Cooking Competitions
This one is between Chef and his wife Janice over the price of turkeys ...
Today veteran constructor Alan Levin dishes up four cookingcontests with in the language clues that bake into 4 punny game shows by changing just a single ingredient ...
17A. Contestants must perfect a ras el hanout today on ...:THE SPICE IS RIGHT.The Price is Right. And to spice things up a bit Alan gives us today's Arabiclesson:رأس الحانوت = ras el hanout, a Middle Eastern spice blend. When I attempted to save the logo that follows I got a prompt that it existedalready. Then I recalled that the watchword forThe Price is Right -- "COME ON DOWN" was used as the reveal inTrent Evan's April 6, 2023puzzle.
25A. Contestants flatten a confit de canard today on ...:PRESS YOUR DUCK.Press Your Luck.If you should happen to have a duck handy, here's a recipe forConfit de Canard (confit is French for candied). As it turns out pressed duck is actually a different dish, an Asianspecialty. Here's the Bald chef's recipe forChinese Pressed Duck.
424. Contestants work in teams to create a Michelin star-worthy dinner today on...: LETS MAKE A MEAL.Let's Make a Dealis still going strong The fill for this actually makes some sense.
56A. Contestants race to prepare baby's first bottle on ...:THE NEWLY FED GAME.The Newly Wed Game was an American television game show that put newly married couples against eachother in a series of revealing question rounds to determine how well the spousesknow or do not know each other (e.g. when the crying baby wakes up at 2 AM, whohandles the bottle?).
.jpg "Thursday, May 16, 2024, Alan Levin (3)"){kind=logo}
Here's the grid ...
Here's the rest
Across:
1. First president born after 1960: OBAMA. The 44th President of the United States.
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| President Barack Obama |
6. Disparages: RIPS.
10. Damsonlike fruit: SLOE. SLOE (Prunus spinosa) is a species of flowering plant in the rose family native to Europe, western Asia, and regionally in northwest Africa. The fruits are used to make sloe gin in Britain and patxaran in Basque Country. The wood is used to make walking sticks, including the Irish shillelagh.
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| Sloe berries a.k.a. "Blackthorn" |
14. Commands a crew, informally: COXES. A COXSWAIN is in charge of a crew, especially of rowing teams.
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| The coxswain of this sculling boat is in the stern |
15. __ chamber: ECHO.
16. Miami team: HEAT.
17. [Theme clue]
20. Appointed: ORDAINED. In most Christian churches people are ordained to one of three positions: bishops, priests, and deacons. In the Catholic church the first two require celibacy. Deacons may be either permanent or transitional. Permanent deacons may marry, whereas a transitional deacon is temporary position for a seminarian during the last year of their formation. The following year they are ordained to the priesthood. Ordinations are performed with the Sacrament of Holy Orders. One of the many actions that take place during this rite is the laying on of hands ...
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| The Laying on of Hands |
21. Come next: ENSUE. Clue 21A will ENSUE
.
22. Patient care pros: RNS. Registered nurses are on the front lines of medical care. This is what it takes to become one.
23. Brit's pal: MATE.
25. [Theme clue]
31. No longer listening, say: BORED.
33. Type of 32-Down: ALTO. Also called the English Horn. Here is a solo featuring this instrument from the second movement of Dvořák's Symphony No. 9, "New World", played by Vivian Kong ...
34. Ground-breaking tool: HOE.
35. Bibliography space saver: IBID. Today's Latin lesson: ibidem; "in the same place" -- used to indicate that a reference is from the same source as a previous reference.
36. Jet off for: FLY TO. Don't know where I'm going and when I'll get back again ...
38. River's edge: BANK.
39. Chaney of old horror films: LON. Scary looking guy ...
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| Lon Chaney Jr. |
40. Reunion invitee: ALUM.
41. Put out, as a flame: DOUSE.
42. [Theme clue]
46. Fade: WANE.
47. Ocasek of the Cars: RIC. The Cars were an American rock band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the new wave scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek (rhythm guitar), Benjamin Orr (bass guitar), Elliot Easton (lead guitar), Greg Hawkes (keyboards), and David Robinson (drums). Ocasek and Orr shared lead vocals, and Ocasek was the band's principal songwriter and leader. Here's Just what I needed ...
48. "Being the Ricardos" role for Bardem: ARNAZ. Being the Ricardos is a 2021 American biographical drama film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, about the relationship between I Love Lucy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem star as Ball and Arnaz. Kidman received an Oscar for Best Actress that year. Hand up if you've seen it?
51. Locals at the 2016 Summer Olympics: CARIOCAS. A Saturdaylevel clue that you could only hope to get with perps. I didn't. The term is a demonym used to refer to anything related to the City of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. The original meaning of the term is controversial.
56. [Theme clue]
59. Yacht wood: TEAK.
60. Sammy with 609 homers: SOSA.
61. Bert's bestie: ERNIE. Bert and Ernie go fishing ...
62. __ a one: NARY.
63. Power unit: WATT.
64. Title pages?: DEEDS.
Down:
1. Pod prefix: OCTO. More Latin (or Ancient Greek: "ὀκτώ • (oktṓ)"): EIGHT. One of the many definitions for the clue "pod" is "foot", so that in this case it refers to that remarkable, highly intelligent creature, the octopus, a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda.
