LA Times Crossword 29 Sep 25, Monday

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Constructed by: Taylor Johnson

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Superfood

Themed answers are common phrases describing something that is “SUPER!”, with each including a FOOD:

• 63A Marketing term for nutrient-rich fare, or what the answers to the starred clues are : SUPERFOOD

• 16A *”Neato!” : COOL BEANS!
• 38A *Mensch : GOOD EGG
• 9D *Head honcho : TOP BANANA
• 33D *Influential person : BIG CHEESE

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

Bill’s time: 5m 44s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

8A The Beehive State : UTAH

When Mormon pioneers were settling what is today the state of Utah, they referred to the area as Deseret, a word that means “beehive” according to the Book of Mormon. Today Utah is known as the Beehive State and there is a beehive symbol on the Utah state flag. In 1959, “Industry” was even chosen as the state motto, for the term’s association with the beehive.

12A Flour for chapati and roti : ATTA

Atta is a whole-wheat flour used to make flatbreads in South Asian cuisine, such as chapati and naan. “Atta” is the Hindi or Urdu word for “dough”.

13A Director Kazan : ELIA

Elia Kazan won Oscars for best director in 1948 for “Gentleman’s Agreement” and in 1955 for “On The Waterfront”. He was recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences when he was given the 1998 Academy Honorary Award citing his lifetime achievement in the industry. Kazan also directed “East of Eden”, which introduced James Dean to movie audiences, and “Splendor in the Grass” that included Warren Beatty in his debut role.

18A Tangy bud in a piccata recipe : CAPER

The seasoning we know as “capers” are the edible flower buds of the caper bush, also known as Flinders rose. By the time we get them in a jar, the buds have been pickled and salted. I’m not a huge fan of capers …

The dish named “piccata” originated in Italy, with the traditional meat used being veal. Whatever meat is used is sliced and flattened with a tenderizer, seasoned, dredged in flour and browned in a pan. The juices from the pan are the base for the sauce, to which are added lemon juice, white wine, shallots, capers and butter.

23A “How To Be an Antiracist” author Ibram X. __ : KENDI

Author Ibram X. Kendi wrote 2020’s “How to Be an Antiracist”, which made it to the top spot of the New Times Best Seller list. Kendi also founded and serves as director of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University.

24A Indigenous name of Mount Rainier : TAHOMA

Mount Rainier is an active volcano in the state of Washington in the Cascade Mountain Range. Native Americans first called the peak “Tacoma” and “Tahoma” meaning “mother of waters”. When Captain George Vancouver discovered Puget Sound in 1792, he named the peak in honor of his friend Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. There have been movements to change the name back to Tacoma, but these seem to have “petered” out (pun!).

31A Italian model on the cover of many romance novels : FABIO

Fabio Lanzoni (usually called just “Fabio”) is an Italian fashion model and all-round celebrity. Fabio’s real claim to fame was his appearance on the cover of many, many romance novels in the eighties and nineties.

34A Spiritual guide : GURU

“Guru” is a Hindi word meaning “teacher” or “priest”.

37A Comedian Wong : ALI

Ali Wong is a stand-up comedian from San Francisco who is a protégé of Chris Rock. She made two very successful Netflix stand-up specials “Baby Cobra” and “Hard Knock Wife”, and also worked as a writer for the hit sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat”.

38A *Mensch : GOOD EGG

“Mensch” is a word that comes to us via Yiddish, and is ultimately derived from the German “mensch” meaning “human being”. We use the term to describe someone of integrity and honor.

49A “Hamilton” actress Renée __ Goldsberry : ELISE

Renée Elise Goldsberry is an actress and singer who is best known to me for playing the attorney Geneva Pine on the TV show “The Good Wife”. Goldsberry also originated the role of Angelica Schuyler Church in the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton”.

51A Zedonk or zorse : HYBRID

There are seven living species of mammals in the genus Equus, each of which is referred to as “equine”. The seven species include all horses, asses and zebras. All equine species can crossbreed. For example, a mule is a cross between a male donkey and a female horse, a zorse is a cross between a zebra and a horse, and a zedonk is a cross between a zebra and a donkey.

