Hello, Cornerites, Chairman Moe here, bringing your "nacho" usual take on a Jeffrey Wechsler, Friday LA Times Crossword Puzzle. I promise not to be too cheesy today as I "shred and slice" through the clues, and I won't "whey" you down too much with a lot of images and videos. And hopefully no explosions as I'd hate to be responsible later for cleaning up any "de Brie".
So, after quickly getting the theme: (56-Across, with 58-Across, "savory base for a canapé ... and the function of a black square in four puzzle rows?": CHEESE CRACKER) maybe the following compilation of Cheez-it commercials had me thinking that the title for this puzzle should've been "WHO CUT THE CHEESE", but I erred on the side of civility and maturity for a change!
Did you see how the black square in four puzzle rows "cracked" the cheese? Yes? "Gouda" for you! In "queso" you didn't, please allow me to "kraft" a few comments:
Let's start with the grid, so we can see how JW cleverly cut the cheese. I've highlighted the cracked cheese names in red, along with the unifier:
16-Across. African Queen, for one: STEAMER with 17-Across. "Don't doubt my abilities!": I CAN SO, leaves us with AMERICAN. American Cheese as Wikipedia describes is actually a processed cheese made from Cheddar, Colby or similar. It's processed to have a very low melting point, making it perfect for grilled cheese sandwiches
22-Across. Longtime senator Thurmond: STROM with 23-Across. Battery parts: ANODES, leaves us with ROMANO. Wikipedia provided this info on Romano cheese.
34-Across. Extravagant: BAROQUE with 38-Across. Lot: FORTUNE, leaves us with ROQUEFORT
Moe-ku:
Camembert, Brie, and
ROQUEFORT were found on same plate.
A fromáge à trois?
47-Across. Like some ornate doorways: ARCHED with 50-Across. Fixes tears: DARNS, leaves us with CHEDDAR. With its origins from the village of CHEDDAR, this cheese type accounts for nearly 1.3 million tons of production in the US alone. That's about 10 lbs per person, on average. And please be careful when slicing a piece . . .
Let's see what else is on the plate besides cheese . . .
Across:
1. Adopted gradually, with "in": PHASED. I wasn't fazed by this clue ...
7. Sandpiper family birds: SNIPES. Crossword Tracker shows that the clue: "Blade" actor SNIPES (Wesley) hasn't appeared in any puzzles for several years. Guessing it's due to his tax evasion and personal issues, perhaps
13. One of two sound recommendations for a light sleeper?: EARPLUG. My better half wears these (both one and two) as she tells me that I snore in bed. I can't refute that as I am usually asleep at the time . . .
15. Shunned one: PARIAH. According to Britannica dot com, the word PARIAH — originally derived from Tamil paṛaiyar, “drummer” — once referred to the Paraiyan, a Tamil caste group of labourers and village servants of low status, but the meaning was extended to embrace many groups outside the so-called clean caste groups, with widely varying degrees of status. Some sites I looked at even gave it a harsher meaning . . .
18. January temps, often: TEENS. Would December "temps", as in "temporary workers" also be called TEENS? As in those high school kids who work part-time during the Holiday season? Oh, Jeffrey meant as in the "temperature"! Here in the Phoenix "Valley of the Sun" our January temps are only in the TEENS if you're using the Celsius measurement ...
19. Do lunch?: CATER. Cute clue. A CATERer is a person who provides a meal. Why not do lunch?
21. London's __ Gardens: KEW. In the village "Richmond Upon Thames", about 30 miles from downtown London. Open all year . . .
25. History: PAST. Our Thesaurus cites "PAST" as the fourth synonym for "history". A Friday-fitting clue
26. Short on manners: RUDE. Not me, today! My blog won't be RUDE or CRUDE
27. Fraternal order: ELKS. The Benevolent and Protective Order of ELKS is an American fraternal order founded in 1868, originally as a social club in New York City
31. Coil in a garden: HOSE. If the answer was five letters in length, would "snake" fit this clue?
32. Prepares for takeoff: TAXIES. According to the aviation industry, the verb, "to taxi," as it relates to a moving airplane on the ground, dates to about 1911. ... The word may allude to driving around like a taxicab, as others surmise, or it may relate to the fact that flight instructors gave rides to new students in the "taxi" airplane
39. Buttonhole: ACCOST. Another Friday clue; somewhat obscure. To buttonhole (informally) means to attract the attention of and detain (someone) in conversation, typically against his or her will. "Reporters buttonhole (ACCOST) officials coming out of the press secretary's office". ACCOST sounds a lot worse to my ears than buttonhole . . .
