google.com, pub-2774194725043577, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 L.A.Times Crossword Corner: Saturday, November 2, 2019, Kyle Dolan

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Nov 2, 2019

Saturday, November 2, 2019, Kyle Dolan

Themeless Saturday by Kyle Dolan


This is the seventh Saturday themeless puzzle constructed by Dr. Dolan that I have had the pleasure of blogging. It was a real challenge but eventually became  a smooth solve.

Last month Kyle was in Rapid City, S.D. for a tech conference and witnessed Britain's precision flying team, The Red Arrows, pass overhead. Kyle was quoted as saying,  “The flypast of Mt. Rushmore was the piece de resistance of the Red Arrows appearances at numerous American landmarks,” said Kyle Dolan, Head of Science & Innovation at the British Consulate-General in Chicago. “The Red Arrows’ visit celebrated the close links between the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, particularly our economic, defense, and science and technology relationships.”




In my communication with Kyle, he told me that the U.K. mini-theme I saw [Dickens, Macbeth, ADELE, BRIT, TWEE, Long TON, The Crown" star Foy: CLAIRE, Loch NESS,TAM and BEELZEBUB (John Milton] was not his intent and it happened by either by accident or by Rich's editing hand. He further told me that though he works at the British Consulate he was born in Boston but has lived in Chicago for quite a while now. Here you can peruse Kyle's impressive resumé


Now let's do a flyby of Kyle's puzzle 

Across:


1. Farm call: BAA


4. Picnic game: BOCCE - BOCCE in its current form dates back to at least Rome in 264 A.D.  where soldiers played it during the Punic Wars




9. Informed as a courtesy, perhaps: CC'ED - The physical Carbon Copy part of this is now mostly a remnant of another time and technology


13. Tote: LUG.


14. Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers," originally: SERIAL - A first edition of Dickens' Posthumous Papers Of The Pickwick Club can be had for $2,500

15. QB-turned-commentator Tony: ROMO.


16. "... __ the set of sun": "Macbeth": ERE - I imagine Wyatt Earp told the bad guys to "git outta town before sunset" and not "Depart ERE the set of the Sun" 


17. Picks up: LEARNS - A good solver LEARNS a lot in doing these puzzles


18. Bonobos, e.g.: APES - They are a very close relative to humans

19. Have no weaknesses: DO IT ALL - Great baseball players are said to be a "five-tool player" - Able to hit for average, hit with power, field, throw and run


21. U.S. border river: NIAGARA.


23. Fake: ERSATZ - "Captain ERSATZ" is a phrase denoting a blatant copy that uses a slightly different name and/or image

24. Web streaming service: FEED  https://striv.tv/channel/arlington/ is a streaming site that streams many events of the small school where I sub


25. A mechanic usually keeps one handy: RAG.


26. Innocent: LAMB.


27. Its 1948 inaugural flight began in Geneva: EL AL A fascinating story


29. "Skyfall" singer: ADELE.


31. "The Vanishing Hitchhiker" subject: URBAN LEGEND Here 'ya go


34. Misty tropical ecosystem: CLOUD FOREST - Monteverde CLOUD FOREST in Costa Rica




35. Edge: BEAT BY A NOSE.




36. Catcher in the World Series' only perfect game: BERRA - Yogi caught Don Larsen's gem in 1956


37. U.S. : Grammy :: U.K. : __: BRIT.




38. Daughter of Uranus: RHEA -If you must know


42. Uranus, e.g.: ORB - A mythical and a now a real Uranus 


43. Excessively precious, to a Brit: TWEE - We had treacle yesterday from Dr. Ed Sessa


45. Six-time NBA All-Star Kyrie: IRVING - Kyrie won a World Championship with LeBron James at Cleveland but got tired of being the second banana Now they are friends again but on different teams




47. Indignant lead-in: SEE HERE.


49. __ fair: SCIENCE - I can't count how many I've judged


50. Movie plantation: TARA - It's a 26 min drive down I-75 from Atlanta to the newly refurbished Stately Oaks Mansion which was used for TARA in Gone With The Wind




51. In addition: AT THAT - She became a teacher and was a good one AT THAT


53. It may be short or long: TON If you must know


54. Egg cell: OVUM.


55. "The Crown" star Foy: CLAIRE - A very enjoyable Netflix series



Claire                             Elizabeth II

56. Stick in: ADD.


57. Urquhart Castle's loch: NESS - My neighbor just got back from two weeks in Scotland and while she was in Inverness next to Loch NESS, she was assured there was no monster but she did see this shop. She brought me a golf divot tool from St. Andrews and thankfully not a 52. Part of Highlands regalia: TAM.