56A “__ willikers!” : GEE

“Gee willikers!” is a minced oath. It’s a softening alteration of “Jesus”, and emerged in the 19th century as a way to express surprise without using the Lord’s name in vain. It’s similar to “gosh” , from “God”. The “willikers” part has no inherent meaning on its own and seems to have been added simply to further soften the exclamation.

61A One-named “Skyfall” singer : ADELE

Adele’s “Skyfall” theme song, released in 2012 for the James Bond film of the same name, earned her an Academy Award for Best Original Song, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy Award. It was the first Bond theme song to win an Oscar.

63A Marketing term for nutrient-rich fare, or what the answers to the starred clues are : SUPERFOOD

We hear the word “superfood” a lot these days. I think it’s important that we realize that our friends in marketing coined the term to promote foods that have supposed health benefits, even though there’s no obligation to prove those health benefits exist. Since 2007, the European Union (EU) has banned the use of the term “superfood” in marketing of foodstuffs unless there is credible scientific research to back up any health claim. Good for the EU …

65A Yellowstone grazer : BISON

There are two species of bison left (four species are extinct). We are most familiar with the American bison (commonly called the American buffalo), but there is also a European bison, which is sometimes called a “wisent”.

67A Like water surrounding a startled cuttlefish, maybe : INKY

Cuttlefish are marine animals that are related to squids and octopodes. They have a unique internal shell and are molluscs, not fish.

Cephalopods are a class of molluscs with arms or tentacles, a prominent head and a body with bilateral symmetry. Most cephalopods have the ability to squirt ink as a defensive mechanism. Examples of the class are the octopus, squid and cuttlefish. The name “cephalopod” comes from the Greek for “head-feet”.

69A Burnable data-storage medium, for short : CD-R

“CD-ROM” stands for “compact disc read only memory”. The name indicates that you can read information from the disc (like a standard music CD for example), but you cannot write to it. You can also buy a CD-RW, which stands for “compact disc – rewritable”, with which you can read data and also write over it multiple times using a suitable CD drive. A CD-R (compact disc-recordable) is a CD that can also be read, but can be written only one time.

Down

1D Campaign support gps. : PACS

A political action committee (PAC) is a private group that works to influence the outcome of a particular election or group of elections. Any group becomes a PAC by law when it receives or spends more than $1,000 for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election. In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled that PACS that did not make direct contributions to candidates or parties could accept unlimited contributions. These “independent, expenditure-only committees” are commonly referred to as “super PACs”.

3D One of 500+ in the Mall of America : STORE

The Mall of America (MoA) is a huge shopping center located in a suburb of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. It has received about 40 million visitors each year since opening in 1992, and that’s more visitors than any other shopping mall in North America.

4D Gelato brand in clear jars with brown screw-top lids : TALENTI

Talenti is a brand of gelato named after the Florentine architect and artist Bernardo Buontalenti, who is widely credited with inventing modern gelato in the 16th century for Catherine de’ Medici. The brand’s founder, Josh Hochschuler, introduced “Talenti” as a gelateria (store) in Dallas, Texas, in 2003.

5D Hot dog, casually : WEENIE

“Wienie” and “weenie” are informal variants of “wiener”.

What we call a wiener in this country is known as a Vienna sausage in Germany. It was first produced by a butcher from Frankfurt who was living in Vienna, hence the name “Wiener”, which is German for “of Vienna”. Paradoxically, the same sausage is called a Frankfurter in Vienna, as it was created by someone from Frankfurt. It’s all very confusing …

7D Sloth, for one : SIN

“Sloth”, meaning “indolence, sluggishness”, comes from the Middle English word “slowe”, which is also the root of our contemporary word “slow”. The animal, the sloth, is so named as it exhibits slow-moving behavior.

8D Actress Thurman : UMA

Robert Thurman was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Robert raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and called his daughter “Uma” as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name “Dbuma”. Uma’s big break in the movies came with her starring role in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 hit “Pulp Fiction”. My favorite Uma Thurman film is the wonderful 1996 romantic comedy “The Truth About Cats and Dogs”.

9D *Head honcho : TOP BANANA

The expression “top banana” is used to mean “the main man” or “the main woman”. The first person to use “top banana” was supposedly Vaudeville performer Harry Steppe in 1927, who applied the term to the top comic on the bill. The phrase comes from a comedy routine in which three comics struggle to share two bananas.

