This one could have used a cute animation! I didn't see the nuts until I read the article.
@Joya Me, too. Left me feeling quite SHEEPish.
It was great fun to start out with “what are those - teeth??” and then find out they were! You will want to give this Nutcracker a listen: <a href="https://youtu.be/sFGzK9boank" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/sFGzK9boank</a>
@Cat Lady Margaret Wow! That made my night. Thank you, CLM!!!
@Cat Lady Margaret Thank you so much for sharing! Absolutely delightful and not what I was expecting at all. Hey everyone, this recommendation needs to be the most upvoted comment for the day! You won’t regret it.
@Cat Lady Margaret Thank you so much! Never aware of these four. What a wonderful sound!
@Cat Lady Margaret - Totally delightful! Thanks for sharing.
@Cat Lady Margaret Wow! Thank you!
Looking again at the cracked nuts, I hope I'm not reading too much into the full entry pairs in which they reside: ESCAPE CANE TOAD LIP BALM ON DRAFT PAY CASH EW GROSS EUROPEAN UTOPIA
What a seasonal delight and I’m happy that it leaves me time to return to advance prep of my pies for Christmas Day. Merry Christmas Eve to those who celebrate, happy return of longer days to the northern hemisphere, and general good wishes to our southern hemisphere friends! I’m grateful to all of you for providing a reliably happy and interesting close to every day.
@Cindy Yes. Worldwide holiday greetings to the international readers of a New York-based newspaper. Especially to our northern neighbors. (They'll know why.)
Breezy and fun, just what Christmas Eve calls for. Didn’t see the nuts until I read the article. How clever and elegant. Just like the ballet.
That is one nutty puzzle. /Bill Murray voice off I flew through it, easy breezy, but enjoyed it nonetheless. I didn’t realize I was looking at teeth until I filled in THE NUTCRACKER, but just seeing the oddly rendered squares was enough to make me smile and pique my interest. I do love me a good mystery puzzle. If peanuts are not nuts, then why is every jar of mixed nuts on the market made up of mostly THEM? Legumes, schmegumes. I call them nuts. I think Charles Schultz would agree.
@Heidi Yet, I cannot imagine boiling any tree nut, the way that peanuts are boiled in the Southern U.S., or to make a stew in Africa. Is corn now a nut because they sell "corn nuts?" My objection is that nutcracker are not used to open peanuts.
A very cute theme for the season, nitpickers not withstanding. Those who have pointed out the error of Ms Sinclair’s ways that a peanut is not a nut are botanically correct. Usage, however, is another thing . Strawberries are not berries, starfish not fish, seahorses not horses, etc. Keep up the good work Sarah, we Sinclairs must stick together. Keep those puzzles coming. Merry Christmas!
@Ken Reminds me of Nate’s SNL routine on words. I laugh just thinking about it!!
@Ken S And EMUs are not even emus, around these parts.
@Ken S However, one would not use a nutcracker on peanuts, unless you wanted crushed or even powdered peanuts.
@Suzanne One could say the same for cashews. Have you ever used a nutcracker on a cashew?
@Ken S "...nUtpickers not withstanding." (Fixed that for you.)
You could call this a crunchy puzzle—better get crackin' Fun one, thanks Sarah!
When I first saw the toothy squares, I thought it was going to be far more complicated than it looked. However, I temporarily forgot that this was a Tuesday puzzle. Shall we say, I cracked it in short order.
@Steve L I don’t know about the clue for 11D though. Totally threw me.
@Steve L Am I the only one who saw them as tiny ladders? Grids, maybe. I wonder what this says about my character.
Yikes. Was actually on track for a Tuesday best, but then I got hung up in the Southeast corner. Took me quite a few minutes to resolve it. No Gold Star. Found a mistake. Fixed it. Still no Gold Star. Ran through everything twice, and it all looked fine. The mistake? OCuOA/uMM. Wasn't familiar with the name, and was pretty sure of umm being right
@Steven M. While I wasn’t on track for (or close to) a PB, that was also the fly-speck that I needed to successfully complete the puzzle. uMM definitely didn’t raise any flags as I fly-specked the across answers. I didn’t know the astronaut’s name, but when I got to 47d in my fly-specking, OCuOA did seem to be a good candidate for my error. After changing the U to an H and getting the gold star, the name OCHOA sounded much more like a name that I had heard before - though maybe not because of the astronaut.