40. Function: WORK. This exact cluing of the word "WORK" has not appeared in the LA Times for a couple of years.
Again, Friday-worthy
41. Campus figure: DEAN. A crossword staple
42. Storytelling singer Guthrie: ARLO. Another popular crossword "name"; today's clue with a bit more detail. ARLO Guthrie's website home page uses the storyteller description
43. Declared: SAID. To declare: say; past tense: SAID. SAID appeared in Monday's puzzle . . .
51. Firepit residue: ASH. Our firepit is gas fed and has igneous rocks. No ASHes
54. Speak publicly: ORATE. Entymonline dot com says that the word ORATE (orate (v.) 1600), means "to pray, to plead," from Latin oratus, past participle of ōrare "speak, pray to, plead, speak before a court or assembly" (see orator). The meaning "make a formal speech, talk loftily," used humorously or contemptuously, emerged c. 1860 in American English as a back-formation of oration.
55. Advice from colleagues, say: INPUT. I will occasionally ask for INPUT from my fellow bloggers whenever I get stuck on a puzzle; any INPUT from y'all is always welcome!
60. Afternoon service: TEA SET. Seems a bit stuffy! I rarely drink TEA and definitely don't have a SET
61. One held for ransom: HOSTAGE. Was this history's most infamous HOSTAGE victim? Sad story
62. Force (upon): IMPOSE. As upon one's will, e.g.
63. Allowed paid use of: LEASED. Our house is currently LEASED. There are benefits to both owning and leasing ones residence
Down:
1. Pre-euro coin: PESETA. The basic monetary unit of Spain (until replaced by the euro), equal to 100 centimos.
2. Critics who can't be pleased: HATERS. Taylor Swift line in the tune "Shake it Off"
3. Childish denial: ARE NOT. MAKE ME also fit, as did 17-Across today, I CAN SO
4. Jerk, e.g.: SPASM. A "tic", or muscle reflex
5. West __: upscale store: ELM. West ELM website. There are lots of these on-line upscale shopping sites nowadays. Wayfair is one from whom I've purchased
6. Sufficient grounds for action, in law: DUE CAUSE. As a legal definition of "due": Meeting special requirements; sufficient: "We have DUE CAUSE to honor them". If that's not clear, the preceding definition says "In accord with right, convention, or courtesy; appropriate." And in the same dictionary you'll find "cause" defined as grounds for action; motive; justification ... now, if I could just recall the name of the dictionary and give proper credit . . .
7. Used bugs, perhaps: SPIED. Did James Bond EVER check into a hotel room that wasn't infested with bugs? "From Russia with Love" clip
8. Shell material: NACRE. Abalone shell image:
9. Rollover acronym: IRA. Individual Retirement Account
10. __ lady: gin and grenadine cocktail: PINK. Not my "cup of tea". Grenadine syrup is a cocktail mixer made from fresh pomegranate juice reduced with sugar—like simple syrup with a hint of citrus flavor and stunning red color. When mixed with Gin it produces a PINK color. PINK lady is also a type of apple. I do like these
11. Fluency: EASE. Thesaurus lists this as the seventh of synonyms. Friday's are like that ...
12. Make an appearance: SHOW. I guess you could say that the horse that ran third in a race "made an appearance" (WIN, PLACE, SHOW)
14. Starbucks size: GRANDE. For the record, I LOVE coffee; I also dislike Starbucks. I think their coffee is not worth what it sells for. But, they're among the highest grossing businesses ($26.5 billion) and employed over 350,000 persons, pre-pandemic. GRANDE is the Italian word for "large", and at Starbucks this relates to a 16 oz. cup. Their original sizes were called "short" and "tall" (8 oz. and 12 oz. respectively). VENTE (Italian for "twenty") is the name of the cup size larger than GRANDE. Need more info? Here is a link
18. Baking powder amt.: TSP. I do a lot of the cooking in our house, but very little baking of breads/pastry. So in looking up "baking powder", King Arthur had a few recipes. I pulled up the one in the link and noticed that it calls for a TBSP of baking powder, not a TSP . . . what we bloggers don't do to make sure that the clues match the answers!!
20. Sock part: TOE. I've never seen the need nor attraction for having socks such as these. But I do get a kick out of the cartoon Pickles. This one also mentions a "TOE"
24. Hot message: SEXT. Moe-l'ick (a remake):
The new pastor was heard to disparage
As engaged couple showed him their phone message,
"Is that all you kids got?
Those don't seem very hot!
I will only perform same SEXT marriage."