2. Physicist played by Branagh in "Oppenheimer": BOHR. Shakespearean actor Kenneth Branagh's casting in this role was criticized by some Danes, as Niels BOHR was Danish -- but director Christopher Nolan defended it on personal grounds.
As to Bohr himself, his groundbreaking work on atomic theory and quantum mechanics in the first quarter of the 20th Century not only gained him a Nobel Prize, but made the atomic bomb possible. He was in fact a hero to J. R. Oppenheimer.
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| Niels Bohr |
3. Canceled abruptly: AXED.
4. Flat-topped hill: MESA. Today's Spanish lesson: "mesa" = table. A mesa is a flat-topped mountain or hill. It is a wide, flat, elevated landform with steep sides. Spanish explorers of the American southwest, where many mesas are found, used the word because the tops of mesas look like the tops of tables. Not to be confused with buttes and plateaus ...
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| Plateau, butte, and Mesa |
5. Aimed high: ASPIRED.
6. Playground time: RECESS.
7. Like some tea: ICED.
8. Greek letter that sounds like "fie": PHI. Among the many uses for this letter, it represents the wave function in quantum mechanics which was developed by Erwin Schrödinger, a colleague of Niels Bohr (see 2D).
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| Phi |
9. Mayday call: SOS.
10. Buffed: SHINED.
11. Bench supports: LEGS. Or the "tears of wine" running down the sides of a glass. A CSO to MOE.
12. Island called "The Gathering Place": OAHU. The Hawaiian Islands and their nicknames, explained.
13. Pal follower: ETTE. This can be either a flat surface that an artist uses to mix paints, or the range of colors in a painting, e.g.
Some believe that Vincent van Gogh was the greatest artist who ever lived, and I definitely believe that Vincent and the Doctor was the greatest episode of the time traveler series Dr. Who that was ever produced (you can stream the whole episode on Amazon Prime for a nominal amount) ...
18. Stagecoach stopovers: INNS.
19. Evocative of the past: RETRO.
23. Lose a layer: MOLT. As they get bigger, 38Ds do this
24. Self-: AUTO.
25. Museum gift shop purchase: PRINT. Like this one ...
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| Irises Vincent van Gogh May 1889 |
26. Flushed: RED.
27. "I'm the best!": YAY ME. The crossword antonym to I TRY.
28. Relocation rental: UHAUL. U-Haul Holding Company is an American moving truck, trailer, and self-storage rental company, based in Phoenix, Arizona, that has been in operation since 1945. The company was founded by Leonard Shoen and Anna Mary Carty in Ridgefield, Washington, who began it in a garage owned by Carty's family, and expanded it through franchising with gas stations.
29. Scams: CONS.
30. Palmer of "Nope": KEKE. NOPE (stylized in all caps) is a 2022 American neo-Western science fiction horror film written, directed, and produced by Jordan Peele. It stars Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as horse-wrangling siblings attempting to capture evidence of an unidentified flying object in Agua Dulce, California. Hand up if you've ever been there? Two hands up if you saw any UFOs? 😀
_poster.jpg "Thursday, May 16, 2024, Alan Levin (19)")
31. Tab: BILL. For some reason people always expect me to pick this up. 😀
32. Bassoon cousin: OBOE. Here is Valerie Xu playing an excerpt from the OBOE solo in Richard Strauss's tone poem Don Juan ...
36. Dessert made in a ramekin: FLAN. Here's a recipe for an easy to make Spanish Flan.
37. Gospel that includes the parable of the Prodigal Son: LUKE. Two sons figure in this parable: the prodigal son and the faithful son. When we visited Lourdes in 1999 there were giant posters of this famous painting by Rembrandt all around the grotto, inviting people back to the Church. I accepted the invitation.
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| Return of the Prodigal Son The faithful son can be seen in the background, just above the father's left shoulder. He is not happy about the prodigal son's return. |
38. Pet snake, perhaps: BOA. Eventually they get very big ...
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| Pet boa |
40. Outstrip expectations: AMAZE.
41. Returned a verdict: DECIDED.
43. Like a penthouse: SWANKY.
44. Palestinian leader who shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize: ARAFAT. The Nobel Peace Prize 1994 was awarded jointly to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin "for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East". Here's the Nobel Prize Committee press release.
Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist the following year.
45. Swampy earth: MIRE.
48. Abbr. before an addressee: ATTN.
49. Emmy nominee Seehorn: RHEA. Presumably named for Rhea a mother goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Titan daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, himself a son of Gaia.
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| Rhea |
50. In the area: NEAR.
51. Dermatological complaint: CYST. A cyst is a small pocket of tissue often filled with fluid or pus. It can occur due to an injury, infection, or other issues. They’re usually benign but may need treatment for complications.
52. Scary character: OGRE. See 39A.
53. Peppermint shape: CANE.
54. During: AMID.
55. Realizes: SEES.
57. OH-to-OK heading: WSW. Oklahoma is West South West of Ohio.
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| 14 hr 27 min (972.5 mi) via I-70 W and I-44 W |
58. Mauna __: LOA. Not KEA. You have to wait for perps on this. MAUNA LOA is Earth's largest active volcano by both mass and volume. Its last eruption was in 2022, lasting from November 27 to December 13. Here's some news footage of the event ...
Cheers,
Bill
And as always, thanks to Teri for proof reading and for her constructive criticism.
waseeley
