Thursday, June 1, 2023, Ed Sessa

 

 *Basta Pasta

Today's constructor is Dr. Ed Sessa.  I had the privilege of reviewing his last outing on December 15, 2022, and this marks his 139th appearance here.  Today he carefully selects six types of Italian pastas and pairs them with the professionals most likely to choose them.  And from the plethora of pasta shapes from which Dr. Ed could have chosen, the absence of this one will delight some ...

Anelli

Plus there are no asterisks (*), obscure P&P, or reveal to spoil your solving fun! So let's dig in ...

Here are the themers with only the PRO TIPS highlighted.   Recipes are no extra charge ...

18A. Dentist's pasta choice?: CAPELLINI.   But before you have a CAP put on you have to see an Endodontist who might prefer CANALONI.  But I'm sure they'll both prefer their pasta Al Dente.  Capellini originated in Northern Italy ...

Capellini

24A. Jeweler's pasta choice?: GEMELLI.  From the southern Italian region of Puglia ...

Gemelli
w/Garlic and Cream

31A. Lawyer's pasta choice?:  TORTELLI.  CSOs to Jason and Susan.  AKA TORTELLINI, this pasta is from Tuscany .

Tuscan Tortellini
w/Spinach and Sausage

..
46A. Trucker's pasta choice?: RIGATONI.  Here's a pasta made for long hauls.  Originally from South/Central Italy, it has a tubular shape without the slanted ends you see in PENNE pasta.

Vodka Rigatoni

51A. Electrician's pasta choice?: FUS[E]ILLI.  The classic spiral shaped pasta.  Here's a simple recipe you're not likely to blow ...

Fusilli
w/butter and sliced veggies

58A. Nail technician's pasta choice?: MANICOTTI.  MANICOTTI pasta are large, tubular shells,  traditionally stuffed with a cheese mixture and baked in a tomato sauce.  They're rumored to be one of Lucina's favorites!

Manicotti
(also one of Teri's favorites)

Add an Insalata Verde with a vinaigrette dressing, a hardy Italian bread and a bottle of Chianti to any of these and you've got dinner!

Here's the grid ...
 

Here's the rest ...

Across:

1. Basic bags: SACKS.

6. Place for a marshmallow roast: CAMP.  I think Dr. Ed has thrown in the perfect dessert for your pasta dinner ...

Smores

10. Response to a shock: GASP.

14. Pay for: TREAT.

15. Bow-toting deity: AMOR.  Constructors seem to prefer EROS.  Both have a VTCR of 50% but the latter can also perp plurals.

16. Eclectic assortment: OLIO.  Like the typical crossword puzzle.

17. Main artery: AORTA.

18. [Theme clue]

20. Intel-gathering gp.: NSA.  No comment.

21. Malarkey: ROT.  ROT is defined as "language, behavior, or ideas that are absurd and contrary to good sense, e.g.  I won't stand here and listen to such rot".  Malarkey comes in as number 11 in this list of synonyms for ROT.

23. Tater: SPUD.

24. [Theme clue]

26. Cheesy bagel choice: ASIAGO.  This would also make a good bread choice with your pasta dinner.

30. Picked out, in a way: IDED.

31. [Theme clue]

33. Advice for the easily distracted: FOCUS.  Doesn't seem to work for me.

35. Smoke, say: CURE.  Smoking is the process of flavoring, browning, cooking, or preserving food by exposing it to smoke from burning or smoldering material, most often wood. Meat, fish, and lapsang souchong tea are often smoked.  It could also be used as an implosive therapy for curing the nicotine habit (i.e. chain smoking until you're sick of it), but nothing works like cold turkey.

36. Kal __ pet food: KAN.  The origin of the brand name KAL KAN seems shrouded in mystery.  They've been around under one owner or another since 1936.  For those with esoteric tastes in pet food names, here's their history.

37. Go on the __: LAM.

38. Devices that coat roads during snowstorms: SALTERS.  It turns out there is more than one way to SALT a road: winter road treatment methods explained.

41. Genesis craft: ARK.  In the Biblical story of Noah in Genesis the ARK is a safe space to save pairs of all of the animal species in the world (and presumably the plants as well!), while riding out the flood that God sends to destroy the Earth  (Gen. 6:9-9:17).  Not only did they survive, but the word ARK itself survived to symbolize a place of refuge or sanctuary.  The ARK of the Covenant sheltered the Torah (the Books of Moses) (Ex. 25:10-22; 37:1-9),  This ARK in turn was sheltered in the "Tent of Meeting" known as the TABERNACLE (Ex. 25-3l).  The term Tabernacle survives in Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches as the place reserved for the Eucharist (consecrated communion hosts) safe within the Sanctuary.

