Protein Deficiency
Today's constructors, Shannon Rapp and Will Eisenberg, remind us that proper diet after vigorous exercise is very important And they point out that protein, one of the key nutrients, will need to be replenished afterwards. And as AMINO ACIDS,
a cruciverbalist's favorite, are the raw material that comprise
proteins I've included a very brief video about the extraordinary
process by which our cells converts them into this essential nutrient
...
Shannon and Will Eisenberg now proceed to use these 4 themers to teach us a little protein metabolism ...
18A. Forward-looking aesthetic of Janelle Monáe and "Black Panther": AFROFUTURISM. Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora
culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns
of the African diaspora through techno-culture and speculative fiction,
encompassing a range of media and artists with a shared interest in
envisioning black futures that stem from Afro-diasporic experiences.
Here's Janelle Monáe's Electric Lady ...
30A. Part of the digestive system: SMALL INTESTINE. It's not as big as the Large intestine, but it's a lot longer ...
48. Plant-based remedies, e.g.: HERBAL MEDICINE. Everything you need to know about herbal medicine.
Now I hear you saying "what does that fill have to do with proteins?", but the next clue reveals all ...
64. Post-workout nourishment, and a hint to what can be found in each set of circled letters: PROTEIN SHAKE. Oh! I forgot to mention the circles (but you probably knew that already 😀). And when we light them up we see ...
Since a good workout consumes a lot of protein, we need to replenish it. But we can see that Shannon and Will have SHAKEN the proteins in the circles and so we UN SHAKE them to find ...
TOFU
LENTILS
PORK
LAMB.
Personally I can see TOFU and LENTILS in my shakes, but PORK and LAMB would be a bit too UMAMI for me. Here's a list of a lot of other protein rich foods.
And here are the rest of the clues ...
Across:
1. Outlook alternative: GMAIL. Hand up if you don't use GMAIL?
6. Drum that may accompany a sitar: TABLA. The TABLA is also a solo instrument. Here tabla virtuoso Bickram Ghosh gives us a brief introduction to this remarkable instrument ...
11. Little taste: SIP.
14. "America's Got Talent" judge Klum: HEIDI. Heidi Klum (pronounced [ˈhaɪdiː ˈklʊm]; born 1 June 1973) is a German and American model, television host, producer, and businesswoman. She appeared on the cover of the 1998 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and was the first German model to become a Victoria's Secret Angel.
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| Heidi Klum |
17. Texter's "Didn't need to hear that": TMI.
18. [Theme clue]
20. Siamang or orangutan: APE.
21. Trivial complaint: NIT.
22. Streetcar: TRAM.
23. Speak while flustered, say: STAMMER.
25. Singer India.__: ARIE. India Arie Simpson (born October 3, 1975), also known as India Arie (sometimes styled as india.arie), is an American singer and songwriter. Her debut album, Acoustic Soul, was released in 2001, and she has since released six more studio albums. Arie has sold over five million records in the US and ten million worldwide, and has won four Grammy Awards from 23 nominations, including Best R&B Album. Here's Video from her first album ...
27. Home of the Big 12's Cyclones: AMES. The Iowa State Cyclones are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Iowa State University, located in AMES. The university is a member of the Big 12 Conference and competes in NCAA Division I, fielding 16 varsity teams (6 men's and 10 women's teams) in 12 sports.
30. [Theme clue]
34. Mega- times mega-: TERA. A trillion.
35. Passing comment?: YEA.
36. "Illmatic" rapper: NAS. You can find this album on YouTube.
37. [Theme clue]
42. Dashboard prefix with meter: ODO. Your car's ODOMETER tells you how far you've gone. It usually sits below the SPEEDOMETER, which tells you you're going to fast ...
45. Hair removal brand: NAIR.
48. [Theme clue].
53. Tell time?: CHIME.
54. Big suit?: EXEC.
55. Gets one's hands on: NABS.
57. "Dig in, all!": LETS EAT.