26. Beat decisively: ROUT. One could say that in Super Bowl(tm) LV, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ROUTed the KC Chiefs
28. Lucy of "Kill Bill": LIU. I was about to "LIU" and then I realized . . .
29. Tennis great Rosewall: KEN. Kenneth (KEN) Robert Rosewall (born 2 November 1934) is a former world top-ranking amateur and professional tennis player from Australia. He won a record 23 tennis Majors, including 8 Grand Slam singles titles and, before the Open Era, a record 15 Pro Slam titles; overall, he reached a record 35 Major finals.
30. Orlando-to-Miami dir.: SSE. 3-1/2 hours (in really good traffic conditions) according to Google Maps, if you follow Florida's Turnpike (and use SunPass). Any of our FL folks care to comment??
31. Main bases: Abbr.: HQS. Short for "Headquarters". The word has been around since the 1600's, from the "most important or principal" meaning of head and quarters, originally "military dwelling place," and later "lodgings."
32. Deere rival: TORO. I usually associate the (John) Deere Corporation with farm equipment and TORO Corporation with lawn mowers, but specifically for riding lawn mowers, they do rival one another. This guy seems to like the Deere machine better
33. Ararat craft: ARK. Noah's ARK, not the ARK of the Covenant. Mount Ararat is one possible location of where it came to rest; Mount Tendürek is the other. Most cruciverbalists have heard of Ararat, though
34. Shoddy: BAD. Shoddy merchandise is indeed BAD
35. Top player: ACE. One of many popular 3-letter words in x-word puzzles
36. TV pioneer: RCA. Is it really possible that RCA has been defunct now for about 35 years? Am I THAT OLD? Another fact I learned is that RCA designed and developed the iconic test pattern image below. I guess since I do remember the image appearing on our first TV set, I am officially "OLD"!
37. Actress Chaplin: OONA. Crossword constructors LOVE using 4 letter words which contain 3 vowels. Especially in "Down" fills
38. Utter nonsense: FOLDEROL. Wow! I haven't seen nor used this word in ... well, a long time. Crossword Tracker cites the use of it in the LA Times in this puzzle
40. Deplorable sort: WRETCH. Informally, perhaps, but the origin of the word suggests either the Old English "wrecca" which means a banished person, or the German "Recke" which means warrior or hero
42. "Eureka!": AHA. Supposedly, Archimedes was so thrilled and excited with a discovery that he immediately hopped out of his bath and ran onto the streets to tell the king, shouting loudly 'Eureka!' Which discovery was it, though? Watch the video below and you'll find out!
43. Some decafs: SANKA'S. I think it works with an apostrophe, but as a plural? Not so sure. SANKA brand decaffeinated coffee has been around for a long time. If you remember RCA, you'll remember SANKA
44. Lanvin scent since 1927: ARPEGE. For the curious, click here
45. Accustomed (to): INURED. Normally used to describe an unpleasant "custom"; as in, "the people of Syria are INURED to violence and war"
46. Summer hrs.: DST. Daylight Savings Time. We don't have that here in Arizona
48. Blush wines: ROSES. Technically, spelled Rosé, but I rarely see diacritical marks in Crossword Puzzles. PINK and Rosé, both appeared in today's puzzle. As your resident Sommelier I could wax poetic about rosé wines, but the simple statement is that the majority of them are produced from red grape varietals. It is the pigments in the grape skins that give wine its color. In order to produce a rosé, the skin contact during the fermentation process lasts for mere hours rather than for a couple of weeks, and the resulting color is more "blush". So yes, Virginia, you can actually make a rosé from Cabernet Sauvignon!
49. Minos' kingdom: CRETE. An island/emirate south of Greece. Apparently it's a "hot spot" for earthquakes
50. Formal decrees: DICTA. Plural of "dictum"
51. When Lear disowns Cordelia: ACT I. Sure, why not?!
52. Young passenger on the 33-Down: SHEM. SHEM was one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible as well as in Islamic literature. The children of Shem were Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram, in addition to daughters; this, according to Wikipedia among other sources.
SHEMP, on the other hand, was my brother:
53. Rattletrap: HEAP. Well, since we had RCA and SANKA in today's puzzle to bring back memories to we OLD folks, why not "rattletrap: HEAP", too? And whilst I did not verify the origin of the word "rattletrap", many of the images I saw were of Jeeps; specifically, Army Jeeps. Which of course brought to mind this Moe-ku:
I dislike Army Jeeps.
Riding around in them, just
Gives me the Willys.
57. Spanish "that": ESO. Masculine:ESO; Feminine:ESA I thought of the feminine spelling at first
59. Enzyme suffix: ASE. And how fitting that in a puzzle about CHEESE, we would end our recap with a suffix (ASE) that has several applications in the production of CHEESE
I hope that I met all of your "grate" expectations. Thanks for staying a-"rind". . .