58. Neat: KEMPT - Sheveled? 


59. It may be iced: TEA.



Down:


1. Alexis of "The Handmaid's Tale": BLEDEL Her IMDB


2. Creator of a colorful atmosphere: AURORA - While fishing at 55N latitude, the AURORA Borealis (Northern Lights) we saw were spectacular




3. What unconscious bias training may deal with: AGEISM - Most young clerks look right through those of us, uh, more seasoned customers


4. "Paradise Lost" fallen angel: BEELZEBUB - I finally remembered how it was spelled


5. __ surgeon: ORAL.


6. Columbus in NYC, e.g.: CIR(cle)


7. Cylindrical pasta: CANNELLONI - Spinach and ricotta in CANNELLONI pasta




8. Dinsmore of kid lit: ELSIE - Here is a group of 22 Martha Finley Dodd's ELSIE Dinsmore books for sale online




9. Climbing challenge: CRAG.


10. Share rearing duties: CO-PARENT 


11. Colombia is this gem's largest producer: EMERALD - The EMERALD in Romancing The Stone, set in Columbia, was called El Corazon (The Heart)




12. Amount in a shot: DOSAGE - I doubt if medical people use a shot glass to measure DOSAGE


14. Bed board: SLAT.


20. Like spreadsheets: TABULAR - I used Excel spreadsheets and had TABS at the bottom to access a sheet for each class




22. Saws: ADAGES.


24. Majestic greeting: FANFARE.


28. Natural enemy of aphids: LADY BEETLE - We call them ladybugs and here's one eating the aforementioned aphid




30. Merit: DESERVE.


32. Have angular velocity: ROTATE - Skaters tuck in their arms to increase angular velocity




33. Some Ernst works: EROTIC ART - Google at will


34. Multi-headed dog that guards Hades, in Greek myth: CERBERUS - Nice doggy, nice doggy...




35. Deprive (of): BEREAVE - Too many of my friends have become BEREAVED lately


36. Commonwealth Avenue city: BOSTON - If you lived at the Windsor Place Condominium on Commonwealth Avenue, you'd only have a four-minute drive to Fenway Park




39. Refer to subtly: HINT AT - You might as well just go ahead and ask for the money!


40. Disguise, in a way: ENCODE He helped decipher ENCODED Japanese messages before Midway


41. Chair's document: AGENDA - The one who presides over that AGENDA can be called a Chairman, Chairwoman or simply the Chair. 


44. Ruin partner: WRACK Origin of the phrase


46. Bat mitzvah, e.g.: RITE.


48. Carved dishes: HAMS - Spiral sliced HAMS replaces much of the carving 




49. Hold holder: SHIP - How did Carl Denham get King Kong into the hold of the SHIP S.S. Venture in 1933?


How about some comments about the good doctor's efforts today? I invited him to drop by and see what his our good citizens here had to say and I hope he does.






49 comments:

  1. This one reminds me why I don't usually attempt Saturday puzzles unless from one of my favorite constructors. On to Sunday!

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  2. Good morning!

    It took a vowel run to get that E in FEED -- anything would have "worked" in that pasta. Had problems in California and Florida this morning. I sorta knew that dog's name, but reversed the R and B, yielding CERREBUS. TARA set me straight. In FLA I had a long and short RUN, which I refused to change for the longest time. ENCODE broke that open. Enjoyed it, Kyle. Thanx for the elucidation, Husker.

