C.C.'s 380th puzzle is rife with wit, learning and her trademark devious cluing along with two 11-letter stacks! Of all her pictures, this is one of my very favorites! It was taken on 8/16/10 soon after she had become a citizen. Our old friend Spitzboov got her the flag from the Navy.
Across:
1. Signs of recognition: NODS - Around here, this usually accompanies that NOD
5. Goddess symbolized by the peacock: HERA.
9. Folks who are totes inseparable: BFFS - Totes and BFF in the same clue/fill? How hip!
13. Ropeless climbs: FREE SOLOS.
15. Horn blast: BLARE.
16. Drift apart: LOSE TOUCH - Our 60th anniversary of high school graduation is this spring but we have LOST many members and LOST TOUCH with most all others and so no one is left to organize anything.
17. Apt name for an optimist: ROSIE.
18. "The Secret Life of Bees" novelist: KIDD.
19. Nonsense: BLATHER - I try not to but the best laid plans of men and mice...
21. Times Square abundance: ADS - For $40 you can get a 15-second video to run in Times Square
24. Hides: LIES LOW - Mrs. Thomsen, my sophomore English instructor would be aghast if she knew I put LAYS LOW first! ๐คจ
26. Cards: IDS - Card and IDS as verbs
27. Bug: NETTLE.
29. Inner ear?: CORN COB ๐ Ya gotta love that one!
31. Starchy roots: TAROS.
32. Element in some textured paint: SAND.
33. Ortiz of "Love, Victor": ANA - Santa ANA winds or Santa ANA, CA were eschewed for a Saturday puzzle.
34. Perfect spot?: EDEN.
35. Hole number?: YARDS ๐
Yikes! 841 YARDS/Par 6
36. Ferret kin: MINK.
38. "The Marvels" actor Park __-joon: SEO - Two of C.C.'s 11-letter fills helped here.
39. "Allow Me to Retort" writer Mystal: ELIE.
40. Alabama's state nut: PECAN - Your pronunciation: puh KAHN or PEE can?
41. Words of admission: IT WAS ME - Mrs. Thomsen would be aghast yet again seeing ME instead of I after a linking verb! ๐
43. Post in a studio: MALONE - New to me but filled itself. "Danson's Cheer's character" would be better for me.
44. Club alternative: BLT - Two of my fave sammiches!
45. Inspiring device: SNORKEL ๐ Inspiring here means to breathe in! No one wore one better:
47. "Uh-uh": NAW.
48. Jumps aboard: LEAPS ON - Our school system LEAPT ON the "Open Concept Classroom" and LEAPT OFF soon after.
50. Somewhat: A TAD.
52. Pained cry: UNCLE - My uncles used to delight in making my brother and me cry UNCLE!
53. Sought-after change: RARE COINS ๐ I loved this one!
58. "To Kill a Mockingbird" narrator: SCOUT - SCOUT and the first line
59. PEBKAC issue: USER ERROR ๐
60. Gas company known for its toy trucks: HESS - This 50+ year old model is worth $900
61. Sisters with similar habits: NUNS ๐
62. Staff note: MEMO.
Down:
1. Commanders' org.: NFL - To diehards, they'll always be the Redskins
2. Word in Montana's motto: ORO.
Gold and Silver
3. From overseas?: DES - DES is a French word (thus overseas) that is always followed by a plural noun, and can be used as a preposition to mean "of", "from," or "by."
4. Go after: SEEK.
5. Cozy top: HOODIE.
6. Get by: ELUDE.
7. Skin care brand started in Paris in 1957: ROC - My DW has used their products for years
11. Treat similar to tostones: FRIED BANANA - Tostones are fried plantains.
12. Forward thinkers?: SEERS ๐
14. Film studio stock: STILLS
15. Beefiness: BRAWN.
20. Ones with very good manors: LORDS ๐
21. Front money: ANTE ๐ Ya gotta pay to play
22. Unsettling stillness: DEAD SILENCE - A comedian's worst enemy
23. Food truck fare: STREET TACOS.
25. More alarming: SCARIER.
28. So far: TO NOW
30. Brown hue: CAMEL.
32. Food source for grizzly bears: SALMON RUN.
35. Like some questions: YES NO.
37. Taylor Swift's "I __ You Were Trouble": KNEW.
40. Residence that's fit for a queen: PALACE - QEII having a few people over at Buckingham PALACE
42. Desirable trait: ASSET.
43. Olympic units: METERS - I suspect the Paris Olympics will use METRES ๐
44. Red state: BLUSH.
46. Carpenter with pipes: KAREN - Karen's musical career started as a teenage drummer in her brother's group, The Richard Carpenter Trio. He was on keyboards.
