Tag: Dessert that can be microwaved in a mug crossword clue

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Constructed by: Karen Steinberg
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: None

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

Bill’s time: 19m 49s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

10 Waiter at a stand : CAB

A hansom cab is a very specific design of horse and buggy that was patented by Joseph Hansom in 1834 in England. The “cab” in the name is short for “cabriolet”, an earlier design of carriage on which the hansom was based. It’s from “hansom cab” that we get our modern term “cab”.

15 Thurman of “Hysterical Blindness” : UMA

Uma Thurman started her working career as a fashion model, at the age of 15. She appeared in her first movies at 17, with her most acclaimed early role being Cécile de Volanges in 1988’s “Dangerous Liaisons”. Thurman’s career really took off when she played the gangster’s moll Mia in Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” in 1994. My favorite of all Thurman’s movies is “The Truth About Cats & Dogs”, a less acclaimed romcom released in 1996. She took a few years off from acting from 1998 until 2002 following the birth of her first child. It was Tarantino who relaunched her career, giving her the lead in the “Kill Bill” films.

“Hysterical Blindness” is a 2002 film made for television starring Uma Thurman as a woman searching for romance in the 1980s. Debby Miller, the Thurman character, suffers from hysterical blindness, causing her sight to fade in and out randomly.

16 Forte : CLAIM TO FAME

A person’s forte is his or her strength. The term “forte” came into English via French from the Latin “fortis” meaning strong. “Forte” (F) is also a musical direction meaning “loud”.

18 Pin in the back : TEN

In ten-pin bowling, the pins are arranged in a triangular arrangement. The pin at the front is the 1-pin. The pins at the back are number 7 through 10, from left to right.

19 Wii forerunner : NES

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was sold in North America from 1985 to 1995. It was the biggest selling gaming console of the era. Nintendo replaced the NES with Wii, which is also the biggest-selling game console in the world.

20 Attacking surfers, maybe : TROLLING

In Internet terms, a troll is someone who attempts to disrupt online group activities. The fishing term “troll” is used to describe such a person as he or she throws out off-topic remarks in an attempt to “lure” others into some emotional response. I must admit to feeling sorry for people who have such sad lives …

25 Drew on? : TATTOOED

The word “tattoo” (often shortened to “tat”) was first used in English in the writings of the famous English explorer Captain Cook. In his descriptions of the indelible marks adorning the skin of Polynesian natives, Cook anglicized the Tahitian word “tatau” into our “tattoo”. Tattoos are sometimes referred to as “ink”.

26 One of the “Black-ish” parents : DRE

“Black-ish” is a sitcom starring Anthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross that premiered in 2014. The show is noted for tackling tough issues such as racism, police brutality, attitudes toward the LGBT community, and the 2016 US presidential election.

29 Domingo, e.g. : DIA

In Spanish, we can look at a particular “día” (day) on the “calendario” (calendar).

In Spanish (Span.), the days of the week are masculine (masc.) nouns. Unlike in English, the days of the week in Spanish are not capitalized when used in the middle of a sentence:

• lunes – Monday
• martes – Tuesday
• miércoles – Wednesday
• jueves – Thursday
• viernes – Friday
• sábado – Saturday
• domingo – Sunday

30 Performs like Saweetie : RAPS

“Saweetie” is the stage name of rap singer Diamonté Harper. She is from Santa Clara, California. Her grandfather is Willie Harper, who played professional football for the San Francisco 49ers.

37 “Black Panther” setting : WAKANDA

“Black Panther” is a 2018 superhero film starring Chadwick Boseman in the title role. Black Panther is a Marvel Comics character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. When not a superhero, Black Panther is the king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda, and goes by the name “T’Challa”.

40 Queen of Arendelle : 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. Spoiler alert: Prince Hans of the Southern Isles seems to be a good guy for most of the film, but turns out to be a baddie in the end. And, a snowman named Olaf provides some comic relief.

41 Louboutin item : SHOE

Christian Louboutin is a fashion designer from Paris who is known for creating stiletto shoes with trademark, red-lacquered soles. His biggest individual client is American author Danielle Steel, who is said to own more that 6,000 pairs of Louboutin shoes!