Interestingly, the exact specifications for building Noah's ARK, the ARK of the Covenant, and the Jewish Tabernacle are all provided in the Bible references above.  The Mennonites have used these plans to produce an exact replica of the Tabernacle in Lancaster, PA, which is worth a visit if you're in the area.  An even more enterprising group has constructed a full scale replica of Noah's Ark in Williamstown, KY. 

Ark Encounter Museum

42. NCAA football powerhouse: OSU.  Ohio State University aka The Buckeyes.

43. Girl: LASS.

44. Folk artist Grandma __: MOSES.  Anna Mary Robertson Moses (September 7, 1860 – December 13, 1961), or Grandma MOSES, was an American folk artist. She began painting in earnest at the age of 78 and is a prominent example of a newly successful art career at an advanced age. As the preceding Wiki article said, some of her winter scenes remind me of the great Peter Bruegel the Elder.  Here is a selection of her paintings. 

 

 

Grandma Moses

 

46. [Theme clue]

49. Blue ox of folklore: BABE.  BABE was Paul Bunyan's ox.  This is often referred to as a TALL TALE, but I think it was just because Paul was very tall.  A CSO to C.C. and CanadianEh!

Paul and Babe

50. Maintain: ASSERT.

51. [Theme clue]

54. Target of a new czar in New York City: RATS.  I read somewhere that he's going to insist that all trash be put out in metal trash cans, not plastic bags.  Novel idea.

56. Flue residue: ASH.

57. Point value of "five" in Scrabble: TEN.  Here are the tiles.  You do the math ...

58. [Theme clue]

62. Open, as a computer file: UNZIP.  Not just any computer file, but a ZIP file.

64. Actor Idris: ELBA.  He wouldn't have been Napoleon's favorite actor.  But ELBA got some idea about what Napoleon had experienced on the island of Elba when he portrayed Nelson Mandela in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and was exiled for life to the prison on the island of Robben off the South Africa coast NW of Cape Town ...

Here are the key steps that led to the end of apartheid and Nelson Mandela's eventual release.

65. Precious: DEAR.

66. Shard: PIECE.

67. Get well: HEAL.

68. Nashville's Grand Ole __: OPRY.  Here's the Saturday night cast with Will The Circle be Unbroken (background and lyrics)

My Father used to sing that song.

69. Wrap brand: SARAN.

Down:

1. Classic Ford, familiarly: STANG.  TBIRD didn't perp.

2. Came up: AROSE.

3. Coffee drinker's collection, perhaps: CERAMIC MUGS.  The word MUG is thought to derive originally from MUGG, a Scandinavian word for a drinking vessel. In the 18th and 19th centuries, mugs produced in Staffordshire, England were often decorated with caricatures on the face of ceramic jugs (more likely used for drinking ALE). This may have led to the use of "mug" as a synonym for an ugly face and thence to the term "mug shot".  Here is a typical 19th Century MUG, alias a TOBY JUG.  Looks SUSPICIOUS doesn't he?

Here are some MUGS from my studio that have survived daily abuse over the years ...

Ceramic Mugs

4. Actress Dennings: KAT.  Katherine Victoria Litwack (born June 13, 1986), known professionally as KAT Dennings, is an American actress. She is known for her starring roles as Max Black in the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls (2011–2017) and as Darcy Lewis in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero films Thor (2011), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), and the Disney+ miniseries WandaVision (2021).

Kat Dennings

5. Like a cloudy night: STARLESS.

6. Nopales, in Mexican cooking: CACTI.  AKA "Cactus Paddles" and another CSO to Lucina.  Here's a recipe ...
 

Nopales Salad

7. Revealing session on Reddit, for short: AMA. E.g., "Is the abbreviation for Ask Me Anything crosswordese?"

8. Swabbing tools: MOPS.

9. Tax form expert: PREPARER. Whoops, wrong clue! ...

10. Actress Hawn: GOLDIE.  GOLDIE really is just a DUMB BLOND, but here she's working with one the best straight men in the business who makes her look like a SMART BLOND ... 😉😉😉

11. "Aladdin" prince: ALI.