49. Positive sign: PLUS. ๐
51. Quarters near a quad: DORM ๐ A drone's eye view at UNL
54. Sparky the Sun Devil's sch.: ASU.
55. Red state: IRE ๐
56. Adรจle ou Cรฉline: NOM - Adรจle ou Cรฉline sont des noms. (Adele or Celine are names)
57. Cheap tix option: SRO - Standing Room Only tix at Yankee Stadium are $62.50.
Today's constructor is veteran
Zhouqin Burnikel,
alias C.C., baseball aficionado and blog maestra extraordinaire. She invites us to do some
ROOTING, not just for the home team but also to burrow through the
DOWN clues looking for some delicious, healthy
ROOTvegetables,
and see what turns UP. Here's her reveal ...
25D. Digs out, or what can be found in four long Down answers?:
ROOTS UP.
If you didn't spot them while solving (CSO to D-O), here they
are ...
3D. Spiritual path of action:
KARMA YOGA.
YAM. Well I've always thought that a YAM was just another name
for a SWEET POTATO --
but they are not the same vegetable.
10D. Event for minor leaguers?:
TEE BALL GAME.
BEET. These are not particularly difficult to grow, but we like the tender greens
in salads and tend to side pick them stealing the strength from the
root. But whichever way you eat them
they are good for you.
Detroit Dark Red Beets
24D. Sport with pit stops, in Britain:
MOTOR RACING.
CARROT. CARROTS are slow germinating, slow growing, and very sweet
when they're fresh. One of my favorite drinks is fresh carrot
juice. They also have
many health benefits.
Carrots
35D. Lab animal with white fur:
ALBINO RAT. TARO. TARO is the most widely cultivated species of several plants
in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms,
leaves, stems and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in African, Oceanic,
East Asian, Southeast Asian and South Asian cultures (similar to yams).
Taro is believed to be one of the earliest cultivated plants. We've never cooked with it, but I think it may be available in
our local supermarket. I found these for sale at the
H.E.B. in Victoria, TX -- they look a little rough,
but they sound delicious.
Taro Roots
And of course, adhering to good crossword etiquette, C.C has
embedded each vegetable so that it spans 2 words. Here's how they look underground ...
... and the rest of today's garden ... Across:
1. Tools with teeth: RAKES. And C.C. starts us off with
RAKES, essential tools for planting ROOT CROPS, which like
fine, well raked soil. Teri and I use a modified version of
Mel Bartholomew's
Square Foot Gardening
method, planting the seeds to a depth of 2-3" in drills filled with potting
soil. We've had good luck with BEETS, RADISHES,
CARROTS, and TURNIPS. We usually plant our
YAMS (sweet potatoes) with plants in shallow trenches. I've not
seen TARO seeds or plants in our gardening catalogues.
6. Geocaching device: GPS. You use the
Global Positioning System in your phone to zero in on containers
called geocaches, at specific locations marked by coordinates all over
the world. Here's a one minute explanation ...
14. "This really matters to me": I CARE A LOT. When you
really CARE A LOT ...
16. First name in country: MERLE.
Merle Ronald Haggard
(April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) was an American country music singer,
songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler. He was born in
Oildale, California, toward the end of the Great Depression. His
childhood was troubled after the death of his father, and he was incarcerated
several times in his youth. After being released from San Quentin State Prison
in 1960, he managed to turn his life around and launched a successful country
music career. Here's his Working Man Blues ...
17. Keep on keeping on: PERSEVERE.
18. Like a misty pond after dark: EERIE. It's not a good idea to
go there alone. ๐จ
19. Genre that includes dubstep: EDM. Dubstep is a genre of
electronic dance music
that originated in South London in the late 1990s. It is generally
characterized by sparse, syncopated rhythmic patterns with bass lines that
contain prominent sub-bass frequencies. The style emerged as an offshoot of UK
garage, drawing on a lineage of related styles such as 2-step, dub reggae,
jungle, broken beat, and grime. In the United Kingdom, the origins of
the genre can be traced back to the growth of the Jamaican sound system party
scene in the early 1980s. Here's a dubstep number by
Lindsey Stirling
called Crystallize that I thought was kind of cool ...
20. Dudes: MEN. All the ones I know use HE/HIM/HIS
pronouns.
21. Vegetable in a yellow pod: WAX BEAN. The original version of
this particular bean grew in the tropical climate of Central and South
America. “Wax” has become a common term and refers to
any yellow bean
whether it is waxy or not. True wax bean types actually do have a waxy texture
and feel.
27. Deli jarful: MAYO. Also a clinic in Minnesota that
C.C. is probably familiar with. I have a niece who is a resident in
psychiatry there.
29. "The Chimpanzees I Love" author Jane: GOODALL.
Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE
(born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall; 3 April 1934), is an English primatologist
and anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremost expert on
chimpanzees, after 60 years' studying the social and family interactions of
wild chimpanzees. Goodall first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania
to observe its chimpanzees in 1960. She is the founder of the
Jane Goodall Institute
and the
Roots & Shoots
program, and she has worked extensively on conservation and animal welfare
issues.
Jane Goodall and friends
32. Showbiz "grand slam": EGOT. Emmy, Grammy,
Oscar, and Tony.
