Saturday Themeless by Kyle Dolan
Today we celebrate National Chip and Dip Day. Perhaps we should have celebrated this occasion on Super Bowl Sunday but anything this delicious can stand on its own merit,
Many of the dips I saw online had guacamole and I just haven't developed that taste for that. My plebeian tastes prefer the common combination at the end of this write-up.
Toady's constructor is Dr. Kyle Dolan and it has been my pleasure to blog three previous puzzles he authored here at our word stand!
As his title would indicate, Kyle's puzzles are full of innovation and fiendish cluing coupled wonderful stacked 9's in the NW and SE!
1. Source of moving fare: FOOD TRUCK - When we were in Portland, Oregon we were stunned by the many, many FOOD TRUCKS downtown for lunch
10. Each of its chapters is called a "sura": QURAN - This alternate spelling of KORAN eventually entered my consciousness and opened up QUEEN in 10. Artist with the 2016 album "Lemonade," to fans: QUEEN BEY. I filled the cells but had to Google to obtain this reference to BEYONCE
15. Georgian Bay is part of it: LAKE HURON.
16. Fifth sense?: UMAMI - The 5th sense of taste that has been in our puzzles several times lately
17. "Regardless ... ": AT ANY RATE.
18. Park with an "Innoventions" museum: EPCOT - A EPCOT portmanteau familiar to me
19. Humanities subj.: PSY.
20. Small white toy: MALTESE - Aha, Kyle, you didn't fool me!
22. Time of expectation: EVE.
23. Old Route 66 city: TULSA - Kind of a big deal there
24. Solution: ANSWER.
26. Flag of Chicago quartet: STARS - Who knew?
 |
| THE CHICAGO CITY FLAG |
29. Mainland Africa's smallest nation: GAMBIA - The bizarre history of Gambia's formation and shape
31. Decorated one: HERO
32. Pot seen in a bar: BEER BELLY - Sometimes indelicately called a "pot gut"
35. Charges up: EXCITES - THAT'S their, uh, charge
37. Whitewater sight, perhaps: KAYAKER.
39. Sit out: TAKE A PASS.
41. Lock fixers: GELS - Locks of hair
42. Maker of Oikos Greek yogurt: DANNON - Granola on top makes it more palatable to me
43. Big Ten team since 2014, familiarly: TERPS - The TERPS and the Huskers joined in the same year
46. Match.com results: DATES - My daughter met a lot of frogs there before her ideal man came along
50. "The Murder Room" author: P.D. JAMES - New author for me
52. Red choice: CAB - In the seventeenth century in southwestern France, an accidental breeding occurred between a red CABernet Franc grape plant and a white Sauvignon Blanc grape plant produced the most popular grape among American red wine drinkers: CABernet Sauvignon.
55. Up: AWAKE.
57. In agreement with the party: ON MESSAGE - Senators and Representatives, abandon your own opinions before you take your seat
59. Jackie's predecessor: MAMIE - Here they are with their spouses and the Prime Minister of Japan and his spouse in 1961
60. Posted: STATIONED - My dad was STATIONED in The Panama Canal Zone during WWII
61. Place: STEAD - During the Civil War, rich men could pay to have others go in their STEAD as a substitute 62. Egg sources: HEN HOUSES
Down:
1. Controversy: FLAP - Any activity these days seems to generate a political FLAP
2. Stable diet: OATS - Lunch for Trigger and Silver
3. "Agreed": OKAY.
4. Show watcher's room: DEN - Wow!
5. Gland essential to T cell maturation: THYMUS - All you need to know
6. Pastoral: RURAL and 7. Range with one end in Kazakhstan: URALS - How do you people who say RULE instead of ROOR AL pronounce this mountain range that divides Europe from Asia? 😏
8. Weekend getaway: COTTAGE - Ah, the destination not the trip
9. Hopping joint?: KNEE - My grandchildren hopped up on my KNEE many times
11. One verifying a tag: UMP - Verified!
12. 20km Summer Olympian: RACE WALKER - One foot must always be in contact with the ground
13. "Don't make __!": A MOVE.