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  3. As befitting a Saturday puzzle, this was not easy and required patience and persistence. This was in part due to variations I did not know like (W)RACK and LADY BEETLE . While I never watched GILMORE GIRLS I have seen references and thought her name was ALEXIS BLEIDEL and I had no room for the I. Other struggles were TWEE ELSIE and CLOUD FOREST . I was amused by the juxtaposition of EROTIC ART and CEREBUS.
    I keep meaning to watch THE CROWN but I always get distracted by silliness like JANE THE VIRGIN which was about co-parenting.

    Do stop by Kyle we enjoy your challenges and you are a bit of a regular. HG thanks and stay warm.

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  4. FIWrong. 2 cells, both WAGs.
    BLEnEL unknown.
    nOITALL never guessed as clued.
    CANNaLLONI couldn't spell.
    FaED didn't know as clued.

    Mistress Mary had a little LAMB
    It became an URBAN LEGEND
    It wrote poetry by the iamb,
    With precision of expression!

    But when the lamb became a ewe,
    Its glory days were ended.
    Its poems took a liberal view,
    And Mistress Mary was offended.

    The sheep was shorn of woolly locks,
    Her pens were confiscated!
    The moral is that if one knocks,
    Make your AGENDA understated!

    {A.}

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  5. Make it 3 of 6.

    Flew through right side in about a minute and a half. Then got the entire middle of the puzzle in the next 8 or 10.

    Then kept running into brick walls that gave only resistance. Got a few more here and there and gave up with the top center and bottom center incomplete.

    Oh, and the NW corner with a missing D in BLEDEL. Plus in the SW corner with a few more letters.

    I don't think I've run into so many unknowns in quite some time.

    Thanks for the review, Husker Gary. It cleared a lot up.

    On to the day.

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  6. A tough Saturday. Got most of it with a lot of effort, but a DNF in the bottom-middle section. Kind of the Oklahoma-Texas section of the puzzle. Didn’t get TWEE or WRACK fully. Thought is was BEETLE at the end of 28D but didn’t get all that either.

    One nit - 37A answer was BRIT, then the clue for 43A included Brit, a no-no in my mind for puzzle construction.

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  7. Saturday steady with a few challenges - par for the course. With both BEELZEBUB and CANNELLONI I knew the answers but couldn't remember how many Es and where they were located in the first and how many double Ns and Ls in the second, so bided my time until perps confirmed the correct spelling. I had BAG before LUG in the NW which held that up a bit.

    Thanks HG for an entertaining and informative blog and Kyle for the puzzle!

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  8. Like 38 across said famously " It ain't over till all the crossword boxes are filled in correctly" or something like that.

    Didn't know Uranus's daughter was an Autralian flightless bird.

    After an exhausting nail biting game of Bocce what better than a delicious plate of cannelloni!! Our (Utica, NY) neighbor city aptly called Rome in Oneida County holds the annual World Series of Bocce.

    Lady bugs (beetles): "According to European folklore, ladybugs symbolize good luck. Many years ago aphids invaded farmers' grapevines. When the farmers prayed for help to the Virgin Mary, legend tells us that swarms of little red beetles appeared. They proceeded to eat the aphids and save the crops. The farmers named the beetles ladybugs in honor of Mary, Our Lady."

    So a not so quick but successful Saturday finish.

    Now off to plant some spring flower bulbs and hope the chipmunks don't dig them up. May try the steel wool trick again. Worked last year.

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  9. Using steel wool on the chipmunks sounds cruel.

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  10. C.C. has a puzzle "Bad Starts" today over at puzzles.usatoday.com. The title describes exactly how I got started on it.

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  11. BTW, Lucina and any lurking Texans and New Mexicans might find some special interest in my poem today over at the Jumble Hints blog.

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  12. Good morning everyone.