42 Cacophony : DIN

“Cacophony” is such a lovely word, a word used to describe a harsh or jarring sound. The term arises from the Greek “kakos” (bad) and “phone” (voice).

43 Dessert that can be microwaved in a mug : LAVA CAKE

Molten chocolate cake is chocolate cake with a warm and liquid chocolate center. A dessert often called “lava cake”, it was invented by French chef Michel Bras, and dates back to 1981. It was popularized in the US by French chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, initially in his New York restaurant Jean-Georges.

50 Natl. Merit Scholarship hurdles : PSATS

Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test (PSAT)

The National Merit Scholarship Program is a privately-funded, not-for-profit organization that was founded in 1955. The program governs two annual competitions for scholarships, one open to all students and one open to only African Americans.

53 LG rival : RCA

RCA was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America, and as a wholly-owned subsidiary of General Electric (GE). GE divested RCA in 1932, and then reacquired the company in 1986. Today, RCA is just a brand name owned by Sony Music.

LG is a very large South Korean manufacturer of electronics, chemicals and telecom products. The company used to be known as Lucky-Goldstar, whence the initialism “LG”.

54 Poke bowl option : AHI

Yellowfin and bigeye tuna are usually marketed as “ahi”, the Hawaiian name. They are both big fish, with yellowfish tuna often weighing over 300 pounds, and bigeye tuna getting up to 400 pounds.

Poke is a Native-Hawaiian dish featuring diced raw fish. “Poke” is a Hawaiian word meaning “to slice”.

55 Making a booty call? : BUTT-DIALING

“Butt-dialing” is an alternative name for “pocket-dialing”, the accidental placing of a call while a phone is in one’s pocket or purse.

Down

1 Short sucker? : VAC

The first practical portable vacuum cleaner was invented by James Spangler in 1907. Spangler sold the patent for the design to his cousin’s husband, William Henry Hoover. Hoover then made his fortune from manufacturing and selling vacuum cleaners. Hoover was so successful in my part of the world that back in Ireland we don’t use the verb “to vacuum” and instead say “to hoover”. Also, “hoover” is what we call a vacuum cleaner, regardless of who makes it.

2 Not over Zoom, say: Abbr. : IRL

In real life (IRL)

3 Arthur who appeared on “All in the Family” : BEA

Actress Bea Arthur’s most famous roles were on television, as the lead in the “All in the Family” spin-off “Maude” and as Dorothy Zbornak in “The Golden Girls”. Arthur also won a Tony for playing Vera Charles on stage in the original cast of “Mame” in 1966, two years after she played Yente the matchmaker in the original cast of “Fiddler on the Roof”.

“All in the Family” is an American sitcom, and a remake of the incredibly successful BBC show called “Till Death Us Do Part”. Both the UK and US versions of the sitcom were groundbreaking in that the storyline brought into focus topics previously considered unsuitable for a television comedy, including racism, homosexuality, women’s liberation, menopause and impotence. “All in the Family” is one of only three TV shows that has topped the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive seasons (the other two are “The Cosby Show” and “American Idol”). Stars of the show are:

• Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker
• Jean Stapleton as Edith Bunker
• Sally Struthers as Gloria Stivic née Bunker
• Rob Reiner as Michael Stivic

7 Nwodim of “SNL” : EGO

Actress and comedian Ego Nwodim joined the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 2018. She was a biology major at the University of Southern California, a classic foundation for a successful comedian …

8 Loose garments : CAFTANS

A kaftan (also “caftan”) is a long robe that has been associated for centuries with Islamic cultures.