14. Fertilizer ingredient: NITER - NITER is KNO3 below
21. Ballroom dances: SAMBAS -
23. Three-horse carriages: TROIKAS - A TROIKA ride at Pavlovsk Palace Park in St. Petersburg, Russia
25. Preserved fodders: SILAGES - Testing a SILAGE pit is a common practice in Nebraska
27. One might include an emoji: TEXT - I 💘 to TEXT 😊
28. Dance Dance Revolution, e.g.: ARCADE GAME - 14 seconds of it on Big Bang
30. Sacred chests: ARKS - Indiana Jones and Sallah find the ARK of the Covenant (the MacGuffin) in this fun movie
32. More than brushed back: BEANED - Hit a home run, stand at the plate and watch it leave the ball park? This could happen to you the next time you're up!
33. First NHL player with a 100-point season, familiarly: ESPO - Phil ESPOsito has been a starter on the cwd hockey team for years!
34. Site with many pans: YELP - A pan is a bad review. A YELP review of our favorite Omaha restaurant
36. State-of-the-art 1970s bike: TEN SPEED - A coveted possession at that time
38. __ feed: online news aggregator: RSS - Rich Site Summary - RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually.
40. Slowish tempo marking: ANDANTE - Griegg's famous passage from Peer Gynt played ANDANTE
44. 10-Across preachers: IMAMS.
45. Unaccustomed to: NEW AT
47. Jordan's capital: AMMAN - 31/4 hr drive from Tel Aviv
48. Effectiveness: TEETH - Texting while driving violations will only be effective when TEETH are put into its enforcement
51. Rib: JOSH.
52. Recycled items: CANS.
53. "Permit Me Voyage" poet: AGEE - A 1939 compilation of poetry by James Agee. I am much more familiar with Tommy AGEE of the '69 Amazin' Mets!
54. Flower holders: BEDS - Ours will hold forth soon, duly protected from the rabbits
56. Hyundai competitor: KIA - The 2019 Hyundai and KIA below. I don't know which is which. 😁
Time for my low brow chip and dip while you comment:
 |
| Just a "Z" short of a Pangram |
41 comments:
The FOOD TRUCK billed UMAMI,
A taste sensation from Miami!
The advertising was false,
They really used salt,
But their jingle still won them a Grammy!
If you should meet with a fella from TULSA
At Taco Bell you may think he'd repulse ya.
You'll feel in your gut,
This guy hurts my butt,
But your THYMUS will say that's just the salsa!
The rivals were restrained from a fight
To race, a horse-cart versus a bike.
The TEN-SPEED went fast,
The TROIKA went past,
The race was still one to EXCITE!
{A, B+, B+.}
Good TGIF. OOPS it's Saturday, so TGIS!
Thank you Kyle Dolan for this challenging Saturday CW.
Thank you Husker Gary for your informative review.
While working the CW:
The NW cell was very white, and suddenly it all came to me.
The NE cell gave info about Lemonade 714. Did you know he had an album published? This cell was as difficult to work as the NW.
I thought I entered QUEEN BEe. Thanks HG.
28 D - just about did me in.
47 D - WAGS filled it in.
I FIR in 80:19 min.
I'm going to bed. It is 1:45 AM.
Later:
16 A - UMAMI was unfair. Taste is one of the five senses.
26 A - I want to sing in the quartet that has it's own flag.
Ðave
Good morning. A real busy week, so I worked both Friday & Saturday puzzles this morning. Yesterday's POP UP ADS was obvious after STALINGR-AD and ISLAMAB-AD, and it didn't drive me STARK RAVING M-AD. GINA Gershon, AME, and ANISE TEA were unknowns filled by perps.
As for the Saturday puzzle, I found it easier than most. I know a few glands but didn't know the THYMUS secreted T-cells. SILAGES- maybe in Nebraska but it is not a word seen often. QUEEN BEY and the album were total unknowns- all perps, after changing KORAN to QURAN.
BEER BELLY for 'Pot seen in a bar' was a great clue and my last fill.
After PD was in place, JAMES was a WAG.
Hyundai competitor? KIA. How about "1/3 owner of KIA" as the clue with Hyundai as the fill?
