Day: November 24, 2025

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Constructed by: Joseph A. Gangi

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): The Right Food

Themed answers are common phrases, each ending with a foodstuff:

• 17A “Gee willikers!” : GOOD GRAVY!
• 25A Lists of top students : HONOR ROLLS
• 37A Folks who do a lot of binge-watching : COUCH POTATOES
• 48A Get down to brass tacks : TALK TURKEY
• 60A Extremely simple : EASY AS PIE

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

Bill’s time: 5m 01s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Music genre known for four-on-the-floor beats : DISCO

Discotheques first appeared during WWII in Occupied France. American-style music (like jazz and jitterbug dances) was banned by the Nazis, so French natives met in underground clubs that they called discotheques where records were often played on just a single turntable. After the war, these clubs came out into the open. One famous Paris discotheque was called “Whiskey a Gogo”. In that Paris disco, non-stop music was played using two turntables next to a dance-floor, and this concept spread around the world.

9A Double-reed woodwinds : OBOES

A double-reed instrument is one in which two pieces of cane vibrate against each other to produce sound. In a single-reed instrument, just one piece of cane vibrates the mouthpiece. The best-known examples of double-reed instruments are the oboe and the bassoon.

19A Pet pests : FLEAS

An endoparasite is one that lives inside the host, an example being a parasitic worm. Parasites living outside the host, such as fleas and lice, are known as ectoparasites.

23A Pet pest : TICK

Ticks are very small arachnids that live off the blood of mammals and birds. They are external parasites, and commonly infect their hosts with bacteria, viruses and protozoa. One of the most-famous tick-borne illnesses is Lyme disease.

29A Prepare, as bao buns : STEAM

A baozi (also “bou, bao”) is a steamed, filled bun in Chinese cuisine.

40A Food storage rooms : PANTRIES

The word “pantry” dates back to 1300, when it came into English from the Old French “panetrie” meaning a “bread room”. Bread is “pain” in French, and “panis” in Latin.

41A Meadows of “Peacemaker” : TIM

Actor and comedian Tim Meadows appeared for ten seasons as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” (SNL). He also played a character named John Glascott on the sitcom “Schooled”, and the same character on “The Goldbergs”.

“Peacemaker” is a spin-off show from the 2021 movie “The Suicide Squad”. It stars John Cena reprising his role as a vigilante who is forced to join a black-ops team to hunt parasitic aliens.

42A Land between Can. and Mex. : USA

The Canada-US border is the longest international border in the world. The total length is 5,525 miles. Canada’s border with the lower 48 states is 3,987 miles long, and the border with Alaska extends 1,538 miles.

The Mexico-US border is the most frequently-crossed border in the world, although it is only the tenth longest border in the world between two countries.

43A Zero’s counterpart, in binary code : ONE

We use a base-ten numbering system, with ten digits (0 – 9). The binary system, or base-two, uses just two digits (0 & 1). The binary system is used at a fundamental level in computing, because the number 0 and 1 can be represented by microcircuits being switched “on” or “off”.

48A Get down to brass tacks : TALK TURKEY

The phrase “to talk turkey” means “to discuss frankly”. The term originated in colonial times, when it had a different meaning. Talking turkey back then was talking about something pleasant, but in a silly manner. I guess the “silliness” was an allusion to the “silly” gait of the turkey.

What we know as a thumb tack or pushpin here in North America is called a drawing pin in British English. Thumb tacks made from brass might be referred to as “brass tacks”, giving us the expression “getting down to brass tacks” meaning “getting down to the finer details”.

54A Wyatt of the Old West : EARP

Wyatt Earp is famous as one of the participants in the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Earp was a city policeman in Wichita, Kansas and also in Dodge City, Kansas. Earp was also deputy sheriff in Tombstone, Arizona where the O.K. Corral gunfight took place. Years later, Earp joined the Alaska Gold Rush and with a partner built and operated the Dexter Saloon in Nome.

55A Bread often brushed with ghee : NAAN

Ghee is clarified butter used in South Asian cuisines. “Ghee” comes from Sanskrit, and translates as “sprinkled”.

60A Extremely simple : EASY AS PIE

The idiom “as easy as pie” is used to describe something that is simple to do. It appears that the reference here is to the simplicity of eating pie, rather than making a pie.

63A The Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day, e.g. : EVE

Thanksgiving Day was observed on different dates in different states for many years, until Abraham Lincoln fixed the date for the whole country in 1863. Lincoln’s presidential proclamation set that date as the last Thursday in November. In 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday to the fourth Thursday in November, arguing that the earlier date would give the economy a much-needed boost.

64A Actor Dinklage : PETER

Actor Peter Dinklage is best known perhaps for portraying Tyrion Lannister in the hit TV show “Game of Thrones”. His breakthrough movie role was Finbar McBride in 2003’s comedy-drama “The Station Agent”.

66A “Kenan & __”: former Nickelodeon sitcom : KEL

“Kenan & Kel” is a sitcom that aired on Nickelodeon from 1996 to 2000. It starred Kenan Thompson (of “Saturday Night Live”), and Kel Mitchell.

Down

3D Wall-mounted light : SCONCE

A sconce is a light fixture that today uses electric bulbs, but in the past used candles and torches. The defining feature of a sconce is that it is supported by a wall and does not have a base that stands on the ground. Usually the light is indirect, projected upwards towards the ceiling.