Nineteen people have achieved competitive EGOT status
and six others have done so with honorary or special awards. In 2018, Robert
Lopez became the only double EGOT winner.
33. "Xanadu" band: ELO. The
Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)
are an English rock band formed in Birmingham in 1970 by songwriters and
multi-instrumentalists Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood with drummer
Bev Bevan. Their music is characterised by a fusion of pop and classical arrangements
with futuristic iconography. Here's the title song from the 1980 fantasy film
Xanadu starring
Olivia Newton-John
and
Gene Kelley
...
34. Classic Chevy: BEL AIR. The car I learned to drive
in. Teri, who already had her license, would drive over to our house in
her Rambler, and she would sit in the passenger seat of our 56 Chevy and tutor
me on the finer points of driving.
38. Gas in some lasers: ARGON. Argon is a chemical element; it
has symbol Ar and atomic number 18. It is in group 18 of
the periodic table and is a noble (inert) gas. Argon is the third most
abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere after Nitrogen and
Oxygen. Argon lasers have a wide variety of uses including
eye surgery. and the treatment of various
skin disorders.
40. List-ending abbr.: ETC.
42. Shelter made of compressed snow: IGLOO.
43. Pacific Palisades location: LA AREA. Pacific Palisades
is a neighborhood in the West-side region of Los Angeles, California,
situated about 20 miles (32 km) west of Downtown Los Angeles.
View south from Will Rogers State Beach, of Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica I think Renee lives around here somewhere
45. Take legal action: SUE. Also the name of a sleepy head ...
47. Lie adjacent to: ABUT.
48. Shelter dogs: RESCUES. CSO to Pat.
50. Fail to see: MISS. But we hope we see our Irish MISS on the
Corner every day.
51. Branch of Islam: SHIA. Shia Islam (/หสiหษ/) is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib
(r. 656 – 661 CE) as his successor and the Imam (spiritual and
political leader) after him, but was prevented from succeeding Muhammad
as leader of the Muslims by some of Muhammad's other companions. This
view contrasts with Sunnฤซ Islam, which asserts that Muhammad did not appoint a successor before his death and considers Abลซ Bakr,
who was appointed caliph by a group of senior Muslims at Saqifah, to be
the first rightful caliph after Muhammad (632–634 CE).
54. Short flight: HOP.
55. Subsequently: THEN.
57. Keep under wraps: CONCEAL.
59. Kung __ tofu: PAO. Kung Pao Tofu is a vegan stir-fry dish
made from tofu (soy cheese) with dried red chilies, pepper, peanuts all
tossed together in a flavorful sauce. Here's a recipe ...
Kung Pao Tofu
60. "Lookee here!": OHO.
63. Reversed: UNDID.
64. Tipping point: LAST STRAW. The proverbial STRAW that broke the camel's back.
4. Hectic hosp. areas: ERS. They're not hectic until they're hectic ...
5. Note with a low grade, perhaps: SEE ME.
6. Narrow valley: GLEN. E.g. Glen Canyon,
a natural canyon carved by a 169.6-mile (272.9 km) length of the
Colorado River, mostly in southeastern and south-central Utah, in the
United States.
12. Poem that inspired Pat Barker's "The Women of Troy": ILIAD.
The Trojan War is over and the Greeks are ready to return home as
victors. But their fleet is becalmed and they must camp by the city they
destroyed waiting for a fair wind,
kept company by the women they stole it from.
13. Freezing temps: TEENS.
15. Get payback for: AVENGE.
22. Very little:
A DAB. "Brylcreem - a little DAB'll do ya". Just make sure you don't use two!
28. City southeast of New Delhi: AGRA. The site of an
architectural OREO.
30. Fรบtbol cheer: OLE.
31. Necklace shipped with ice packs: LEI. You can by them from
Cindy.
35. [Theme clue]
36. Markers: IOUS. The first time I've seen this clue for
IOUS.
37. Becomes inedible: ROTS. E.g. when your PAPAYA turns BROWN.
39. Maiden name indicator: NEE.
41. Billiards stick: CUE.
44. "The Prisoner's Wife" author Bandele: ASHA. As a favor for a
friend,
a bright and talented young woman volunteered to read her poetry to a group
of prisoners
during a Black History Month program. It was an encounter that would
alter her life forever, because it was there, in the prison, that she would
meet Rashid, the man who was to become her friend, her confidant, her
husband, her lover, her soul mate.
62. Clive of "Monsieur Spade": OWEN. To really understand
Monsieur Spade we have to go back twenty years to the
Maltese Falcon, starring Humphrey Bogart as San Francisco
private detective Sam Spade ...
"Monsieur Spade", played by British actor
Clive Owen, is now comfortably retired in the South of France but he finds that
his karma has followed him there ...
The first is a great film and the second a great series, although the plot of
the latter is quite complicated and the ending is a little enigmatic.