Gary- you map of GAMBIA shows that the country is a river and its banks, about 10 miles on each side. Reminds me of the Natchez Trace Nat. Park, which is a road from Natchez, MS to Tennessee about 100 yds. wide. Speed limit-35mph.
RSS feed- only if you want to be bombarded with useless information; no thanks.
Tostitos & hummus was my chip & dip last night.
before my addled brain forgets, FLN- it did not hit me until today that I live in a peninsula state (Latin: paeninsula from paene "almost" and insula "island") Florida and I am married to a woman from a peninsular nation, Thailand. One is created by the ocean waters, and one by rivers. If you remember our pictures of the Golden Triangle where Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar all come together, separated by the Ruak and Mekong Rivers and recall the Mekong goes all the way to Vietnam you may not need to look at a map.
Also, that was a wonderful puzzle to start your Friday assignment Susan, with the added bonus of a drop in by Peter. Speaking of PK, I must add how much the blog has benefitted by PK and YR and all of their thoughts and shared experiences over the years. When our first set of regulars started leaving, it was heartening to have two erudite and opinionated new voices.
Finally, on to the Saturday puzzle. Speaking of rivers, HG, I loved the story of the creation of GAMBIA another hole in my geography knowledge. If I keep doing puzzles for another 65 years I may someday know where places are. We also have KAYAKERS .
I have read many of the Inspector Adam Dalgliesh mysteries penned by P.D. James who had an extensive background in criminal procedure. My brother Barry also had a Maltese known as BECKET a gift from a band member. South Florida had countless FOOD TRUCKS and my chef wife's friend and cooking student opened and operates this THAI FOOD CART in Portland. I wish I knew you were going there.
HG- the KIA has an emblem with the word KIA on it nose, and the Hyundai has an H on its grille. This is reminescent of the Mercury/Ford Carbon copies.
Lots of slowdowns, but it all filled eventually. Thank you Kyle, and thank you HG and Dave 2 for external CSO with the Lemonade album.
Good morning.
Oh, what a slogfest. If there was a way to go wrong, I found it. Misread "Innovators" as "Inventors" and was sure it was MENLO Park. That 20k summer dude was a TRIATHLETE. I was dancing the TANGO. IN ANY CASE sure looked solid. Finally fixed all of those missteps and then came to a screeching halt in Alabama. RIDE instead of JOSH kept that area open until...until I threw up my hands. Uncle! Well done, Kyle. Enjoyed the expo, Husker.
Sailed through until the SE corner. Had Andiago (s/b adiago) which really needed to be ANDANTE. Had STATIONED figured out but it didn't work with my wanted paltry one or two, but SOU, yes. Great puzzle, but alas, no tada...
Good morning.
Thank you Kyle Dolan and Husker Gary.
Nope, not today. Couldn't figure out the bottom east after PD--M--, other than AMMAN. For the clue Effectiveness, efficacy popped in and wouldn't leave.
Flag of Chicago quartet - "Who knew ?" That was a first pass no-brainer fill. But probably only because I've lived in the area for 30 years...
Hand up for koRAN before QURAN.
nAMBIA before GAMBIA.
A Mess before A MOVE.
Idyll before RURAL.
A fine Saturday puzzle. No TADA but I enjoyed the challenge.
Too tough for me this morning. I GOT hung up in the northwest not willing to revisit AMEN for OKAY.
Also misread the clue for 5D and in my mind penciled in Testes - go figure -
I was however pleased with myself for sussing out some of the more difficult fills.
BEERBELLY struck me funny enough to set mine jiggling a bit. I’ve lost 8 pounds since new years and with another 8 there won’t be much left to jiggle. Hope springs eternal!
Remembered TERPS from previous CWs but had to wait for the review to understand YELP . I thought it might have something to do with reviews but wasn’t sure.
Happy Trails to you all.
Good morning everyone.
Good intro, Husker. Thanks for posting the constructor's background.
Par for a Saturday. Needed a little help with YELP but the puzzle was a lot of fun. took a wicked WAG at ARCADE GAME but it worked.
