Thursday, April 4, 2024, Rich Katz, Katy Steinmetz

 

 Food for Thought 

Food is a problem in America: too much, not enough, or not getting to the right people: but thanks to one of our regular solvers  there's at least a partial solution to that last one, as we'll see at the end of this theme explanation.  Today's constructors are veteran Rich Katz,  who has constructor chops, but is new to the Corner and Katy Steinmetz, a former journalist for Time Magazine.  This is also Katy's debut in the LA Times, but if she is anything like her namesake Charles, we can expect her puzzle to be brilliant.

Our constructors have stretched their foodie clues into in the language idioms (no circles, no stars, and no reveal -- these fills are the 4 longest phrases, so these must be the themers right? ...

17A. "Let's pass on the supersize": NOT A BIG DEAL.  I was afraid that this South Park clip would be NSFC ("Not Suitable For  Crosswords"), but was relieved to find that it's ok.  It's really a shame that some people think only of themselves ...

28A. "The chef made this as the plat du jour, right?": ISNT THAT SPECIAL.

47A. "I don't want my latte to be a venti": THATS A TALL ORDER.  Now here's some real FOOD FOR THOUGHT -- why can't we eliminate childhood hunger in America?  Why is THAT A TALL ORDER?  And a special CSO to PICARD for alerting us just last week to a much more important Jeff Bridges film than TRON -- A Place at the Table ...

Here's Picard's comment to last week's Thursday review and here is the link to No Kid Hungry: End Child Hunger in America, a campaign started by Jeff Bridges. And a CSO to Wendybird, who is already a monthly contributor.

61A. "We recommend takeout": ITS GOOD TO GO.  I'm full, so let's wrap this up and take the rest of it with us -- here's the grid ...

Across:

1. "You said it!": YEAH.  So you agree then?

5. 2,000 pounds: ONE TON. 

11. Question marks: IFS.

14. Vogue rival: ELLE.  Today's French lesson: SHE.  ELLE is a worldwide women's magazine of French origin that offers a mix of fashion and beauty content, and society and lifestyle. This month's "It girl" is Victoria Ceretti.  Rumor has it that SHE and LEO are an item.

15. __ press: small appliance: PANINI.  A panino (Italian: [paˈniːno], meaning 'small bread', 'bread roll') or panini (pl.) is a sandwich made with Italian bread (such as ciabatta and michetta), usually served warm after grilling (in a PANINI press no less) or toasting.  We're out of counter space for another gadget.  We just use a toaster oven.

16. Carnival locale: RIO.  Today's Portuguese lesson: "river" and  a mononym for the city in Brazil, which we visited just last week. 

17. [Theme clue].

19. "Parks and __": REC.  Parks and Recreation (also known as Parks and REC) is an American political satire mockumentary television series starring Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, a perky, mid-level bureaucrat in the Parks Department of the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana.  The series aired on NBC from April 9, 2009, to February 24, 2015, for 125 episodes, over seven seasons ...

20. [Wake me when it's over]: SNORE.  Hold in there folks, we've got a lot more clues to cover. 😀

21. Summer hrs. in St. Louis: CDT.

22. Burkina __: FASO.  Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Ivory Coast to the southwest. As of 2021, the country had an estimated population of 20,321,378. Previously called Republic of Upper Volta (1958–1984), it was renamed Burkina Faso by President Thomas Sankara. Its citizens are known as Burkinabè, and its capital and largest city is Ouagadougou.

23. Hot mess: SNAFU. An acronym which will remain undefined. 😁

26. "There just wasn't any alternative": I HAD TO.  "There's always an alternative" -- of course it may be wrong!

28. [Theme clue].

32. Fibs: LIES.

33. Dethrone: OUST.

34. Meadowland: LEA.

35. __ of attrition: LAW.  This article describes Law of Attrition as a phrase that defines the rate at which an object or person will wear out over time. It states that every system deteriorates eventually, at a rate based on the combined additive effects of many small causes. The Law of Attrition applies to everything, even mechanical objects like cars and machines. It sound a lot like an application of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, an important law of physics that states that  the entropy (disorder) of a system increases over time.

36. Loc. of the Met and the Mets: NYC.

37. Darts player's asset: AIM.  For an American, Ted Lasso turns out to have an unexpectedly good AIM (as Ted is quick to point out this scene contains a bit of ungentlemanly language) ...

39. A-one: TOP.

42. Take to court: SUE.  Or one who starts a fist fight (a tad ungentlemanly as well). 

44. Fades away: EBBS.

46. Formally turn over: CEDE.

47. [Theme clue]

51. Trained retrievers?: VALETS.  😀

52. Itsy-bitsy: TEENY.  This version of the old Brian Hyland classic is rated completely G and these kids are really enjoying themselves completely clothed ...

53. Blows away: AWES.  This is the verb form: "to AWE".  Here are some synonyms for the noun form ...

... which seem to have fallen out of fashion.

54. [Snicker]: HEH.

56. Channel that airs floor debates: CSPAN.  A great place to watch paint dry.

60. Score better than a bogey: PAR.  A CSO to all the duffers on the Corner.

61. [Theme clue]

64. Compost bin bit: PIT. 

65. "Door's open!": COME IN.

66. Made like: APED.

67. Bro kin: SIS.

68. Rings mournfully: KNELLS. 

"I go and it is done; the bell invites me.

Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell

That summons thee to heaven or to hell."

Macbeth - Act 2, Scene 1

Lady Macbeth has just rung a bell, the signal that it’s time for Macbeth to kill Duncan. A knell is the solemn ringing of a church bell to announce someone’s death.

