Tag: Party snack crossword clue

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Constructed by: Robert E. L. Morris

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Four Ways to Do It

Themed answers all end with a doo-sound:

• 17A Total left to pay : BALANCE DUE
• 26A Farmer’s wake-up call : COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!
• 45A “Any suggestions for my next move?” : WHAT AM I GONNA DO?
• 59A Water on the grass at dawn : MORNING DEW

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

Bill’s time: 5m 15s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Minty cocktail associated with the Kentucky Derby : JULEP

A mint julep is a bourbon-based cocktail that is associated with the American South, and with the Kentucky Derby in particular. If you’d like to make yourself a mint julep, one recipe is:

• 3 oz of Bourbon
• 4-6 sprigs of mint
• granulated sugar to taste

6A FedEx competitor : UPS

United Parcel Service (UPS) is based in Sandy Springs, Georgia and has its own airline that operates out of Louisville, Kentucky. UPS often goes by the nickname “Brown”, because of its brown delivery trucks and brown uniforms.

13A Pioneering gaming company : ATARI

Atari was founded in 1972, and was one of the pioneers in the video game industry. One of the company’s early employees was Steve Jobs, who was hired to work on the game design for the arcade game “Breakout”. Jobs was tasked with reducing the number of chips needed for the game and he recruited his friend, Steve Wozniak, to help with the project. Wozniak designed a circuit board that used only 44 chips, a significant improvement over the original design that had over 100 chips.

16A Palo __, California : ALTO

The city of Palo Alto, California takes its name from a specific redwood tree called El Palo Alto (Spanish for “the tall stick”) that is located within the bounds of the city. The tree is 110 feet tall and over a thousand years old.

20A __ Na Na : SHA

Do you remember the band “Johnny Casino & The Gamblers” in the movie “Grease”? That was actually the real-world group named Sha Na Na. Johnny Casino & the Gamblers sang “Those Magic Changes” at the high school dance, in between “Rock’N Roll Is Here to Stay” and “Hound Dog”. Sha Na Na got together in the sixties, hosted the variety show “Sha Na Na” from 1977 to 1981, and are still performing today.

24A James Bond creator Fleming : IAN

The character James Bond was the creation of writer Ian Fleming. Fleming “stole” the James Bond name from an American ornithologist. The number “007” was “stolen” from the real-life, 16th-century English spy named John Dee. Dee would sign his reports to Queen Elizabeth I with a stylized “007” to indicate that the reports were for “her eyes only”. There’s an entertaining miniseries that aired on BBC America called “Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond” that details Ian Fleming’s military career, and draws some nice parallels between Fleming’s experiences and aspirations and those of his hero James Bond. Recommended …

25A Mineral in hemoglobin : IRON

Red blood cells are also known as erythrocytes, and are responsible for delivering oxygen from the lungs to the body’s tissues. Iron-rich hemoglobin in the cell binds the oxygen molecules, and is also responsible for the red color. While some waste carbon dioxide (CO2) is carried back to the lungs by red blood cells, most of the CO2 is transported back to the lungs as bicarbonate ions dissolved in the blood plasma.

33A Weighty volume : TOME

“Tome” first came into English from the Latin “tomus” which means “section of a book”. The original usage in English was for a single volume in a multi-volume work. By the late 16th century, “tome” had come to mean “large book”.

36A Color wheel segment : HUE

A color wheel is a visual device that illustrates the relationship between various colors and hues.

41A Athlete from College Station, Texas, familiarly : AGGIE

The Texas city of College Station dates back to 1860, when the first railroad tracks were laid through the area. Several years later, the area was chosen as a site for the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (renamed to Texas A&M in 1963). The city of College Station then grew up around the railroad “station” that served the “college”.

44A Anti-fur gp. : PETA

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is a large animal rights organization, with about 400 employees and nine million members and supporters worldwide. Although the group campaigns for animal rights across a broad spectrum of issues, it has a stated focus in opposition of four practices:

• Factory farming
• Fur farming
• Animal testing
• Use of animals in entertainment

54A PC key on either side of the space bar : ALT

The Alt (alternate) key is found on either side of the space bar on US PC keyboards. It evolved from what was called a Meta key on old MIT keyboards, although the function has changed somewhat over the years. Alt is equivalent in many ways to the Option key on a Mac keyboard, and indeed the letters “Alt” have been printed on most Mac keyboards, starting in the nineties.

59A Water on the grass at dawn : MORNING DEW

The air’s dew point is the temperature to which it has to be cooled in order to become saturated with water vapor. Below this temperature, water vapor condenses on a surface to form dew.

67A Louisa May Alcott’s “Little __” : WOMEN

The “Little Women” in Louisa May Alcott’s classic (1868) novel are all sisters. The names of the five main characters in the book are a mother and her four daughters:

• Margaret “Marmee” (the mother)
• Margaret “Meg”
• Josephine “Jo”
• Elizabeth “Beth”
• Amy

Down

2D Arches National Park state : UTAH

The gorgeous Arches National Park is located in eastern Utah, just outside of Moab. The main focus of the park is the preservation of over 2,000 natural sandstone arches. The arches are relatively fragile, and 43 have collapsed since 1970, mainly due to erosion caused by wind and rain.

