Day: June 16, 2024

Advertisement

Constructed by: Katy Steinmetz & Rich Katz
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: Get Cooking

Themed answers are common phrases encountered when COOKING, but reinterpreted in a “punny” way:

• 22A Instruction for the host of a comedic takedown? : ROAST UNTIL TENDER
• 37A Meditate ahead of a big tennis match? : CHILL BEFORE SERVING
• 56A An icy winter? : SEASON WITH SALT
• 65A Open a joint savings account? : MIX THE DOUGH
• 77A Toss and turn all night? : STIR FREQUENTLY
• 96A Defect to the prosecution midtrial? : FLIP HALFWAY THROUGH
• 115A What the best mystery writers know how to do? : FINISH WITH A TWIST

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 22m 16s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Secret repository : CACHE

A cache is a secret supply. We imported the term “cache” into English from French-Canadian trappers in the 17th century. Back then, “cache” was slang for “hiding place for stores”, derived from the French verb “cacher” meaning “to hide”.

6 Speed-of-sound ratio : MACH

The Mach number of a moving object (like say an airplane) is its speed relative to the speed of sound. A plane traveling at Mach 2, for example, is moving at twice the speed of sound. The term “Mach” takes its name from the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach who published a groundbreaking paper in 1877 that even predicted the “sonic boom”.

10 Overactors : HAMS

The word “ham”, describing a performer who overacts, is a shortened form of “hamfatter” and dates back to the late 1800s. “Hamfatter” comes from a song in old minstrel shows called “The Ham-Fat Man”. It seems that a poorly performing actor was deemed to have the “acting” qualities of a minstrel made up in blackface.

18 Buenos __ : AIRES

Buenos Aires is the capital of Argentina, and is located on the estuary of the Ria de la Plata. As it is a port city, the people of Buenos Aires are known as porteños (“people of the port”). The name “Buenos Aires” can be translated from Spanish as “fair winds”.

19 Nueve menos uno : OCHO

In Spanish, “ocho” (eight) is “nueve menos uno” (nine minus one).

20 Tyler Perry character : MADEA

Tyler Perry is an actor, comedian and writer who is perhaps best known in front of the camera for his drag performances as a tough elderly woman named Madea. Perry also created the sitcom “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne” that ran for eight seasons from 2006 until 2012.

21 Wolfe of “Three at Wolfe’s Door” : NERO

“Three at Wolfe’s Door” is a 1960 collection of three novellas by Rex Stout that feature his armchair detective Nero Wolfe. The three stories are:

1. “Poison à la Carte”
2. “Method Three for Murder”
3. “The Rodeo Murder”

26 1980s sitcom ET : ALF

“ALF” is a sitcom that aired in the late eighties. The title character is a hand-puppet, and supposedly an alien named Gordon Shumway from the planet Melmac. The alien crash-landed into the house of amateur radio enthusiast Willie Tanner. Tanner renamed the intruder “ALF”, standing for “alien life form”.

27 __ board : SOUNDING

The original sounding board is a structure, usually made from wood, that is placed above or behind a speaking platform to help project the voice. We use the term “sounding board” figuratively to describe a person on whom one evaluates an idea or opinion.

28 Whole-grain cereal brand : KASHI

Kashi is a food company that primarily produces breakfast cereals. Founded in 1984, the name “Kashi” is a melding of “kashruth” (i.e. kosher), and “Kushi”. Michio Kushi helped to introduce the macrobiotic diet to the US in the fifties.

30 Andes lake : TITICACA

Lake Titicaca is the largest lake in South America, and the highest navigable lake in the world (navigable by “large” commercial vessels). Lake Titicaca is located in the Andes, on the border between Peru and Bolivia.

33 Ballet __ : FLAT

Ballet flats are women’s shoes derived from ballet slippers, and so have no heel at all. They are also called dolly shoes.

35 Ford Field team : LIONS

Ford Field is the football stadium that is home to the Detroit Lions. It is an indoor stadium, and was opened for business in 2002. The naming rights were purchased at that time by the Ford Motor Company.

42 Washington’s “Lilac City” : SPOKANE

In the early 1900s, lilac bushes were introduced into Spokane, where they thrived. In the early 1930s, a local garden club planted lilac bushes throughout the city, ultimately leading to
Spokane earning the nickname “Lilac City”.