SILAGES - Don't think we ever used the plural.
LAKE HURON - The eastern and northern flanks of Georgian Bay lie in the Canadian Shield.
Have a good day.
Change 52 across to BOZ, nickname for Charles Dickens, and you've got a pangram
Hi Y'all! Great puzzle, thanks, Kyle! It went together for me easier than expected.
Fun expo, Gary, always a learning experience from you. Surprised that Gambia is just area around a river. Wonder how they got away with that? I'll read about it later. My chip and dip treat the other night was corn chips with ranch dressing.
My SIL was a little disdainful of my crossword puzzle hobby once (his hobby is riding a bike). I told him cwds were the best way for me to keep expanding my knowledge and keeping my mind alert. I told him one of the things I'd learned was what mountain range separated the continents of Europe and Asia. He didn't know the answer. I told him the URALS. He seemed more impressed with my cwd endeavors then.
Some tricky entries that took ESP: INESSE, RSS, CAB, TESSIO, YELP (for me that will ever be a protesting cry by a dog, not a site.)
Thank you, Lemonade, for your kind words about YR & myself. I usually think people would rather I sat down and shut up. It is such a privilege for me to be accepted so warmly here on the Corner.
Good Morning:
I was certainly on Kyle's wavelength this morning because I breezed through this in 23 minutes with only one w/o, Nitro/Niter. I did need perps for Lake Huron, Tulsa, Gambia, Queen Bey, Race Walker, and Arcade Game, all as clued, but the perps were generous and I cracked open most of the long fill easily enough, ergo, Fini and Tada. Although I have read most of P. D. James's Adam Dalgliesh novels, it wasn't until today that I was aware of the first L in his name; I always thought it was just Dagliesh. Funny how our eyes can deceive us. I didn't know novelist James Agee was a poet and a prominent film critic, as well. He died at age 45.
Thanks, Kyle, for a very enjoyable Saturday solve and thanks, HG, for your scintillating review. The photo of that adorable Maltese made my day. Years ago, I dog-sat my neighbor's Maltese, Soleil. He was the cutest and friendliest little fella who would curl up on my lap and snooze away.
Have a great day.
Good Morning.
Thanks, Kyle. This was certainly fun after my first pass. I go across then down. On the first across I thought a ran into a Sprig snowstorm! The downs helped me get started. I was caught on the clues for STATIONED, MALTESE, and GELS. My fave was BEER BELLY. I kept trying to visualize something ON the bar instead of SOMEONE at the bar! LOL! when I finished. Last to fall for me also.
Thanks, Gary, for another sunny Saturday sojourn. I'll bet a lot of us here are on your wavelength regarding chips and dip. My mom always had a package of Lipton's Onion soup on hand, and she never made onion SOUP. You took me back with that one.
Have a beautiful day, everyone.
Finally finished with limited inky crossout corrections.
Anyone who claims they put "Quran" first instead of "Koran" is lying!!!...lol...otherwise a fun puzzle with ingenious but not super obscure clues. It's full on wintry weather in the Mohawk Valley Central NYS. Seems no one has told Old Man with winter that the spring equinox has come and gone.
Buenos dias!
Thank you, Kyle Dolan and Gary for today's sparkling experience.
This puzzle was something of a slog, but a pleasurable one which took me way longer than any of you apparently.
TTP, I was on your wave length and had those very same write overs.
My first conquest was in the SW where MAMIE started me and bloomed from there upward. Then the SE where I stayed ON MESSAGE.
I vaguely recall the buzz when QUEEN BEY published Lemonade sometime last year, I believe.
FOOD TRUCK was preceded by FOOD COURT which yielded nothing until I changed it.
I confess to checking my atlas for GAMBIA about which I'll have to go back and read.
This was wickedly clued but fun to ferret out the solve.
Have fun today, everyone! We have a big family birthday party at noon today.
Another slog. I spent way too much time on this.
Watching the TERPS on CBS now as I type this. They are battling the Tigers from LSU for the privilege of moving on to the round of the Sweet 16.