12. Transgression: SIN.  There are seven deadly sins, although they are not all actually mentioned together in the Bible.  Perhaps they're considered deadly because those who commit them might slide into more serious sins such as murder, theft, and adultery. 

13. Hawaiian dish with a yogurtlike consistency: POI.

19. One of the deadly 12-Downs: LUST.  Not all LUST is a SIN, but it can still bring you sorrow ...

22. On in years: OLD.

25. Student's email suffix: EDU.

27. Brand with a "spicy meatball" commercial: ALKA SELTZER.  Here it is, fresh from the Commercial HOF ...

28. Harsh light: GLARE.

29. Pig sounds: OINKS.

31. Rwandan people: TUTSI.  In 1994 just 100 days, government forces, militias and regular citizens carried out a genocide against the Tutsi social and ethnic minority population. An estimated 800,000 to one million Tutsi were killed, and mass sexual violence was committed against Tutsi women and girls by Hutu partisans.  A Hutu hotel manager named Paul Rusesabagina is credited with saving some 1,200 Tutsi people during the  genocide.  The film Hotel Rwanda (2005) starring Don Cheadle tells the story ...

32. Loads in lodes: ORES.

33. Growing things: FLORA.

34. "Champagne Supernova" band: OASIS.  OASIS was an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991. Originally known as the Rain, the group initially consisted of Liam Gallagher, Paul Arthurs, Paul McGuigan and Tony McCarroll. Liam's older brother Noel later joined as a fifth member, finalising the group's core lineup.  Here's their biggest hit, Wonderwall ...

35. Close-knit group: CLAN.

39. Tons on one's plate: A LOT TO DO.

40. Bad collisions: SMASH UPS.  A horrible SMASH UP occurred in  COLLISION, a British TV mini-series about a major road accident and a group of people who have never met, but who all share one devastating moment. Amid the tangle of twisted metal and emotional turmoil wrought by the tragedy of a crash of a shocking scale, are the stories of the victims, and the impact of the accident on their lives.  The crash opens a number of startling revelations as stories of everything from government cover-ups and smuggling, to embezzlement and murder start to unravel.   The DI is played by Douglas Henshall, who you might recognize as Jimmy Pérez in the Shetland series ...

45. __-Wan Kenobi: OBI.  Obi-Wan Kenobi is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. Within the original trilogy, Obi-Wan is a Jedi Master as a supporting character and is portrayed by English actor Alec Guinness.

Obi-Wan Kenobi

47. Old reception aid: AERIAL.  In case you've forgotten what they look like, below is an AERIAL for receiving radio signals.  The two AERIAL versions used for TV reception were sometimes called "Rabbit Ears".  My son recently expressed a wish for an FM radio to use by their outdoor fire pit for cookouts.  I found this one, which had been bequeathed to us by Teri's Dad, but hadn't been switched on in years.  I put 3 new batteries in it, switched it on, tuned it to WBJC-FM and bingo, my son can chill to classical music while he's grillin'!

FM Radio

48. __ II razor: TRAC.

49. Freedom Riders transport: BUS.  Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate BUSES into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional.

51. Wand wielder: FAIRY.  So those folks that frisk you at the airport are really just mythical creatures?

52. German camera: LEICA.  Apparently they haven't been put out of business by cell phones.

53. Hard to erase: IN PEN.  I don't solve crosswords IN PEN because it makes it hard to erase mistakes.

55. Each cha in cha-cha-cha: STEP.  Here are the contestants at a cha-cha-cha competition in Austria showing us some serious STEPS ...

58. Tepid response: MEH.  A MEHTA clue?

59. Strong beer: ALE. 

60. Org. with Cavs and Mavs: NBA.

61. Road gunk: TAR.

63. Long of "The Best Man": NIA.  NIA Talita Long (born October 30, 1970) is an American actress. Best known for her work in Black cinema, Long rose to prominence after starring in the film Boyz n the Hood (1991), and for her portrayal of Beullah "Lisa" Wilkes on the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1991–1995).

Nia Long

Cheers,
Bill

As always, thanks to Teri for proof reading, for her constructive criticism.

waseeley

* BASTA is Italian for "enough".  If you're ever in Maryland and have a hankering for pasta and seafood, we recommend Basta Pasta, in Eldersburg, MD.  We always have to take home a doggie bag with the leftovers.