Day: December 11, 2024

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Constructed by: Maddy Ziegler
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Dressing Down

Themed answers are all in the DOWN-direction, and each ends with a kind of salad DRESSING:

• 19D Severe scolding, and what the answers to the starred clues literally have? : DRESSING DOWN

• 8D *Salute in ancient Rome : HAIL, CAESAR! (giving “caesar dressing”)
• 14D *Scary Halloween venue : HAUNTED HOUSE (giving “house dressing”)
• 21D *Vacation spot with horses : DUDE RANCH (giving “ranch dressing”)
• 27D *Irish novelist who writes the “Dublin Murder Squad” series : TANA FRENCH (giving “French dressing”)

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

Bill’s time: 7m 31s

Bill’s errors: 2

• NERDS (Rerds!!!)
• TANA FRENCH (Tara French)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15 Competed in a turkey trot : RAN

Turkey trots are long-distance fun-runs held around Thanksgiving here in the US, and around Christmas over the UK. The “turkey” reference is to the traditional dish served at both holidays.

17 Musical set at the Kit Kat Klub : CABARET

The musical “Cabaret” is based on “I Am a Camera”, a 1951 play written by John Van Druten. In turn, the play was adapted from a novel “Goodbye to Berlin” written by Christopher Isherwood. The action in the musical takes place in the 1930s, in a seedy Berlin cabaret called the Kit Kat Klub. “Cabaret” is a great stage musical, although the 1972 film of the musical isn’t one of my favorites.

22 Border city on the Rio Grande : LAREDO

Laredo is a border city in Texas that is situated on the banks of the Rio Grande, across the border from Nuevo Laredo in Mexico.

33 2023 Academy Honorary Award recipient Bassett : ANGELA

Angela Bassett is an actress from New York whose breakthrough role was playing Tina Turner in the 1993 film about the pop icon’s life “What’s Love Got to Do with It”. Bassett married fellow actor Courtney B. Vance in 1997, having first met him while both were studying at Yale School of Drama.

Since 1950, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has presented the Academy Honorary Award, which was previously known as the Special Award and first presented in 1929. It is an award that honors achievements in the film industry that are not covered by the existing Academy Awards. Since 2009, the Honorary Award has been presented at the Governors Awards ceremony, which is separate from the main Oscars ceremony.

39 Big name in tiny candies : NERDS

The Willy Wonka Candy Company brand is owned by Nestle, and operates using licensed materials from the Roald Dahl book “Charlie & the Chocolate Factory”. “Nerds” is a name on a whole line of candy produced within the brand’s portfolio.

41 Curling __ : IRON

There are three types of hair irons:

• Curling irons … make the hair curly
• Straightening irons … make the hair straight
• Crimping irons … create crimps in the hair

Believe it or not, this bald old man used to curl his hair in his teens …

42 Four Corners state : UTAH

The Four Corners region of the US surrounds the meeting point of the four states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. It is the only point in the US that is shared by four states.

43 “Sex Education” actor Butterfield : ASA

Asa Butterfield is an actor from London whose breakthrough came with the title role in the 2008 Holocaust movie “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”. More recently, he starred in the excellent Netflix comedy-drama series “Sex Education”, alongside Gillian Anderson.

“Sex Education” is a marvelous Netflic comedy-drama show made for Netflix that stars Gillian Anderson as a single-mother and sex therapist, and Asa Butterfield as her insecure teenage son. Highly recommended …

44 “Advancing the power of facts” journalism website : AP NEWS

The Associated Press (AP) is a news agency based in New York City. AP is a non-profit cooperative that was set up by five New York newspapers in 1846 to share the cost of transmitting news. Nowadays, AP recoups most of its cost by selling news stories and related materials to newspapers all around the world, mostly outside of the US.

49 Lars of Metallica : ULRICH

Lars Ulrich is a drummer from Denmark, and one of the founding members of the American heavy metal band Metallica. Lars is the son of former professional tennis player Torben Ulrich, the oldest Davis Cup player in history.

63 Scout who may sell cookies : BROWNIE

Apparently, the first brownies were created for the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The recipe was developed by a pastry chef at the city’s Palmer House Hotel. The idea was to produce a cake-like dessert that was small enough and dainty enough to be eaten by ladies as part of a boxed lunch.

Down

3 2012 World Series MVP Sandoval : PABLO

Pablo Sandoval is a Major League third baseman from Venezuela. Sandoval has the cute and cuddly nickname “Kung Fu Panda”, a nickname given to him by teammate Barry Zito when they played together for the San Francisco Giants.