9 Disappearing discount stores : KMARTS

Kmart is the third-largest discount store chain in the world, behind Wal-Mart and Target. The company was founded by S. S. Kresge in 1899, with the first outlets known as S. S. Kresge stores. The first “Kmart” stores opened in 1962, with the “K” standing for “Kresge”. Kmart is famous for its promotions known as “blue light specials”, a program first introduced in 1965 and discontinued in 1991. I remember being in a Kmart store soon after coming to live in the US. That evening an employee installed a light stand an aisle away from me, switched on a flashing blue light and there was some unintelligible announcement over the loudspeaker system. I had no idea what was going on …

17 University with a law school at Greensboro : ELON

Elon University School of Law is located in Greensboro, North Carolina. It was established in 2006, and fully accredited by the American Bar Association in 2011.

The North Carolina city of Greensboro was founded in 1808 as Greensborough, with the spelling changing in 1895. The city was named for Major General Nathanael Greene who commanded the defeated American forces at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse during the Revolutionary War. Although technically a defeat, Greene’s forces inflicted such heavy casualties on the British Army, led by Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis, that the outcome was a strategic victory for the Americans.

23 Basic font : ARIAL

We tend to use the terms typeface and font interchangeably. Technically, a typeface and font are not the same thing. A complete set of characters with a common design is referred to as a typeface (common examples being Helvetica and Arial). That typeface consists of a whole collection of fonts, all varying in weight and size. One set of Helvetica fonts, for example, might be Helvetica 14 point or Helvetica 16 point, i.e. a specific size. Another set might be Helvetica bold, or Helvetica italic. The difference between fonts and typefaces mattered a great deal when printers had collections of individual letters to make up blocks of text. Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about that these days.

25 Tanks, e.g. : TOPS

“Tank top” is another one of those terms that always catches me out, as it has a different meaning on each side of the Atlantic. In the US, a tank top is a sleeveless shirt, something we would call a “vest” back in Ireland (and the US “vest” is what we call a “waistcoat”). A tank top in Ireland is a sleeveless sweater, which further adds to the confusion. The name “tank top” is derived from “tank suit”, an old name for a woman’s one-piece bathing suit. The use of “tank” for the bathing suit came from “swimming tank”, an obsolete term used in the 1920s for a swimming pool.

28 Berkeley, to sports fans : CAL

The University of California, Berkeley (Cal) is the most difficult public university to get into in the world. It opened in 1869, and is named for Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley.

32 Birthplace of novelist Rohinton Mistry : INDIA

Rohinton Mistry is a Canadian author who emigrated from India when he was in his twenties. He is known for his novels that are set in his native land.

36 “Antiques Roadshow” determination : VALUE

“Antiques Roadshow” is a very popular PBS TV show in which professional auctioneers appraise antiques brought to them by the general public. The American show is based on a long-running BBC production of the same name. In one episode of the American version of the show, four pieces of carved jade were presented for appraisal, and were given an estimated value of one million dollars!

41 Regal rod : SCEPTER

A scepter (“sceptre” in Britain and Ireland) is a ceremonial staff, one often held by a monarch.

44 Part of UAE : ARAB

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a federation of seven emirates (states) in the Middle East. Included in the seven are Abu Dhabi and Dubai, with the city of Abu Dhabi being the UAE capital and cultural center.

45 “__ of the Louvre”: Emma Lazarus poem : VENUS

Emma Lazarus was a poet from New York City who is best known as the author of an 1883 sonnet “The New Colossus”. “The New Colossus” sits on a bronze plaque inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, a fitting location given that the title refers to Lady Liberty.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp! cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

51 Leaves for lunch : SALAD

Our word “salad” comes from the Latin “salare” meaning “to salt”. The Latin “herba salata” translates as “salted vegetables”, which I guess could be a salad …

53 Anti-piracy org. : RIAA

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) represents music distributors. It is the RIAA that certifies records that have gone gold and platinum i.e. reached fixed sales thresholds. It’s also the RIAA that goes after individuals who share music illegally online.

57 “Make __ double” : IT A

For me too …

58 Barclays Center player : NET

The Barclays Center is an arena in Brooklyn, New York that is home to the Brooklyn Nets of the NBA, and to the New York Islanders of the NHL. Barclays ended up paying over $200 million for the naming rights, even though the London-based banking group has no retail banks or ATMs in the US.

59 Coll. test : GRE

Passing the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is usually a requirement for entry into graduate school here in the US.