    Very tough today but very rich in content and clever interesting clues. Kept at it and ultimately got it done with a lookup for LAMB and a confirming lookup for LUG. Many good WAG's helped. Had CLOUD FOREST, erased part of FOREST and then re-inserted it again, after sussing CANNELLONI and FANFARE. Somehow got lucky and was able to dredge up BEELZEBUB, but did not know its origin.
    BOSTON - Guessed Commonwealth; daughter lived off Commonwealth first few years in Boston.
    RAG - When getting RFS (ready for sea), we would take on quite a few bales of RAGs for the use of the Machinist Mates and Boiler Tenders. Once, when our wardroom got new curtains. the old ones were directly recycled to the #1 Fireroom, and the BT Chief was the happiest guy on the SHIP.

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  13. Hi Everyone:

    Despite several unknowns or unfamiliar answers, (Cerberus, Lady Beetle, Cloud Forest, Brit, as clued) I must have been mostly on Kyle's wavelength because I finished in 18:21 which, for me, on a Saturday, is way below average completion time. I knew Bledel as she was a pleasure to watch in Gilmore Girls (The Handmaid's Tale's premise is not my cup of tea). Ersatz is a word I learned eons ago from novels about WW II and the ever-present ersatz coffee concoctions. I've never heard Kempt used in every day conversations, nor Bereave, only Bereavement, but they both make sense. It was nice to see Yogi sharing the limelight for Don Larsen's perfect game. Nice CSO to CanadianEh at Niagara and to our Tea meister, Abejo.

    Thanks, Kyle, for a smooth Saturday solve and thanks, HG, for the many learning moments you always provide in your commentary, not to mention all of the dazzling and impressive visuals.

    Have a great day.

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  14. Hola!

    Thank you, Dr. Kyle for this puzzle which challenged my solving skill and forced me to think deeply.

    Initially, with ROMO in place, I breezed through the entire eastern strand all the way down to TEA. Who knew that RHEA was the daughter of Uranus? Not I.

    But then, as TTP said, the brick wall stopped me cold. I had LEGEND but it would be a long time before URBAN arrived.

    Slowly, very slowly, jumping here and there I managed to fill in the NW corner and I'll take a CSO at AURORA, my middle name, although my granddaughter helped me with Alexis BLEDEL who, she said, was also in Gilmore Girls. I've not watched either one.

    That forced me to change NAIF to LAMB and I got TABULAR, too.

    I went from WRECK to WRACK down below and also required my granddaughter's help for CLAIRE. I'm really lacking in current pop culture. I did recall BEELZEBUB.

    However, I misspelled CANNELONI and DNF on FEED as well as TWEE. SWEE looked right to me. Ok. ROTASE was bad but you know I am electronically challenged and I was never going to understand physics.

    And yet, this was fun. Thank you, Gary, for assisting in that!

    CSO to Misty! But there is nothing cloudy about her.

    Have a gorgeous day, everyone! Book club meeting today and we'll discuss Tears of the Silenced by Misty Griffin, a true story about child abuse. It will not be a happy discussion.

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  15. Owen:
    Yes! Thank you for the link though I would argue that no true Mexican-American would ever say CHILI. Though it's an ERSATZ spelling, it's in the language and there to stay. I enjoyed your poem.

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  16. Saturday toughie, of course, but they generally are that way. Got my start with TARA (thank goodness for "Gone with the Wind"). That gave me HAMS and then OVUM, and filled in that corner. Also got AGENDA and TEA, and that helped with that corner. But the top was tough, and sadly, Lucina, I never even got my CLOUD FOREST. But still fun, all around--thanks, Kyle. And you too, Husker Gary.

    Have a good weekend, everybody.

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  17. Hi All!

    Looks like I am in fine company today w/ my DNF. Oy! Friday did indeed portend a killer-Sat.

    Thanks Dr. Kyle for the fine puzzle with fun words I suddenly realized I couldn't spell [looking at you Belzebub [sic], Cerbrus [sic], and Caneloni [sic]].

    It was the SW that was my ultimate (Dr.) DOOM. Deprive was right-out.

    Thanks HG for nudges along the way to extend my play. I did finally toss the towel to finish, nae, flush out the NW. Excellent expo with lots of side links for more joy.

    Fav: KEMPT. There's just something about the letter patter in that word.
    //IM - you've heard unKEMPT? No? //I hear that TONs, usually directed at me.
    I also enjoyed the crossing of Italian BOCCI and CANNELLONI (spelt right).