60. Tux rental occasion: PROM.
62. "Anyone can see that": DUH.
63. Righteous Babe Records founder DiFranco: ANI. Here's ANI's remarkable cover of the John Newton song Amazing Grace ...
64. [Theme reveal]
67. Start to bake?: PRE.
68. Single hair: STRAND.
69. Took down: RAZED.
70. DOS pt.: SYS. Disk Operating System.
71. Practice room fodder: ETUDE. Here's Mendelssohn's Etude op. 104b n. 3 played by the great Vladimir Horowitz.
72. Cider mill fixture: PRESS.
Down:
1. Accra's land: GHANA. Accra is the Capital of GHANA situated on the Atlantic Coast of West Africa between The Ivory Coast and Togo.
3. TV slot: AIR TIME.
4. Sworn statement?: I DO.
5. Use gym weights: LIFT. Or SING with her friends in the choir. While it might not surprise you that Stella Zawistowski is a chorister, you probably wouldn't pick her out of a crowd as a weight lifter ...
 |
| Stella Zawistowski and fellow chorister Stella is the lady on the right |
6. Japanese mat: TATAMI. A tatami (畳) is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Tatami are made in standard sizes, twice as long as wide, about 0.9 metres (3') by 1.8 metres (6') depending on the region.
 |
| Tatami Mats |
8. "So cold!": BRR.
9. Lane near Kent?: LOIS. In this clip LOIS outsmarts Kent and finds out who he really is ...
10. Aide, for short: ASST.
11. Energizer Bunny's asset: STAMINA.
12. Gets in the way of: IMPEDES.
13. Yacht spots: PIERS.
16. Dapper: SMART.
19. River dividing Eurasia: URAL. This map is a bit dated as the ARAL SEA in the Southeast appears only in crossword puzzles these days ...
 |
| Ural River |
26. Far-too-memorable songs: EAR WORMS. One way to get rid of an EAR WORM is to listen to anoher one.
28. Ophthalmologist's concern: STYE. CATARACT wouldn't fit.
31. Part of the Kra-Dai language family: LAO. Three letter fill for a language with no indication of an abbreviation? Perps.
32. Always, in verse: EER.
33. "Veep" actor Richardson: SAM. SAM plays Richard in Veep. Here he gets a promotion ...
38. Molecule preceded by m-, r-, or t-: RNA. An Easter Egg? - the various types of RNA involved in the synthesis of proteins described in the splash screen video above - messenger RNA, ribosomal RNA, and transfer RNA are described in detail.
39. Kenan's "Good Burger 2" co-star: KEL. Back by popular demand ...
40. Apple or pear: POME. A POME is a type of fruit produced by flowering plants in the subtribe Malinae of the family Rosaceae. Pome fruits consist of a central "core" containing multiple small seeds, which is enveloped by a tough membrane and surrounded by an edible layer of flesh.
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| Pome Fruits |
42. Candy bar with an exclamation point: OH HENRY!. I wonder if YAHOO! has ever approached them about becoming a sponsor?
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| Pantheon Front Entrance |
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| Pantheon Interior |
46. Out of it: IN A DAZE. A CSO to our Monday blogger. 😁
47. Censures: REBUKES.
49. Checkout sounds: BEEPS.
50. Use up: EXPEND.
51. Put down: DERIDE.
52. Tapped pic: ICON.
53. Shows appreciation: CLAPS.
56. Loses, as hair: SHEDS.
58. Museo del Prado contents: ARTE. Today's Spanish lesson: This is one of the most famous paintings in the El Museo del Prado in Madrid ...
 |
| La Maja Vestida "The Clothed Maja" |
Probably even more famous is La Maja Desnuda ("The Nude Maja").
59. Material for a suit: TORT. GABARDINE wouldn't fit. 😁
61. "Sticker shock" no.: MSRP. Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price. Nowadays it's not just a suggestion.
65. Letter after sigma: TAU. The 19th letter in the Greek alphabet ...
Cheers,
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
Favorite clue?