5 Designer Cassini : OLEG

French-born American fashion designer Oleg Cassini developed a reputation for designing costumes for films, and dressing numerous film stars. He had two big names particularly associated with his designs. In the sixties he produced the state wardrobe for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. He was also the exclusive designer for Hollywood’s Gene Tierney, who was Cassini’s second wife.

7 Cup holder locale, perhaps : ARM

Maybe in the arm of an armchair?

8 *Salute in ancient Rome : HAIL, CAESAR! (giving “caesar dressing”)

The caesar salad was created by restaurateur Caesar Cardini at the Hotel Caesar’s in Tijuana, Mexico. The original recipe called for whole lettuce leaves that were to be lifted up by the stem and eaten with the fingers.

9 Record of the year? : ANNAL

“Annal” is a rarely used word, and is the singular of the more common “annals”. An annal would be the recorded events of one year, with annals being the chronological record of events in successive years. The term “annal” comes from the Latin “annus” meaning “year”.

10 Acid counterpart : BASE

The “opposite” of an acid is a base. Acids turn litmus paper red, and bases turn it blue. Acids and bases react with each other to form salts. An important subset of the chemicals called bases are alkalis, hydroxides of the alkali metals and of ammonium. The term “alkali” is sometimes used interchangeably with “base”, especially if that base is readily soluble in water.

19 Severe scolding, and what the answers to the starred clues literally have? : DRESSING DOWN

To give someone a dressing-down is to give him or her a reprimand, a scolding. One suggestion is that the term “dressing-down” has nautical roots. Sails that had become old and dry were “dressed down” to make them more useful. They were taken down and dressed with oil and wax so that they performed better in the wind. Similarly, a sailor might be given a figurative dressing-down in order to improve his effectiveness.

21 *Vacation spot with horses : DUDE RANCH (giving “ranch dressing”)

Our term “dude” arose as slang in New York City in the 1880s, when it was used to describe a fastidious man. In the early 1900s, the term was extended to mean “city slickers”, easterners who vacationed in the West. The first use of the term “dude ranch” was recorded in 1921.

Ranch dressing has been the best-selling salad dressing in the country since 1992. The recipe was developed by Steve Henson who introduced it in the fifties to guests on his dude ranch, the Hidden Valley Ranch in Northern California. His Hidden Valley ranch dressing became so popular that he opened a factory to produce packets of ranch seasoning that could be mixed with mayonnaise and buttermilk. Henson sold the brand for $8 million in 1972.

27 *Irish novelist who writes the “Dublin Murder Squad” series : TANA FRENCH (giving “French dressing”)

Tana French is an American-born Irish author who has earned the moniker “First Lady of Irish Crime”. Her first novels fall into a series known as the “Dublin Murder Squad”. The BBC and RTE (the Irish national station) commissioned a TV series based on the novels called “Dublin Murders”, which began broadcasting on both sides of the Atlantic in 2019.

30 Spy follower? : -WARE

Spyware is software that is installed on a computer to gather information without the owner’s knowledge. Nasty stuff …

32 Pilot gear? : PENS

Pilot is a Japanese pen company, and the largest manufacturer of pens in Japan. The “Pilot” name was adopted in 1938, a change from the original Namiki Manufacturing Company.

40 Actor Morales : ESAI

Esai Morales is not only a successful actor, he is also a trained martial artist, having studied the Korean martial art of taekwondo since he was a teenager.

51 Solving crosswords, for some : HOBBY

Maybe even an obsession …

53 Destination after a promposal : DANCE

Over the years, the act of asking someone to be a prom date has become very elaborate. Such acts are sometimes referred to as “promposals”, a portmanteau of “prom” and “proposal”.

54 Slalom competitor : SKIER

“Slalom” is an anglicized version of the Norwegian word “slalam” that translates as “skiing race”. There is a longer version of the traditional slalom that is called giant slalom

55 Aunts in la familia : TIAS

In Spanish, a “tia” (aunt) is a “miembro de la familia” (member of the family).

56 Peru native : INCA

The Inca people emerged as a tribe around the 12th century, in what today is southern Peru. The Incas developed a vast empire over the next 300 years, extending along most of the western side of South America. The Empire fell to the Spanish, finally dissolving in 1572 with the execution of Túpac Amaru, the last Incan Emperor.

60 Word sung twice after “Que” in a classic song : … SERA

The 1956 song “Que Será, Será (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)” was first performed by Doris Day in the Hitchcock film “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. Day later used the same tune as the theme song for the sitcom “The Doris Day Show” that aired in the late sixties and early seventies.

62 __ sauce : SOY

Soy sauce is made by fermenting soybeans with a mold in the presence of water and salt. Charming …