“Honcho” is a slang term meaning “leader”. The word comes to us from the Japanese military, in which language a “hancho” is a “squad” (han) “leader” (cho).

10D Vicinity : AREA

A vicinity is an area surrounding a place. The term “vicinity” ultimately comes from the Latin “vicus” meaning “group of houses, village”.

11D Group of buffalo : HERD

Even though the term “buffalo” is commonly used to refer to American bison, it is more accurately applied to species of true buffalo found in Africa and Asia, examples being the Capa buffalo and the water buffalo.

14D Nepal’s continent : ASIA

Nepal lies to the northeast of India. Today, the state is known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. In 2008, the Communist Party of Nepal won the country’s general election. Soon after, the Assembly voted to change the form of government, moving away from a monarchy and creating a secular republic.

15D “Gesundheit” elicitor : ACHOO!

“Gesundheit” is the German word for “health”, and is used in response to a sneeze in Germany, as indeed it is quite often here in the US.

27D “Young Frankenstein” assistant : IGOR

I am not really a big fan of movies by Mel Brooks, but “Young Frankenstein” is the exception. I think the cast has a lot to do with me liking the film, as it includes Gene Wilder (Dr. Frankenstein), Teri Garr (Inga), Marty Feldman (Igor) and Gene Hackman (Harold, the blind man).

30D Eyelid affliction : STYE

A stye is a bacterial infection of the sebaceous glands at the base of the eyelashes, and is also known as a hordeolum.

31D Autumn : FALL

Here in the US, we tend to refer to the season following summer as “fall”. This name is short for “fall of the leaf”, referring to the loss of leaves by deciduous trees. The term “autumn” is a more common name used in Britain and Ireland instead of “fall”. However, back before the mid-1600s the term “fall” was in common use on the other side of the pond.

33D *Influential person : BIG CHEESE

The phrase “the big cheese” doesn’t have its roots in the word “cheese” at all. The original phrase was “the real cheese” meaning “the real thing”, and was used way back in the late 1800s. “Chiz” is a Persian and Hindi word meaning “thing”, and it’s not hard to see how the expression “the real chiz” morphed into “the real cheese”. In early-20th century America, instead of “the real cheese”, the most influential person in a group was labeled as “the big cheese”.

43D Pie in the __ : SKY

We use the phrase “pie in the sky” to describe a ridiculously optimistic goal. The expression was coined by songwriter and labor activist Joe Hill in 1911 as a lyric in the hymn parody “The Preacher and the Slave”. The chorus is:

You will eat, bye and bye
In that glorious land above the sky
Work and Pray, live on hay
You’ll get pie in the sky when you die

48D “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” actor Buddy : EBSEN

Actor Buddy Ebsen was best known for playing Jed Clampett in television’s “The Beverly Hillbillies”. Ebsen had been cast in the role of the Tin Man in the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz”, but he developed an allergy to the aluminum dust that was used in the makeup. He ended up in hospital and had to walk away from the part. Ebsen blamed “The Wizard of Oz” on persistent problems that he had with his lungs in subsequent years. But Ebsen lived 16 years longer than any of the other major cast members of the film, so maybe he got the last laugh!

50D “Cross my heart!” : I SWEAR

“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is a 1958 novella written by Truman Capote. Truman’s colorful protagonist in the story is Holiday “Holly” Golightly, who was played so very, very ably by Audrey Hepburn in the marvelous 1961 movie adaptation. It must be said that the film is a rather loose interpretation of Capote’s novella.

52D “Casablanca” heroine : ILSA

Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund were played by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the 1942 movie “Casablanca”. I love the words of one critic describing the chemistry between Bogart and Bergman in this film: “She paints his face with her eyes”. Wow …

54D Lorna __ cookies : DOONE

Lorna Doone shortbread cookies were introduced by Nabisco in 1912. Presumably, they were named after the famous novel by R. D. Blackmore.

64D L.A. school : USC

The University of Southern California (USC) is a private school in Los Angeles. Apart from its excellent academic record, USC is known for the success of its athletic program. USC Trojans have won more Olympic medals than the students of any other university in the world. The USC marching band is very famous as well, and is known as the “Spirit of Troy”. The band has performed with many celebrities, and is the only college band to have two platinum records.