45 Singers Green and Yankovic : ALS

Al Green is a gospel and soul music singer. He was born in Arkansas, where he started out as a gospel singer and moved into R&B. In 1974, Green was assaulted by a girlfriend who burned him badly on much of his body by pouring boiling grits over him (and then she committed suicide). The incident changed Green’s life and he turned to the church, becoming a pastor in Memphis in 1976. He continued to record music, but never really enjoyed the same success that he had in the early seventies with hits like “Let’s Stay Together” and “I’m Still In Love With You”.

“Weird Al” Yankovic is a singer-songwriter who is noted for writing and performing parodies of popular songs. Of the 150 or so such songs, the best known are probably “Eat It” (parodying “Beat It” by Michael Jackson) and “Like a Surgeon” (parodying “Like a Virgin” by Madonna).

47 “Leaping lizards!” : I SAY!

“Leapin’ lizards!” and “Gee whiskers” are two catchphrases of Little Orphan Annie.

51 __ House: “Jane Eyre” setting : MOOR

In the novel “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë, the title character meets up with a clergyman named St John Eyre Rivers, at the remote Moor House. She discovers that he is her cousin. Eventually, St John proposes marriage to Jane, asking her to travel with him to India. Jane rejects the offer.

56 An icy winter? : SEASON WITH SALT

Halite is the mineral form of sodium chloride, and is also known as “rock salt”. It is used to melt ice, as salt water has a lower freezing point than pure water. Adding salt to icy sidewalks can therefore cause any ice to melt (as long as the ambient temperature isn’t too low). A mixture of halite and ice can also be used to cool things below the freezing point of water, perhaps to make ice cream.

60 Reuters peer : UPI

Founded in 1958, United Press International (UPI) used to be one of the biggest news agencies in the world, sending out news by wire to the major newspapers. UPI ran into trouble with the change in media formats at the end of the twentieth century and lost many of its clients as the afternoon newspapers shut down due to the advent of television news. UPI, which once employed thousands, still exists today but with just a fraction of that workforce.

The Reuters news agency was formed way back in 1851 by German-born, British entrepreneur Paul Julius Reuter. Reuter had checked the feasibility of a news service for a couple of years prior to launching the agency, and the technologies he used for his study were the telegraph and carrier pigeons!

64 The “B” of BFF : BEST

Best friend forever (BFF)

74 Perch output : ROE

Perch are carnivorous, freshwater fish that are found all over the world. Perch are particularly common in the Great Lakes, and in Lake Erie.

75 Antidiscrimination inits. : EEO

“Equal Employment Opportunity” (EEO) is a term that has been around since 1964 when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was set up by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII of the Act prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin or religion.

86 Furniture designer Charles : EAMES

Charles and Ray Eames were a husband-wife team of furniture designers. One of the more famous of their designs is the Eames lounge chair that comes with an ottoman. This trendy piece of furniture featured in a late episode of the television show “Frasier”. In the show, Frasier’s Dad remarks that the Eames chair is so comfortable that he might have gotten rid of his tatty old recliner a long time ago.

88 NBA star Westbrook, to fans : RUSS

Russell Westbrook is an NBA basketball player who was drafted by the Seattle Supersonics just 6 days before the team relocated and became the Oklahoma City Thunder.

90 Australian mine finds : OPALS

97% of the world’s opals come from Australia, so it’s no surprise perhaps that the opal is the national gemstone of the country. The state of South Australia provides the bulk of the world’s production, i.e. about 80%.

91 Singer Dua __ : LIPA

Dua Lipa is a singer-songwriter and fashion model from England. She was born in London to Albanian parents, and considers her native language to be Albanian. She also speaks English with a British accent.

93 Emer. message : SOS

The combination of three dots – three dashes – three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots – pause – three dashes – pause – three dots). That said, in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so “SOS” is really only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are back-formations that were introduced after the SOS signal was adopted.

101 Petal support : SEPAL

In a flower, the sepals are the green, leaf-like structures that are “interleaved” with the petals, providing support. Prior to acting as support for the petals, the sepals protect the flower in bud.

102 Twain character : FINN

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain was first published in 1884, not here in the US but rather in England. The original launch planned for the US had to be delayed until the following year because some rascal had defaced the plate for one of the illustrations, making an obscene joke. Once the problem was spotted a new plate had to be made, and 30,000 copies already printed had to be reworked to cover up the obscenity.

107 Terrycloth wrap : TOWEL

Terry cloth is a fabric designed to absorb lots of liquid. It has relatively large loops of thread that improve the absorption properties. The larger the loop, the more thread, the better the absorption.