The Big 10 conference had a successful first round(64 teams) which was played on Thur/Fri. They sent record tying 7 seven of eight teams on to this weekend's round of 32. Only the Badgers from Wisconsin were unable to best their opponent. The Ducks from Orgeon upset the Badgers to prevent the Big 10 from setting an all time record of having 8 teams in the second round.
What I need to know is how in the wide, wide world of sports does a duck defeat a badger? That's just Daffy.
Well, Saturdays are always toughies for me, and this one was no exception. Sorry, Kyle--but I hope you give us a Monday or a Tuesday sometime since your clues are very clever. Got P.D. JAMES and AGEE, and eventually guessed TULSA where I lived when I got my first teaching job at the university there. Husker Gary, can you tell us about MEG as a storage unit?
Have a great weekend, everybody.
@Jim Nantz, the Badgers conferred and decided it would be unfair to the other conferences if all eight Big Ten entries in the tournament advanced to the second round. This selfless act on the part of the Badgers will be remembered for years to come.
Misty, computers store data measured in kilobytes, MEGAbytes, gigabytes, terabytes, petabytes and exobytes. Each is larger than its predecessor by a factor of 1000...actually 1024 if you want to be anal about it.
Misty, In my write-up I had an accompanying table listing the memory sizes.
Flower holders = Flow-er holders = river BEDS
How long before petabyte is a common term thrown around at Best Buy? And will we call it a pet drive?
I attended a pet drive this morning at a local SICSA facility. It was very heartwarming as many people were clamoring to adopt. It was called "Over 30 for Under 30". For $29 you could take home an adoptable dog that is over 30 pounds. Big dogs need love too!
Likewise, TTP. "A fine Saturday puzzle. No TADA but I enjoyed the challenge." The bottom was easier than the top for me.
Lemonade, thanks for the compliment. I am honored to be mentioned in the same breath as PK.
BTW, with Lemonade in the clue, I wondered again how you came up with your screen name.
Adorable Maltese, Gary. Thanks for the interesting expo and the great links. Gambia's geography was a surprise.
I forgot that race walking was in the Olympics. I missed the walker part.
Beer belly was clever.
I finally have my new printer installed.
"Flower holders = Flow-er holders = river BEDS" Cute, OKL.
This Saturday puzzle rewarded patience. Lots of snow after the first pass, had to really work it. Some misleading but fair clueing.
Markovers....KORAN/QURAN, ID ESTE/IN ESSE, JOKE/JEST/JOSH.
Have a great weekend.
Skootch over D-O and make room on the Group-#Fail bench... Seems we're in good company today.
Hi All!
Like D-O, I screwed up ever way I could: KorRAN, NITro-, FUSS instead of FLAP, Soc. was my Humanities elective.... Hand up for wanting (but not inking) MENLO
Thanks Kyle for the puzzle but it's above my STATION. Thanks HG for bailing me out and providing extra-play after a few (OKAY, many) cribs.
CAB, CANS, AMMAN, and HEN HOUSES was all I had in the SE b/f the afore mentioned cheating.
Fav: I really liked the juxtaposition of RURAL and URAL [rhymes for me HG].
SHE is a runner-up: my first "I know this!" fill.
{B+, B, A}
BigE - I gave up my RSS feeds years ago; too much crap to keep track of. I'm starting to feel that way about Twitter too - must un-Follow some Chatty-Cathys.
JimN @11:43 - Your last line is a hoot. I'm thinking Blazing Saddles..
Anon@12:48p - Current tech is only pushing 16T for primary non-volatile storage. We have 3P of Geo-data at the office but that's a huge array of disks.
PK - DW is with your SIL. MIL & I will discuss the puzzle and new words learnt (or nutty clues!) and the rest of the family begins the eye-roll routine.
DW's Aunt & Cousin are in from SFO and LAX, respectively - fun day ahead. Y'all have a great Saturday too!
Cheers, -T
I thought this was a wonderful puzzle. Since I work in ink, I generally make sure a down corroborates with an across before I put anything in. At first, on Saturdays,I despair, then eventually mange to get it done. I amazed myself today! Did not wiki or google anything and Jamie didn't know tThe Godfather answer. I had everything but the T. Now I'll go do the treadmill.