ReplyDelete“Lane near Kent”
Hardest “protein” to see?
“Lentils”
I found this puzzle, for the most part, fair and sussable. I have no complaints. Even “Afro-futurism” was easy enough to suss, especially when given its perps. FIR, so I’m happy.
Lost my first attempt at this, so here goes.
ReplyDeleteFIR, but erased afrofuturist for AFROFUTURISM, doh for DUH, bee for PRE, ohenery for OHHENRY, wool for TORT, and erased, then reentered ANI and SYS.
Today is:
NATIONAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING AWARENESS (open borders don’t help)
NATIONAL STEP IN A PUDDLE AND SPLASH YOUR FRIENDS DAY (this used to be hilarious – then I turned 10)
NATIONAL MILK DAY (I was served a soured carton of milk when I was very young, and the teacher wouldn’t believe me. I’ve hated milk ever since, but I do like ice cream)
I loved KLUM and Seal as a couple. They are both tall, and contrast with her very fair German skin and his very dark skin. Striking.
When we took over the Venezuelan telephone company (CANTV), our people traveled to Caracas using a tourist visa. After a few trips, they ran into difficulties with the immigration officials. I think we paid some fines, and everyone going to CANTV had to get work visas before returning.
Thanks to Shannon and Will for the fun challenge, and to Bill 'n' Teri for laying it all out.
Good morning!
ReplyDeleteHad the circles, but forgot to look at 'em. [sigh] Still, this was a fun exercise from Shannon and Will. That TABLA looks like a bongo with a bald spot. Interesting sound. Thought NAIR had gone the way of NEET; apparently not. Thanx for 'splainin' it all, waseeley and Teri.
AMES: Gimme for d-o. Our Iowa radio station always carried the Cyclone football games. The owner of the local Mercury dealership was an alum. Sponsorship was an easy sale.
DEITIES: The founders of our little town tried to find Roman associations for our street names. So we've got Forum Court, Gladiator Dr, etc. But they were spelling challenged. Instead of PANTHEON, we got PARTHENON -- That's Greek to me. And Instead of DaVinci, we got DA VINCE. (Lombardi?)
FIR. This puzzle really wasn't that hard, suitable for a Friday maybe if today weren't Thursday, but the cluing seemed somewhat of a stretch at times.
ReplyDeleteAnd the theme in my opinion was lame. Why would one put pork or lamb in a shake? Am I missing something here? I get that all four are protein sources, but a shake?
This CW overall, meh!
Took 9:41 today for me TO GAin traction.
ReplyDeleteOh joy, circles.
KS, the protein's letters are shaken. Yep, that's why I detest circles.
Jinx @5:24 AM I thought about including the cover from Klum's SI swimsuit issue, but didn't think I'd get it past the spell-checker. Irrelevant question -- how do you spell ZOE? ZOEY? ...
ReplyDeleteAlas it's a DAB Bye Week.
Bill, she spells her name Zoё, and she likes the sound of Zoey.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else work the daily Pennysaver crossword? I just discovered it via a link on the Fox New web site. Clues are quite different than the other two I get daily, the LAT and the Sheffer offering carried by the Virginian Pilot and many other dailys. And NOTHING like a DAB or a JefWech special.
Good Morning:
ReplyDeleteI saw the foods scrambled early on, but the reveal was a surprise. Perhaps today's circles were necessary, but I think I'd prefer the challenge of finding the proteins without them. Lentils might be difficult to parse, but Tofu, Lamb, and Pork wouldn't be. Tabla, Afrofuturism, and Sam were unknowns but perps did their job. The theme was fine, although it would have been more impressive if the foods scrambled were plausible shake ingredients. Just a thought.
Thanks, Shannon and Will, and thank, Bill, for the fun and facts, as usual. Thanks to Teri, as well. Best wishes for an uneventful surgery on Monday.
Have a great day.