4D Cow’s chew : CUD

Animals that chew the cud are called ruminants. Ruminants eat vegetable matter but cannot extract any nutritional value from cellulose without the help of microbes in the gut. Ruminants collect roughage in the first part of the alimentary canal, allowing microbes to work on it. The partially digested material (the cud) is regurgitated into the mouth so that the ruminant can chew the food more completely, exposing more surface area for microbes to do their work.

6D San Antonio mission : ALAMO

The famous Alamo in San Antonio, Texas was originally known as Mission San Antonio de Valero. The mission was founded in 1718 and was the first mission established in the city. The Battle of the Alamo took place in 1836, a thirteen-day siege by the Mexican Army led by President General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Only two people defending the Alamo Mission survived the onslaught. One month later, the Texian army got its revenge by attacking and defeating the Mexican Army in the Battle of San Jacinto. During the surprise attack on Santa Anna’s camp, many of the Texian soldiers were heard to cry “Remember the Alamo!”.

7D Bird in a Poe poem : RAVEN

“The Raven” is a narrative poem by Edgar Allan Poe that tells of a student who has lost the love of his life, Lenore. A raven enters the student’s bedchamber and perches on a bust of Pallas. The raven can talk, to the student’s surprise, but says nothing but the word “nevermore” (“quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore’”). As the student questions all aspects of his life, the raven taunts him with the same comment, “nevermore”. Finally, the student decides that his soul is trapped beneath the raven’s shadow and shall be lifted “nevermore”.

8D Name in the ice cream aisle : EDY’S

Dreyer’s ice cream sells its products under the name Dreyer’s in the Western United States, and Edy’s in the Eastern states. The company’s founders were William Dreyer and Joseph Edy.

10D “The Jungle Book” bear : BALOO

“The Jungle Book” by Rudyard Kipling was originally published in 1894, and is a collection of adventure stories or fables featuring the animals of the jungle and a young boy named Mowgli. Baloo is a sloth bear that teaches the cubs of a wolf pack the Law of the Jungle. Baloo’s most challenging pupil however is no lupine, but rather the man-cub Mowgli.

24D Out of order : KAPUT

“Kaput” is a familiar term meaning “incapacitated, destroyed”, and comes to us from French (via German). The original word “capot” means “not having won a single trick” in the French card game Piquet.

26D Somber bio : OBIT

Our word “obituary” comes from the Latin “obituaris”. The Latin term was used for “record of the death of a person”, although the literal meaning is “pertaining to death”.

35D Buns, bobs, and beehives : DOS

A bob cut is a short hairstyle in which the hair is cut straight around the head, at about the line of the jaw. Back in the 1570s, “bob” was the name given to a horse’s tail that was cut short, and about a century later it was being used to describe short hair on humans. The style became very popular with women in the early 1900s (as worn by actress Clara Bow, for example), with the fashion dying out in the thirties. The style reemerged in the sixties around the time the Beatles introduced their “mop tops”, with Vidal Sassoon leading the way in styling women’s hair in a bob cut again. Personally, I like it …

That distinctive beehive hairstyle is also called a B-52, because the round, beehive-shape also resembles the bulbous nose of a B-52 bomber! The style originated in 1958, and is credited to Margaret Vinci Heldt, the owner of a hair salon in downtown Chicago. I’m not a fan of the beehive, but I do have to say that Audrey Hepburn carried it off in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, as did Dusty Springfield in her heyday.

36D “My Cousin Vinny” Oscar winner Marisa : TOMEI

Marisa Tomei’s first screen role was in the daytime soap “As the World Turns”, but her break came with a recurring role in “The Cosby Show” spin-off “A Different World”. Tomei won an Oscar for her delightful performance in “My Cousin Vinny” in 1992.

“My Cousin Vinny” is a really fun film from 1992 starring Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei. In 2008, the American Bar Association rated “My Cousin Vinny” as the #3 greatest legal movie of all time, after “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “12 Angry Men”!

47D Bistro, e.g. : EATERY

“Bistro” was originally a Parisian slang term describing a little wine shop or restaurant.

49D Olympic swimmer Ledecky : KATIE

Katie Ledecky is a swimmer who won her first Olympic gold medal at just 15 years of age, in the 800-meter freestyle. In 2016, Ledecky also became the youngest person to make “Time” magazine’s “Time 100” annual list of most influential people in the American world. Katie’s uncle is Jon Ledecky, an owner of the New York Islanders hockey team.

50D Ye olde rascal : KNAVE

We’ve been using “knave” to mean “cad” since about 1200, and as an alternative name for the jack in a deck of cards since the mid-1500s. “Knave” comes from the Old English word “cnafa”, a “boy, male servant”.

51D Support for a drawing board : EASEL

The term “easel” comes from an old Dutch word meaning “donkey”, would you believe? The idea is that an easel carries its load (an oil painting, say) just as a donkey would be made to carry a load.

52D “Huzzah!” : YAY!

“Huzzah” is a cheer, originally a sailor’s interjection, possibly accompanying the hoisting of a sail.

58D Old hoops gp. : ABA

The American Basketball Association (ABA) merged with the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 1976. The ABA used a ball with the colors red, white and blue. The NBA uses a more traditional orange ball.