    {A+}

    Lucina - I love you,,, but it's Chili :-)
    Now, let's argue - beans or no?
    //I say yes - stretch out the meal another day

    Cheers, -T

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  18. Where can you do this puzzle online now? The sites I have been using all say they don’t have it any longer.

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  19. Tough one today. In the south central I finally got KEMPT and CLAIRE which gave me ART and AT THAT. Whew!
    I spelled BOCCE with a final I, which deprived me of ELSIE and the second E in FEED. Drat!
    I failed in the NW because I had to look up BLEDEL, but that solved that NW corner.
    Fun, challenging puzzle. Thanks, Dr. Kyle. HG, wonderful expo, as usual.
    Knowing CLOUD FOREST and BEELZEBUB was a big help.
    KEMPT is often a joke, but it is actually used by major publications..
    "He is a private man, trim and square-jawed and meticulously kempt, his eyes set in deep gray hollows." New York Times May 25, 2012
    "The reputation of their beards precedes them, though that facial hair is more kempt than it once was." New York Times Oct 21, 2016
    IMO, some kempt beards are very attractive.
    BEREAVED with a D is most often used as an adjective, the bereaved wife, the bereaved family. Sometimes it is a noun. The pastor commiserated with the bereaved. There are some quotes using bereave as a verb.
    "My grandfather’s death is sure to bereave my grandmother of her happiness."
    "Because Ted was severely depressed, he chose to bereave himself of companionship so no one would comment upon his misery."
    Anonymous, try Washington Post puzzle. Work it online or print it out.

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  20. My CHILE always includes beans. That's the way my mother taught me and it's good! She never used cumin which many recipes use. It's too sharp.

    Now, for real red CHILE, we always use dried pods (blended to a fine puree), shredded pork, copious amounts of garlic and let it simmer for a couple of hours. Yum! It's fit for the gods!

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  21. Briggin' friggin, fraggin, frockin'... [say it like Yosemite Sam]
    YR, you just pointed out that I have BOCCi wrong too *palm to face*

    D-O: 'splain yourself re: no beans in the pot. I'll contend:
    a) more protein for less money than beef
    2) ?
    III) the beans absorb the spices/flavour and
    Delta) stays on the cracker carrying gloopy-cheese & onion toppings along.

    FLN - Nice to see you TxMS. Glad to see you back in one piece WC.

    Cheers, -T

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  22. Hi Y'all! Thanks for the challenge, Kyle! Thanks for the info, Gary!

    Whew! Got things I didn't think I knew -- like ELSIE -- never heard of the books. Red-lettered my way to BLEDEL.

    Chile with beans is my go-to for low blood sugar attacks. Mine comes in a can though & gets a dollop of sour cream.

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  23. I very much enjoyed solving this puzzle. Good ole P&P got me there.

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  24. I don't think of BOCCE as a "Picnic game." I remember watching it as a kid. To me it will always be the game played by elderly Italian gents at San Francisco's Marina or Aquatic Park.
    How relaxed and disinvolto they all seemed.
    I noted occasional brown paper bags containing bottles of refreshment, but no picnic food was required.

    A DNF for me too. I managed the NE and SW corners pretty easily, but found that single fills in other sectors did not lead to sustainable strings. Then I just cheated to complete the grid.
    ~ OMK
    ____________
    DR:
    A single diagonal on the port side today.
    The anagram:
    Title tab of a file folder containing the collected information on Shakespeare’s mysterious “Dark Lady of the Sonnets”:
    BRUNETTE DATA

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  25. Chili - beans.
    Puzzle - difficult.

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  26. -T, my former neighbor in Houston, Cindy Wilkins, was a two-time winner of the Terlingua International Championship Chili Cookoff. She did a chili "Throwdown" with Bobby Flay on TV -- maybe you saw it. The judges called it a tie. Cindy insisted to me that true Texas chili (with two i's, no e) doesn't contain beans or any other fillers -- just cooking oil, beef, beef broth, tomato sauce, and spices. I will say that her chili was excellent.