Good Morning! Turned out today’s puzzle was slow going but eventually filled with a few missteps. Start -> SMART, stutter -> STAMMER and doh -> DUH.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Bill & Teri, you really dug deep into the science today. That’s a different kind of workout!
With just a few unknowns- AFROFUTURISM, LAO, SAM, & KELL- it was smooth sailing until I didn't spell the candy bar correctly. Put O Henry instead of OH HENRY. After I fixed it, I pulled into the marina and tied up at one of the PIERS.
ReplyDeleteGotta go. Having a pacemaker installed at 12:30.
ReplyDelete“One man’s meat is another man’s poison” … TOFU, PORK, LAMB (BALM helps post-workout too) but TINSELL??….oooh LENTILLS
Feared from the get-go I might not finish: forgot the first letter of TATAMI from alotta prior CW’s plus didn’t know the Sitar Drum TABLA (which I’m sure we’ve had before) but a WAG took care of that. The final challenge was the NW: I aver I stayed too long with vow, eventually FIR
(If “IDO” is a wedding vow is a renewal of vows a “REDO”? 🤨)
POME: tomato in It: pomodoro “Apple of gold”, potato in Fr pomme de terre “Apple of the ground” (end of language lesson)
PANTHEON: What Waz the Wise said ….There is also a Panthéon in Paris: a mausoleum for célèbres madames et messieurs français.. Teaching AFROFUTURISM I think is banned in some states
When we lived in Bologna DW needed a WORKPERMIT and special “visa” to teach English language classes at the Johns Hopkins University Extension. One evening an earthquake quake hit “Signora what should we do?” DW: in slowly mouthed well-defined English “GET…OUT…OF….THE….BUILDING…. NOW!
Inkovers: rebuffs/REBUKES
Always forget India’s name 😖.
Liked “Lane near Kent” LOIS.
After the discussion the other day glad “Opthalmologists concern”answer wasn’t 🐱- er -racks.
World ‘s best seaport was selected by a vote of its……PIERS
Grappling greenhorns: ___ fight…. NEO
🍎 or 🍐 sonnet …..POME.
Next Africa visit I’m ____ visit Accra….GHANA.
Big Easy: I’m sure you’ll do fine Pacer implant. 💕
Musings
ReplyDelete-Plenty to chew on with this fun puzzle
-Can anyone actually learn how to play that ETUDE or is it an innate gift?
-Pro football teams employ very large men to IMPEDE the progress of the other team’s runners
-We just bought a new washer for $599 whose MSRP was $899. Yeah, right.
-Step in a “puddle” today and you’d slip and fall on the very cold ice
No problems working my way through this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteThe perps and the clues were fair.
Some fresh fill with afrofuturist and the additional info that Bill supplied on this topic.
However, the “protein” theme was boring and unimaginative. Too bad the circled answers were not some exotic “shake” ingredients… IMHO
Thanks for the awesome recap Bill and Teri
….. kkFlorida
My only major solve trouble was finally accepting that there are two H's in oh Henry!
ReplyDeleteobligatory silliness...
on a more serious level...
Hmm, I may have a problem, am I the only one who thought it said "whiskey".
This one had a bit of crunch in it. Things looked a mite iffy after the across run...the proverbial "sea of white", but the perps came through for me. Got the FIR, but had to look to Waz for the theme. Lots of unknowns, but I found it to be a fair offering.
ReplyDeleteIck. circles and a word jumble.. no thanks
ReplyDeleteI must still be cleaning out the CW cobwebs. I did FIR but it took 40 minutes and I almost gave up a few times. W/Os: TABOR/TABLA, STUTTER/STAMMER, EYES/STYE. WEES, can’t imagine pork or lamb in a protein shake. Even lentils stretch what I would put into a protein shake. Other than that a nice though difficult (for me) CW, thanx SR&WE. And thanx too to Bill for his as usual outstanding write-up. I got good news yesterday at my latest eye exam, it is finally starting to heal. AND I can sleep lying down again. Hallelujah!
