I saw it.
DARK ENERGY.
Six letters. Hidden in the darkness.
I stared at the grid. The grid stared back.
It was clever. It was elegant. It was almost indecently satisfying. The black squares weren't merely sitting there, silent and inert. They were concealing something. Something powerful. Something cosmic. Something that, according to the puzzle, accounts for most of the universe.
I should have been annoyed. Instead, I was fascinated.
NO SCORE. HOT. A TAD. CAN'T I. Every answer seemed to offer another little tease, another glimpse of what was happening beneath the surface. The clues knew exactly how much to reveal—and, more importantly, how much to withhold.
By the time I reached EPIC DEFEAT, I was no longer solving the puzzle.
The puzzle was solving me.
And when I finally understood DARK ENERGY, I had to sit back and breathe.
Some puzzles are merely clever.
This one knew exactly where to touch.
Rex nails it again. A clever idea, bogged down by lifeless three-letter fill. If there was much energy in this puzzle, 70% of it was invisible to me.
“Devil’s Radio” is a song by George Harrison.
I mostly just find these kinds of puzzles tedious because I solve in the app and so I have to remember which black squares have which letters - maybe they work better in print…
I enjoyed this more than OFL did.... I'd rate it a solid 3.75 stars. My first 2 blacked out squares were the 2 "E"s, so I thought I was looking for silent Es, or blacked out Es.... took me a while to figure out we were spelling a word. The next one I found was the R. Weird before WACKO slowed me down; had nAP before APE--since I thought we were just getting rid of silent Es, and NAP is a perfectly good word. I will never learn the NYC rail and subway ABBRs.... Had IRR before IRT. Terrific puzzle, the DEATHSTAR is definitely a good place to find DARK ENERGY. See also EPIC DEFEAT and IDLE GOSSIP. Thanks, Damon, for coming up with a new Thursday theme that was worthy of the day!!!! : )
Maybe the editors should have swapped Wednesday and Thursday this week. Yesterday was considerably more difficult and also had a more evolved theme. From a fill point of view the puzzle today required virtually no energy of any sort, dark or otherwise.
I got the trick, but thought "E-N-E-R-G-Y" was hidden inside six rebuses. So I got a DNF for not knowing six black squares weren't really black this one time. I've quit doing Sunday puzzles...maybe it's time for a second day off.
I kind of liked this. I like IDLEGOSSIP, which I think is a very familiar phrase, although I hadn’t heard it refered to as “the devil’s radio” before.
The missing letters trick was easy to get, but I didn’t bother to try and figure out what they spelled untill I finished and the app showed them to me. I had some trouble in the SE because I had Weird before WACKO, which made the long acrosses hard to figure out. I haven’t heard of DARKENERGY (it was no help as a revealer as it was almost the last thing I filled in) and EPICDEFEAT isn’t a familiar term. I also have only really heard EPICfail or failure said. Had Eon before ERA too.
I’ve forgotten most of what I learned when I went through my DARK MATTER / DARK ENERGY phase a few years ago. You don’t have to go far down the rabbit hole before the whole topic gets really mind boggling. Anyway, it made for an interesting attempt at a theme construct - I’m not sure how well it landed, but an interesting attempt to make it work.
I started to lose interest after a while as I kept bumping into things like NISAN, NAMIB, BADU, SUPRAS, and SCARAB. I agree with Rex - the puzzle did seem a little lifeless for one centered around the concept of hidden energy.
Hey All !
Nice. I made a "letters in Blockers" puz once, but there wasn't a coherent tying-it-together-to-form-a-word element like this one. It was a Sunday puz, 21x21, which did have a Theme, but the blacked out letters didn't spell anything. I'd have to search through the ole files to try to find it.
Liked this one. Was slightly disappointed that not all the Cheater Squares were hidden letters, but that abated once I saw that Damon needed just ENERGY to be spelled out. When the first four Cheaters were hidden letters, naturally I just assumed all the rest would be. But you know what they say about assume ...
Tough to construct, as not only do you need words that contain the correct letters, in order, but Damon made the resulting words real things! Could've been non-words, but they all are legit. Bravo, sir.
Different kind of ThursPuz, thanks for that.
Hope y'all have a great Thursday!
One F
(The SB has featured the F as Center Letter twice this week! Makes up for lack of F's in this week's puzs.)
RooMonster
DarrinV
I kind of liked the trick, not sure I've seen that one before, or at least it's been awhile. I did take exception to one answer, SOLID - as a 'sphere' by definition is hollow. -- https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/68235/definition-of-a-sphere
Thought DEATHSTAR(E) was a great opening, AGR/TYE a not-so-great closing. In between was kinda fun given that the gimmick fell with the opening answer. Having so many disguised real words was a good job. In recent puzzles have seen ERA defined as a long time. While this may be technically true, a purely long time is more an EON, while an ERA is generally defined by some theme rather than its longevity.
After Damon’s fun and clever puzzle, I inexplicably made a list of the dozen un-clued answers, took it as a challenge to place them in an ode, and here it is:
Ode To Mr. Swanson
THIN Mrs. SWANSON
With a DEATH STARE, but otherwise
A face UNREAD
QUIPPED
“My strong as an APE but
Normally taciturn SPOUSE, after Spain’s world Cup victory
AMBLED in ASCENT up our rock-climb wall to the roof
Took a STAB, and
Amid our lovely quiet neighborhood, shrieked ‘OLE!’ again and again into the night
I may never leave the DEN”
Great theme. Thought it was tougher than Rex did, but that may be because a couple of guesses turned out wrong. Up top, I had 1A and guessed that we were just dropping Es for some reason, so 10A was NAP rather than APE. That got sorted pretty quickly. The other mistaken guess was DARK MATTER rather than ENERGY, mostly because I can’t be bothered to keep track of missing letters while I solve. That one hung around a while and slowed down the finish.
Brilliant idea. Like Rex, I figured out the hidden letter in the black squares early, but unlike Rex, I whooshed down to the bottom SE and- in spite of the huge clue that maybe, just maybe I should jot down those hidden letters- I plopped in DARKmatter. And I had WACKy instead of WACKO. THAT screwed me up enough to throw in the towel and search Tribbet since I know zero about gospel singers. (Unlike Erykah BADU who I love) Ah well. It was still a fun solve and I forgive the short solve (except for AGR…).
Haha…Rex I think you are OLD enough to NOT have had an SSN assigned at birth, but your daughter surely did as both of my children did. At any rate, even though I AM old (dammit!) I figured out SSA pretty quick.
I look forward to hearing other comments and I’m glad Rex gave Damon an extra half star!
“Idle Gossip” was a great Sarah Vaughn recording.
Just remember Interborough Rapid Transit.
Yeah, I wonder how many of us fell into the nAP before APE trap....
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