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  27. OMK, I. too, wondered about bocce being a picnic game. To me it is played by elderly Italian men. We see it being played by them down the shore.
    LIU, I see bocce is becoming popular with young professional men and women. There are tournaments in many states. Here is our local tournament.
    Link text
    I found many other references. Here is a reference to picnics.
    Link text

    I grew up eating chili con carne with beans. I see many Mexican recipes that include beans. Would that be Chili Con carne y frijoles? My mom served chile (with beans) over rice. Too many carbs and calories for us these days. I have always omitted the rice.

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  28. My mom had a great recipe for Chili with beans over spaghetti. She sent me the recipe the first year I left home for school, and I made it a few times to great success.
    I have lost the recipe now, and I really regret it.
    The chili was served on top of the spaghetti, not mixed in, and it looked beautiful, with the white pasta sitting pristinely below the chili sauce.
    Gorgeous.
    ~ OMK

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  29. OMK, that sounds like Cincinnati Chili. Pat would confirm.


    I go both ways.
    Like DW's chili w/beans.
    But I love chili w/o beans.

    Best can chili, IMO, Wolf Brand. Hormel chili is nasty.
    Best kit chili, IMO, Wick Fowler's Two Alarm.

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  30. Punic wars were BC.

    Kyrie is with Brooklyn now.

    Btw, the answer to "Generous half dozen of Rhett Butler impersonators" was…
    House of the Seven Gables*

    Per Mr S's, advice I inked in CANNALLONA and never checked back. And… That FIVE letter word for "Orange spot" can't be BLIGHT(6)**

    In BOCCE the ball is tossed off the front *** foot. I recall an Italian Candlepin bowler who quite successfully used that method.

    I could've FIR'ed. But I was stumped for awhile.

    WC

    ** From a week ago

    WSJ XW on my Boston trip

    For a righty, the right foot

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  31. New favorite in our family is White Bean Chicken Chili made in the crockpot.
    Any of you use the Instant Pot?

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  32. TTP @5:04, you are correct. Cincinnati style chili is served over spaghetti. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_chili I've tried it a few times in my 30+ years here but have never developed a taste for it. As my daughter used to say, "Everyone has different taste buds"

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  33. However you make it or spell it chili is great when it's chilly

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  34. Texas chili and New Mexico chile are as different as cannellini and cannoli.

    Chili is a meat based dish with or without beans and chile is a sauce, red or green, served over burritos, huevos rancheros or tamales. Or just ask for Christmas style and get both.

    Cincinnati chili is a thinner meat dish, almost a sauce that is served over spaghetti and topped with great mounds of thinly shredded cheese, a 3 way. Add onions and call it a 4-way. Add beans and it's a 5-way. Top with a Tabasco type hot sauce and oyster crackers and its heaven. Also, every true Cincinnatian will order their 3,4 or 5-way with a cheese coney on the side. Which is a smallish boiled hot dog served in a equally small steamed bun with mustard and a ladle full of said, runny chili(no beans) and a massive handful of signature shredded cheese(hold the onions for me).

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  35. NO beans in chili. Every year, around chili cook-off season, the Chronicle's food section runs articles discussing the debate - beans/no beans? Overwhelmingly, the votes are "no beans." But, hey, that's just Texas. The food section prints chili recipes from all over the US; if IIRC, it even had a recipe for chili with beans served over spaghetti - think it was from the Midwest - yikes!

    Difficult IMO except for the easy ones: BAA, ORAL, NIAGARA, TARA, NESS, and the NE. This was certainly a perps-needed for me to even get a toe-hold. Into the finish line with no cheating until...ACK...swee, not TWEE! Although we've had this clue several times, I can never remember and probably won't in the future. (sweet is so close to precious). Going to LIU where the heck twee originates from.

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  36. First time I've ever commented without reading previous posts. Oops!! My apologies to OMK, Pete, and other Midwesterners! As Pat's daughter correctly said, "Everyone has different taste buds."

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  37. The following song has become the anthem at every Terlingua Chili Cook-Off, where no chili with beans recipes are allowed to compete.