119 Grace period? : AMEN

A grace is a short prayer recited before or after a meal, especially in the Christian tradition. The term “grace” comes from the Latin “gratiarum actio” meaning “act of thanks”.

120 East Coast rd. : US-ONE

US Route 1 runs from Fort Kent in Maine right down to Key West in Florida.

122 Barn nestling : OWLET

Barn owls are very effective at keeping down the population of rats, and have been used for this reason for centuries. However, the use of rat poison takes a toll not only on rats, but on small mammals like voles and mice, and indeed on barn owls who feed on such creatures.

125 Condé __ : NAST

Condé Nast is a mass media corporation that has a very large portfolio of publications, including “Vogue”, “GQ”, “House and Garden”, “Golf Digest”, “Wired”, “Vanity Fair” and “The New Yorker”.

126 Cybertruck maker : TESLA

Tesla’s Cybertruck is an electric-powered pickup truck that the company unveiled in 2019. It’s a pretty futuristic design, one inspired by the flying cars in “Blade Runner” and the automobile/submarine Lotus Esprit in “The Spy Who Loved Me”.

Down

1 Measure for 90-Across : CARAT

The carat is a unit of mass equal to 200 mg (0.2 grams). It is used in sizing gemstones.

2 Garlicky emulsion : AIOLI

Aioli is a French sauce made from garlic, egg yolks, and olive oil. The word “aioli” comes from “alh”, the Provençal word for garlic, and “oli”, a Catalan word meaning “oil”.

4 Toms and drakes : HES

A male turkey is called a tom, taking its name from “tomcat”. The inference is that, like a tomcat, the male turkey is relatively wild and undomesticated, sexually promiscuous and frequently gets into fights. A female turkey is called a hen.

A male duck is a drake, and a female duck is a hen. That said, a female is sometimes just referred to as a duck!

6 Like Mr. Peanut : MONOCLED

Planters is the company with the Mr. Peanut icon. Mr. Peanut was the invention of a first-grader named Antonio Gentile, a young man who won a design contest in 1916. A remarkable achievement, I’d say …

10 Building with wings? : HANGAR

“Hangar” is a French word for “shed”. The French first started using the term to mean “shed for airplanes” in the very early 1900s.

13 Big name in baked goods : SARA LEE

In 1935, businessman Charles Lubin bought a chain of three bakeries in Chicago called Community Bake Shops, and soon expanded the operation into seven stores. Lubin introduced a cream cheesecake that he named after his daughter who was only 8-years-old at the time, Sara Lee Lubin. The cheesecake was a hit and he renamed the bakeries to Kitchen of Sara Lee. The business was bought out by Consolidated Foods in 1956, but the brand name Sara Lee persists to this day, as does Ms. Sara Lee herself who now goes by the name Sara Lee Schupf.

14 Divisive pizza topping : ANCHOVIES

Anchovies are saltwater fish that are quite small, although their adult size can vary from under an inch to over 15 inches depending on the species. Vegans should beware, as they are an ingredient in several common foods including Worcestershire sauce and Caesar salad dressing.

15 Advocate para las mujeres : FEMINISTA

In Spanish, a “feminista” (feminist) is an “advocate para las mujeres” (advocate for women).

16 One not into amorous love, briefly : ARO

Someone described as aromantic (“aro”, for short) experiences little or no romantic attraction. The opposite of aromanticism is a alloromanticism.

17 “Parks and Rec” character Swanson : RON

Ron Swanson is the boss, the director of the parks and recreation department on the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation”. He is played by actor Nick Offerman.

20 __ Park: Meta site : MENLO

Menlo Park is a town in the San Francisco Bay Area. The town was built around land previously owned by two Irish immigrants. The pair called their property “Menlo Park”, naming it for Menlo in County Galway, which is where the Irishmen came from.

Facebook, Inc. changed its name to Meta Platforms, Inc. in 2021 as part of a rebranding exercise.

23 Olympian Bolt : USAIN

Usain Bolt is a Jamaican sprinter who won the 100m and 200m race gold medals in the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games. Back in Jamaica, Bolt was really into cricket, and probably would have been a very successful fast bowler had he not hit the track instead.

29 Title of a medieval tale? : SIR

European history is often divided in three major periods: classical antiquity and the modern period, with the Middle Ages in between. Specifically, the Middle Ages are said to have begun in 476 CE, when the last Roman Emperor was deposed by a Germanic chieftain. The end date for the Middle Ages is less specific, but is about 1500 CE. The list of events signaling the end of the Middle Ages includes Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the New World (1492) and the Protestant Reformation (1517). The term “medieval” is used to describe something belonging to the Middle Ages.