69. What's more?: LESS.  This perped, but I had to look up what it meant.

Down:

1. Desires: YENS.

2. North Carolina college town: ELON.  Finally a better clue than you know who.  Seems like a nice town.

3. Palo __, California: ALTO. Today's Spanish lesson: "tall stick", and the name of a famous Redwood Tree.

4. Publishing family: HEARSTS. The family started with George Hearst (September 3, 1820 – February 28, 1891), who made his money in the mining business.  His son William Randolph Hearst Sr. (April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories.

William Randolph Hearst
circa 1910

5. Maker of Infinite Shine nail polish: OPI.  A CSO to Lucina!  It lasts forever.  This one is called Makeout-side ...

6. Badger: NAG.

7. Most-cooked parts of a roast: END CUTS.

8. Drew a conclusion?: TIED.

9. How reporters might act: ON A TIP.  Beginning in June of 1972 a series of tips regarding the most famous political scandal in modern times were provided to Washington Post investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, by a tipster known then only as Deep Throat.  Woodward and Bernstein eventually wrote a book about their investigations called All the President's Men, which was later made into a film ...

  10. Nada: NIL.

11. Exposed to ultraviolet light, say: IRRADIATED.  UV IRRADIATION can be used as a means of sterilizing surfaces, liquids, air, and rooms and was recommended by the EPA during the COVID19 pandemic.

12. Quinceañera, for one: FIESTA.  The honoree at the celebration of a young Latina's 15th birthday.  The celebration is a FIESTA, but the word  Quinceañera proper refers to the young lady.

Quinceañera at a fiesta in Santa Fe, NM

13. "Love it!": SO COOL.

18. Out of shape: BENT.  Also murder mystery slang for a corrupt cop.

22. Watch part: FACE.

24. "Hey, sailor!": AHOY.  I'm tempted to sail with this, but I won't. 😁

25. Spigot: FAUCET.

27. Bridge feature: HELM.  Also Levon HELM, the drummer and singer for Dylan's old backup group The Band (a CSO to CanadianEh!),  .  Here he sings The Weight, the enigmatic song  by Robbie Robertson from their debut album Music from Big Pink...

Some thoughts on the meaning of the lyrics

28. Feeling green, perhaps: ILL.

29. "Chandelier" singer: SIA.  Sia Kate Isobelle Furler (born 18 December 1975) is an Australian singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Adelaide, she started her career as a singer in the acid jazz band Crisp in the mid-1990s.  I found the Chandelier video to be a bit too acrobatic, but Snowman was kind of cute ...

30. Some phone messages: NEWS ALERTS. 

31. Where a groom may walk down the aisle: STABLE. 😀.

36. __ egg: NEST.

38. Beachy spot: ISLE.

40. "__ to My Family": 1994 hit for The Cranberries: ODE.  One of the rewards of reviewing crosswords is renewing old friends ...

41. Part of rpm: PER.

43. Four Corners people: UTES.  UTE are the indigenous, or Native American people, of the Ute tribe and culture among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. They had lived in sovereignty in the regions of present-day Utah and Colorado.  In addition to their ancestral lands within Colorado and Utah, their historic hunting grounds extended into current-day Wyoming, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico. The tribe also had sacred grounds outside their home domain that were visited seasonally.  The contemporary number of UTE members is only about 3000, but they are still very active in businesses such as cattle raising, oil, and natural gas.

45. Body wash option: BATH GEL.

46. Chandelier glass: CRYSTAL.  A clecho to 29D?

47. Streaming options: TV APPS.  For people into really small screens.

48. State with two official languages: HAWAII.  English was the second, the first was  ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi,  (pronunciation.)  The latter was used in Hawaii's public education system starting in 1840, but was later banned after the overthrow of the Hawaii government by private interests in the United States in 1898.  Beginning in 1985, after the number of native speakers had dwindled to less than 3 dozen, efforts got underway to revive the speaking of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi.  In 2010 the census reported that 24,000 households identified Hawaiian as their dominant language.

A family of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi speakers

49. Actor Kutcher: ASHTON.  Christopher Ashton Kutcher (born February 7, 1978) is an American actor, producer and entrepreneur. Kutcher began his acting career portraying Michael Kelso in the Fox sitcom That '70s Show (1998–2006). He made his film debut in the romantic comedy Coming Soon (1999), followed by the comedy film Dude, Where's My Car? (2000), which was his first box office success.

Ashton Kutcher

50. Like most music, once: ON CD.  I have scads of these, mostly classical, but also in many other genres (except RAP). But I rarely listen to them, except during fund drives for WBJC.

55. Vampire played by Elizabeth Reaser in the "Twilight" films: ESME.  Vampire movies don't really cut it for me, but if you feast on this sort of stuff, this article on ESME in the Twilight Saga Wiki might keep you enthralled for several lifetimes!🧛

Esme Cullen
played by Elizabeth Reaser

57. The bishop of Rome: POPE.  A bishop is a spiritual descendant of one of original Apostles. The first Bishop of Rome was Saint Peter, although he wasn't called POPE (literally "Papa" in Latin) during his lifetime.  Including Peter there have been a total of 266 Popes, as listed in the Pontifical Yearbook.  The current holder of that position is Argentinian Jorge Mario Bergoglio,  the first Pope from South America and the first to take the name of Francis, after the founder of the Franciscan Order (although Bergoglio was in the Jesuit Order before his elevation to the Papacy)  ...

Pope Francis

58. Years and years: AGES.

59. Gestures of assent: NODS.

61. "Gross!": ICK.

62. Sesame __: OIL.  Sesame OIL is a key ingredient in the dish Pine Nut and  Corn Stir Fry, inspired by a picture in one of  C.C's reviews.  The sesame oil is used to sauté the pine nuts.

63. Switch positions: ONS. This review has officially switched OFF.

Cheers,
Bill

And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.

waseeley