    If You Know Beans About Chili, You Know That Chili Has No Beans
    by Ken Finlay, singer, songwriter, and owner of Cheatham Street Warehouse
    (a music hall in San Marcos), written in 1976.


    You burn some mesquite
    And when the coals get hot
    You bunk up some meat
    And you throw it on a pot.
    While some chile pods and garlic
    And comino and stuff
    Then you add a little salt
    Till there's just enough
    You can throw in some onions
    To make it smell good
    You can even add tomatoes
    If you feel like you should
    But if you know beans about chili
    You know that chili has no beans

    If you know beans about chili
    You know it didn't come from Mexico
    Chili was God's gift to Texas
    (Or maybe it came from down below)
    And chili doesn't go with macaroni
    And dammed Yankee's don't go with chili queens;
    And if you know beans about chili
    You know that chili has no beans

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  38. This was a hard puzzle today. I've seen NIAGARA used before as a border river. LADYBEETLE was not fair since everyone knows it's 'ladybug'. 'Unkempt' did help to explain KEMPT. Thanks Anon. T. Love CLAIRE Foy in the Crown series.

    Thanks HG for the stunning picture of the AURORA Borealis. I've never seen it personally, but it's on my bucket list.

    As for chili, I love it and prefer beans in it.

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  39. Y'all know this chili/chile debate is about today's Jumble now don't cha, not the crossword?

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  40. Owen, does it really matter?

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  41. Not a bit, except I want them to know there's more said over there!

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  42. I'm not going to beat myself up over this one. There were so many crossing answers of which I had never heard. Next.

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  43. I was just jokin' about the beans but I see there's a religious debate to be had :-)

    For the record...
    No beans in REAL chili but for family dinner it's a must to stretch it out another day.
    YR- Rice extends it more! Kinda like NOLA Red Beans & Rice.

    I never did understand Cincinnatians dumping Chili over pasta. Though, I guess, that's another carb [see: rice] to extend a meal.

    OKL - We talked about fracturing the audience but it's all groovy; Fun ensues regardless.

    D-O & TTP thanks for the extra sidebars of learning.
    TTP - I agree on WOLFbrand. I don't buy the ones with beans 'cuz I can add a can of Bush's red beans if it's not on a hotdog. :-)

    Welcome to The Corner Winthropell. Stay and play.

    The gas company is finally (I hope) done putting our cul-de-sac back in order. When they (the gas company) turned on the gas after the water company hit gas's line last night, the house behind us (well, their meter, anyway) sprang a leak when everything was re-pressurized. I think that might be why DW, Youngest, & I had headaches and slept way too long this eve.

    Cheers, -T

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  44. Oh, one thing I forgot re: Chili...

    Texas takes Chili so seriously but, very much unlike the Midwest (or at least Springfield, IL), there are no chili parlors around. [put on your Seinfeld voice on] What's up with that?

    -T

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  45. Had a double whammy today: First, lost my cell phone and spent all afternoon repopulating my phone list on my back up phone. Finally done, at 10 p.m. sat down with this monstrosity. It just added more down to my downer day! Now we're using British lingo to confuse us??? Is there no end to these elitist pranks that are only proffered to confuse and frustrate? Can't the good Doctor find another pastime to show us his cleverness (if you call it that)? Guess my bad mood prodded me to respond in this manner - but it does feel good to spout off a bit!!

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  46. -T

    Re: Cincinnatians pouring chili over spaghetti.

    It's not so much a chili as it is a meat sauce. The "chili" has its root in the Mediterranean immigrants (Greece) favoring a meat sauce complete with their spices like cinnamon! Oh, the horror! But if you acquire the taste, you will understand the appeal. Many food historians claim it is among the most unique and truly American-only dishes in this country(per wiki article Pat mentioned) .

    Cheese, cinnamon spiced meat sauce and pasta. Add Tabasco. Mmmmmm.

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  47. BTW: Dealing with chili and where's the best. I'll put up my chili with anyone's or any area's or any state's. Won several cook-offs. Secret: Argentine Chorizo and home-made mole. Heavenly!!!

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