32 Leafy green also known as silver beet : CHARD

Chard is a lovely leafy vegetable, in my humble opinion. It is the same species as the garden beet, but chard is grown for the leaves and beet is grown for the roots. Chard also goes by the names Swiss chard, silver beet and mangold. In some parts of Australia, it’s even known as spinach.

34 2007 Heisman winner Tim : TEBOW

Tim Tebow is a former quarterback who played mainly for the Denver Broncos and New York Jets. His relatively short professional career followed a very successful college career during which he became the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy. Tebow often gets down on one knee on the field to make a short prayer, a practice that has been dubbed “tebowing”.

36 Slug cousin : SNAIL

Snails and slugs are referred to collectively as gastropods. There are many, many species of gastropods, found both on land and in the sea. Gastropods with shells are generally described as snails, and those species without shells are referred to as slugs.

39 Disney queen who says, “You can’t marry a man you just met” : ELSA

“Frozen” is a 2013 animated feature from Walt Disney Studios that is based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Snow Queen”. The film is all about the exploits of Princess Anna, the younger sister of Elsa, Snow Queen of Arendelle. Elsa was originally intended to be a villain, a malicious and power-hungry character. By the final version of the film, Elsa had transformed from a one-dimensional villain into a fully fleshed-out protagonist.

40 Vaccine tool : SYRINGE

A vaccine used to be exclusively a modified virus administered to an individual to stimulate the immune system into developing immunity, until mRNA vaccines were introduced to combat COVID-19. British physician Edward Jenner came up with the first vaccine, injecting people with the cowpox virus in order to prevent smallpox. The term “vaccination” comes from the Latin “vaccinus” meaning “from cows”, with “vacca” translating as “cow”.

41 Ibsen’s “Peer __” : GYNT

Henrik Ibsen’s play “Peer Gynt” is based on a Scandinavian fairy tale “Per Gynt”. The incidental music to the play, written by Edvard Grieg, is some of the most approachable classical music ever written, at least in my humble opinion …

44 Musical Hall partner : OATES

Daryl Hall & John Oates are a pop music duo who were most successful in the late seventies and early eighties. They had six number-one hits, including the 1982 release “Maneater”.

52 Not bamboozled by : ONTO

It’s thought that the lovely word “bamboozle” came into English from the Scottish “bombaze” meaning “perplex”. We’ve been using “bamboozle” since the very early 1700s.

53 Prone to shrinking? : SHY

Someone who is very shy might be described as a “shrinking violet”. The violet in this case is the flower, and not the girl’s name. The plant Viola odorata is sometimes called a “shrinking violet” because of its habit of hugging the ground as it grows.

55 A bit of tea, in a way : RUMOR

“Tea” is a slang term used mainly in social media to denote “gossip”.

58 Sierra Nevada lake : TAHOE

Lake Tahoe (often referred to simply as “Tahoe”) is up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and is located right on the border between California and Nevada. It is the largest alpine lake in the country, and the largest lake in general behind the five Great Lakes. Tahoe is also the second deepest lake, with only the beautiful Crater Lake in Oregon being deeper. Given its location, there are tall casinos that sit right on the shore on the Nevada side of the state line where gambling is legal.

The American Sierra Nevada range lies in California and Nevada. The Spanish Sierra Nevada range is in Andalusia, with the name meaning “snowy range” in Spanish.

61 Clorox brand : PINE-SOL

Pine-Sol first came on the market in 1929, and is a cleaner based on pine oil.

66 HBO’s “__ Detective: Night Country” : TRUE

“True Detective: Night Country” is the fourth season of the crime drama TV show “True Detective”. Each season of the series has a different cast, and this one features Jodie Foster and Kali Reis. Season 4 is set in Alaska, with Alaska used as the filming location, along with Iceland.

69 Great Plains people : ARAPAHO

The Arapaho Native-American people lived on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They traditionally wintered in small camps in the foothills of the Rockies, and then relocated to plains in the spring where they hunted the buffalo that were gathering to give birth to their young.

71 NFL star __ Beckham Jr. : ODELL

Odell Beckham Jr. is a National Football League wide receiver from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 2014, “OBJ” made a much-applauded, one-handed catch while falling backwards to score a touchdown for the New York Giants against the Dallas Cowboys, a move that some have dubbed the greatest catch ever made.