3D “__ Land”: Emma Stone/Ryan Gosling musical film : LA LA

“La La Land” is a 2016 romantic musical film starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as a musician and actress who fall in love in “La La Land” (Los Angeles, i.e. “LA”). The film was written and directed by Damien Chazelle, who had found success two years earlier with the musical drama “Whiplash”. “La La Land” won a record-breaking seven Golden Globes and tied the record number of Oscar nominations at fourteen, winning six.

5D Acorn producer with a pyramid-shaped crown : PIN OAK

The pin oak is also called the swamp Spanish oak. The name “pin oak” may have been given because the tree has many small and slender twigs. The name may also come from the fact that the hard wood from the tree was traditionally used to make wooden pins used in building construction.

10D __ gobi: vegetarian curry dish : ALOO

Aloo gobi is a very tasty vegetarian dish in Indian cuisine made from potatoes and cauliflower, flavored with traditional Indian spices. “Aloo” translates to “potato” and “gobi” to “cauliflower”.

15D Gathered through the grapevine : HEARD

There are competing stories about the etymology of the phrase “heard it through the grapevine”, meaning “heard it by means of gossip or rumor”. One is that it is a reference to the Grapevine Tavern in Greenwich Village in New York City. The Grapevine was a popular meeting place for Union officers and Confederate spies during the Civil War, and so was a great spot for picking up and spreading vital gossip.

18D Party snack : CANAPE

A canapé is a finger food, something small enough to eat in just one bite. In French, “canapé” is actually the word for a couch or a sofa. The name was given to the snack as the original canapés were savories served on toasted or stale bread that supposedly resembled a tiny couch.

24D Raw bar surface : ICE

Almost all of the shellfish consumed at a raw bar is not only uncooked, it is also still alive.

27D Final Greek letter : OMEGA

Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet and is the one that looks like a horseshoe (Ω) when in uppercase. The lowercase omega looks like a Latin W. The word “omega” literally means “great O” (O-mega). Compare this with the Greek letter Omicron, meaning “little O” (O-micron).

28D Beaver construction : DAM

Beavers build dams so that they can live in and around the slower and deeper water that builds up above the dam. This deeper water provides more protection for the beavers from predators such as bears. They are nocturnal animals and do all their construction work at night.

32D Workplace std. setter : OSHA

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

38D “The Matrix” protagonist : NEO

Neo is the character played by Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix” series of films. One of Neo’s actions is to choose a red pill over a blue pill. The blue pill would have allowed him to remain in the Matrix, a fabricated reality. The red pill led to his escape into the real world, and a much more difficult life.

39D Alaska national park with the tallest peak in North America : DENALI

“Denali” means “the high one” in the native Athabaskan language, and is the name used for the peak formerly known as Mount McKinley. Denali’s summit stands at 20,310 feet, making it the highest mountain peak in North America. I was surprised to learn that there is a Denali State Park, as well as the Denali National Park. The two are located adjacent to each other (which makes sense!). The State Park is undeveloped for all practical purposes, with just a few campgrounds and trailheads.

42D “Piece of cake” : IT’S EASY!

The Cakewalk is a dance that originated in the African American community from the “Prize Walk”, in the days of slavery. The Prize Walk was a procession in which couples “walked” with as much style as possible, with the intent of winning the big prize, a large cake. Our term “cakewalk”, meaning something easily accomplished, derives from this tradition. The expression “take the cake” shares this etymology, and has the same meaning.

46D Florida setting of some Carl Hiaasen novels : MIAMI

Carl Hiaasen is an investigative journalist, columnist and novelist from Fort Lauderdale, Florida who works for the “Miami Herald”.

51D Like tomcats : MALE

A group of cats can be referred to as a clowder or a glaring. A male cat is a tom or tomcat, and a neutered male is a gib. An unaltered female cat is a queen, and a spayed female might be referred to informally as a molly. A young cat is a kitten.

53D Monopoly card : DEED

In the game of Monopoly there are 28 title deeds:

• 22 streets
• 4 railroads
• 2 utilities

54D Actress Kendrick : ANNA

Anna Kendrick is a marvelous actress whose big break came when she played the sidekick to George Clooney’s character in the very interesting 2009 film “Up in the Air”. Kendrick can sing as well as act, and played a student a cappella singer in the 2012 movie “Pitch Perfect”.

57D Wilson of “Stick” : OWEN

Actor Owen Wilson was nominated for an Oscar, but not for his acting. He was nominated for co-writing the screenplay for “The Royal Tenenbaums” along with Wes Anderson. My favorite of Wilson’s performances, by far, is in the excellent movie “Midnight in Paris”.

“Stick” is a sports comedy TV show that debuted in 2025. It stars Owen Wilson as Pryce “Stick” Cahill, a former pro golfer whose career imploded twenty years prior after a public, on-course meltdown. The series follows Cahill’s attempt at a personal “mulligan” as he mentors a teen prodigy while traveling in an RV with a cynical former caddy played by Marc Maron.

60D Part of a celery stalk : RIB

There’s an urban myth that the process of eating celery burns more calories than the body can obtain from the vegetable through digestion. While celery is indeed a low-calorie food, eating it does provide a net-positive number of calories.

61D Miracle-___: garden brand : GRO

Miracle-Gro is a water-soluble fertilizer that first hit the shelves in 1951 as the brainchild of an advertising executive and a nurseryman. The two partners built their empire by selling the relatively simple mixture through catchy mail-order ads. By all accounts, the “miracle” growth of their business was less about a secret chemical breakthrough and more about audacious marketing.