ReplyDeleteI would never drink a smoothie or a SHAKE, but I enjoyed solving the theme.
ReplyDeleteRadio Doctor Dean Edell explained that when you drink calories your brain does not register them. You get none of the joy of eating, but you get all of the calories pre-digested in a form that gives you a powerful glycemic jolt. Just eat real food.
Merlie and I posed on the Ventura PIER last Saturday.
Recent storms closed most of it for repairs. You can see that she is feeling BRR in the cool ocean breeze.
From Yesterday:
Vidwan and others Thank you for the continued MOUSE comments. I will use a touch pad if forced to. But for me the MOUSE is far easier and more natural. A very inexpensive and easy experiment to try.
I think the pier in a Port Hueneme is still open. The pier in Ventura is cosed for repairs. More high surf is predicted for the next few days. Your shirt is welcome anywhere in Ventura County.
DeleteEEK!! CIRCLES!!!
ReplyDelete(ehh, just ignore the 🤬ing things.)
Easy Thursday cruise with some amusing clues (here’s lookin’ atcha, LOIS — with X-ray vision😆) and an interesting theme. I’m thinking this is the first time I’ve seen EARWORM stuck into a cw puzzle, too! Thanks Shannon & Will, good stuff!
Hand up for AFROFUTURISt until SMART evolved as the obvious answer to 16D…but the cross of INADAZE and DUH could have also worked with an H where the D is (-hAZE and -hUH) if you ask me.
Mssr. Picard, I sure won’t have any trouble picking you out of the crowd if I happen to be up on the PIER in Ventura this coming summer — y’wanna turn down the volume on those shirts?? 🤣👍🏽
====> Darren / L.A.
I rather enjoyed solving this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteThat WOOL suit turned out to be the law type of suit, not what a "big suit" (EXEC) would wear.
KEN became KEL when HERBAL MEDICINE showed up.
I could maybe put my hand up for not using GMAIL, except that my Stanford Alumni email service is, at its heart, the GMAIL engine.
Frankly I thought a couple of the clues were a tad too cutesy-poo for their own good: namely "Start to bake" (what actually is it to prebake something?), "Passing comment", "Tell time", and "Big suit".
I thought some of the other clues were pretty nifty, but there's no way of knowing who wrote them.
Good reading all of what you all had to say.
Picard
ReplyDeleteYou don't need to change anything. I like the bold colors on your shirts.
Lucina @4:31 PM I second that!
ReplyDeleteHi All!
ReplyDeleteThanks Shannon & Will for a very crunch Thursday puzzle. I liked the theme and the themers helped a lot with the fill.
Thanks Waseeley for the excellent expo. I enjoyed the images but haven't had time to click the links.
WOs: HEdie -> HEIDI, STUttER - > STAMMER, EXhaust -> EXPEND, OtHEllo -> to OH HENRY*
ESPs: TABLA | TATAMI, SAM, KEL
Fav: LOIS Lane next to Kent
I enjoyed reading y'all today (nice shirt, Picard!) but I gotta run - hacker meetup tonight.
Cheers, -T
*didn't there used to be an Othello bar? I googled but didn't find it.
Darren, Lucina, waseeley, AnonT Thank you for the comments about my attire at the Ventura PIER!
ReplyDeleteThere is one thing I might have changed: I could have worn my matching Pinnacles National Park hat to match Merlie's. We had gone hiking there on Christmas Eve on our way back from the Bay Area.
I might also add that TABLA was a bit of a gimme. I had a co-worker friend who played TABLA.
Here my TABLA playing friend posed in his Bay Area living room.
No TABLA in the photo. But you can see his Buddha (he is a practicing Buddhist) and an interesting instrument near the Buddha. The bowl can either be struck or rubbed with a stick.
TABLA was anything but a gimme.
ReplyDeleteMon Cher Picard, I recall somewhere in the California Vehicle Code (CVC 234902 § 19b) that a license is required for such garb in public place, lest the wearer cause traffic jams or social confusion.
ReplyDelete