77 “Solitude is the richness of __”: May Sarton : SELF

May Sarton was a Belgian-born American writer. She was a prolific author, and is probably best known for her 1965 novel “Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing”. Despite penning 19 novels, Sarton viewed her poetry as more significant.

81 Big drink : QUAFF

“Quaff” is both a verb and a noun. One “quaffs” (takes a hearty drink) of a “quaff” (a hearty drink).

82 Dressage pace : TROT

The equestrian sport of dressage involves demonstration of how well a horse responds to training. “Dressage” is a French word meaning “training”.

85 Sound heard twice in a lifetime? : LONG I

The word “lifetime” includes two long letters I.

95 “I’m __ here” : OUTTA

Me too. Almost done …

98 Schmoozing by boozing : WINING

To schmooze is to chat intimately. “Schmooze” is a word that comes from the Yiddish “schmusen” meaning “to chat” .

99 Ouzo flavor : ANISE

Ouzo is an apéritif from Greece that is colorless and flavored with anise. Ouzo is similar to French pastis and Italian sambuca. All three liqueurs turn cloudy with the addition of water.

105 “Moon and Half Dome” photographer Adams : ANSEL

“Moon and Half Dome” is a photograph taken by Ansel Adams in 1960 in Yosemite National Park in California.

As an avid amateur photographer, I have been a big fan of the work of Ansel Adams for many years and must have read all of his books. Adams was famous for clarity and depth in his black and white images. Central to his technique was the use of the zone system, his own invention. The zone system is a way of controlling exposure in an image, particularly when there is a high contrast in the subject. Although the technique was developed primarily for black & white film, it can even apply to digital color images. In the digital world, the main technique is to expose an image for the highlights, and one or more images for the shadows. These images can then be combined digitally giving a final photograph with a full and satisfying range of exposures.

Half Dome is a famous peak in the Yosemite National Park in California. It is a granite crest that rises to almost 5,000 feet above the floor of Yosemite Valley. Coin collectors can see Half Dome in the background of the California State Quarter, along with naturalist John Muir and the California condor.

108 “Lady Tan’s Circle of Women” novelist See : LISA

“Lady Tan’s Circle of Women” is a 2023 novel by Lisa See. It is a historical novel that is based on the true story of a female physician who lived and worked in China in the 1600s.

110 Actor McGregor : EWAN

Ewan McGregor is a very talented Scottish actor, one who got his break in the 1996 film “Trainspotting”. McGregor’s first big Hollywood role was playing the young Obi-Wan-Kenobi in the “Star Wars” prequels. Less known is his televised marathon motorcycle journey from London to New York via central Europe, Ukraine, Siberia, Mongolia and Canada. The 2004 trip was shown as “Long Way Round” on TV. McGregor did a similar trip in 2007 called “Long Way Down”, which took him and the same traveling companion from the north of Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa.

111 Tuscan setting for novelty photos : PISA

The city of Pisa sits right on the Italian coast, at the mouth of the River Arno. The city is perhaps most famous for its Leaning Tower. The tower is the campanile (bell tower) of the city’s cathedral, and it has been leaning since it was completed in 1173. Just shows you how important good foundations are …

113 Actor Kilmer : VAL

Val Kilmer’s first big leading role in a movie was playing Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s 1991 biopic “The Doors”. A few years later, Kilmer was chosen for the lead in another big production, “Batman Forever”. Things haven’t really gone as well for Kilmer since then, I’d say. Off the screen, he flirted with the idea of running for Governor of New Mexico in 2010. A Hollywood actor as a governor? Would never happen …

114 “FWIW” kin : IMO

In my opinion (IMO)

For what it’s worth (FWIW)

116 Part of enby : NON-

The non-binary (NB, enbie, enby) spectrum of gender identities covers those that do not qualify as exclusively masculine or feminine.

117 Tater __ : TOT

Ore-Ida’s founders came up with the idea for Tater Tots when they were deciding what to do with residual cuts of potato. They chopped up the leftovers, added flour and seasoning, and extruded the mix through a large hole making a sausage that they cut into small cylinders. We eat 70 million pounds of this extruded potato every year!

118 Org. that maintains kayfabe during shows : WWE

There’s kind of an unwritten agreement between professional wrestlers and fans that the obviously staged bouts are real. That agreement is referred to as “kayfabe”, a term that dates back to the 1980s, and one that some say originated in traveling carnivals.