Becky
I actually entered KURAN
Aarrrggggghhh!!! I know if there is U there is Q.The fact that a modern pop group had a wierd name didn't faze me. And my proctor is in jail
Radatz started throwing beanballs vs Angels and Hamilton's retaliation ended Tony C's career
This was the easiest Sat. Xword I can remember. Among my excuses for blowing it is lousy pen. Advice for aspiring P&I Sat-guys: "Use a decent pen even if you have to reach behind for it."
Gotta get to 4pm Mass. See ya
. WC
I actually liked this puzzle, but it took me a long time (an hour and 5 minutes) to solve it. I am not lying: I did put in QURAN but only after checking the perps first and figuring out UMP. Having UMAMI also reinforced that the first letter would be Q rather than K.
At first I put in ZAMBIA as the African country, which looked real nice but made it very hard to come up with COTTAGE and therefore that whole NW region was tougher to crack than it should have been.
BEER BELLY gave me nice chuckle.
I like YELP and find it useful but our son hates it. True, you have to take many reviews with a grain of salt. I have learned to spot reviews that the reviewer gave 1 star because of errors the reviewer made or unreasonable expectations the reviewer had.
I solved QUEENBEY but had no idea what it meant until Gary's explanation.
Yep yep yep, I admit it, I'm anal about a kilobyte being 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes. A byte here and a byte there and pretty soon they really add up. Yes, I do understand that a kilogram is really 1000 grams, and a kilometer is really 1000 meters, etc. A megohm really is 1,000,000 ohms. And a megamouth is a really big shark.
Good wishes to you all.
Jayce - and megamouth is just the LOL release I needed before a nap. Thanks, -T
AnonT. You nailed it! I knew you'd be the one to catch that reference. I say it all the time always waiting for a fellow fan to recognize Blazing Saddles.
Thanks for the clip!
Misty ~
What they don't mention in explaining MEG is not that it is the "brief"est of storage units, but that it's the abbreviated form of megabyte.
This was a legit Saturday puzz, by far the toughest of the week. I cheated at least half the time.
Veddy clevuh, this Mr. Dolan. The clues were tricky, obscure (until understood) w/o being funny.
I don't see many posts so far. Either the pzl has whipped 'em, or a lotta Cornerites are taking a vacation. Spring break, perhaps?
~ OMK
Our square dance club prefers homemade dips to an astounding degree. Knowing the snack was made by one of the five of us who actually prep rather than buy encourages everyone to dive right in to ours first.
My biggest wow is arctichoke crab dip. Knorr's or Lipton's vegetable soup mix with spinach and water chestnuts is also popular. Two of us make spicy quacamole, which is also well received. I usually bring Tostitos Scoops to shovel up the most dip, although there are other choices. Sometimes I make sausage stuffed mushrooms or deviled eggs. If two of us bring 36 deviled eggs halves each they are soon all devoured. My house party days in the 1970's and my son's pre dinner cocktail hour have stood me in good stead. These days homemade is way more expensive than store bought.
36 from Taimi and 36 from me, a total of three dozen eggs. And they still look for more.
56 down is a bad clue. Kia and Hyundai are not competitors but part of the same company. That’s why you can’t tell those two cars apart.
PK, -T etal; that's why we have the corner. Where we can talk about what apparently is the most boring subject in the world
Btw, belated HBD PK
WC
Thank you all, for explaining MEG as megabytes to me, and thank you Ol'Man Keith, for explaining that "brief" meant abbreviation. I'd say this clue was a bit too obscure for ordinary folks like me.
I never understood the Y2K fuss. After all, 2048 is still 29 years away.
OKL - are you referring to the Unix Epoch time problem where, Jan 19, 2038 @03:14:07GMT, 32-bits of time ain't enough? I, for one, am looking forward to coming out of retirement and making a mint just like COBOL programmers did in the late 90's.
Cheers, -T
Slow on the up-take says...
OKL - duh. I get it now; 2x1024... Cute. -T
Misty, in this case, I'm afraid to let you know you are not ordinary. Meg is a very commonly used term.
Post a Comment