@Steven M. I also had the "u" vice "h"... didn't catch it either!
@Steven M. This my last correction, too. That’s what I get for assuming the presence of a vowel
Coincidentally, this brought to mind our old family tradition of watching The King and I and eating pecan pie on Christmas Eve. Great puzzle and happy memories! Thank you!
Perfectly Tuesday puzzle, the best kind! I will always remember Sarah Sinclair’s stuffed crust pizza grid. I loved it so much, I remember forwarding it to my grandfather to solve: a veteran crossword solver of +60 years, and the person who first got me started on them. Just realized I’ve never asked his opinion on rebuses… I’ll have to follow up and see if he enjoyed it as much as I did.
Solved the entire puzzle without figuring out what today's theme was. Would absolutely never have guessed the nut thing...
@Brady S. Me, too. In fact, it was reading your comment that made me go back and look.
@Brady S. Srsly? Everyone should see THE NUTCRACKER ballet once in their lifetime. ....and that should be sufficient. Ducking and running....
Loved this one. One thing - I wish the nuts were circled. I made it through the entire puzzle without getting the theme (might've just been a me problem), but still had a fun aha-moment after scrutinizing the grid for a bit. That said, I think I would have appreciated this puzzle a bit more if I was clued in on the theme while solving the grid, enjoying the clever "splits" as I typed in the entries rather than after the fact.
@Jack I have to agree. A lot of times it seems the shading and circles are superfluous, but this time they certainly would have helped me. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
What a delightful Tuesday puzzle. A great AHA moment when I saw how the theme worked,so much fun to crack all those nuts. Sarah can construct my themed puzzles any time.
Oh... one more puzzle find. This was quite delightful and right up the alley of dad jokes. Anyway - A Sunday from April 7, 1996 by Cathy Allis with the title: "Questions for the pharmacist." I won't provide the clues - just show you some of the answers: DRISTANANDISOLDE BANGTHETUMSSLOWLY PERPETUALMOTRIN BJANDTHEBAYER FAMILYSUCRETS THEAGEOFANACINS BUFFERINSUCCOTASH ONALEVEOFABSENCE Here's the Xword link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/7/1996&g=118&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=4/7/1996&g=118&d=A</a> I'll shut up now. ...
What a charming and mirthful theme...Perhaps the most delightful Tuesday puzzle ever! Take a bow, Sarah, for twirling up a real charmer!
T’was the night before Christmas With a house full of lushes. I needed Sarah’s puzzle, No ifs, ands, or TUSHes. “Such a horde,” I had snorted, “should bring ONE ALARM.” But she just smiled, as always, with that cruciverbal charm. “Don’t lose it, find your TAO, It’s really not too many.” THAT SAID—YES, no ESCAPE, We can do it, molto BENE. We have AMBER, and ON DRAFT, With many bar nuts to chew. On PECAN, on PEANUT, On ALMOND, on CASHEW. But how can I cook, In the midst of this HOOPLA? How’s the CANE TOAD and GATOR (EW GROSS!) Just enough salt? Too little PEPPA? When out in the white STORM, We ESPIED…what? (is it DOORDASH?) Do they take PayPal? or Visa? HMM…it’s ON ME, I’ll just PAY CASH. But the man who RAN IN Was not delivering food. Dressed in RED, the OAF said, “The name’s Saint Nicholas, dude. He kinda looked the part, The belly was most ample. But it’s the post-fact era, “Got a DNA SAMPLE?”
@Warren “Listen up, HUEY,” he said, As he hitched up his pants. “I’m the one who DEALs the gifts,” Then he did this weird STEP DANCE. “For EONs I’ve brought UNO, to Eno, to Ono, From the dojo, to Orono, to the Alamo, to Plano. From the TOP of EL CAP, to the OLE Land of NOD, To the addresses all even, EXCEPT when they’re ODD.” Confronting me, TAU to TAO, “So, don’t give me this SMEAR. I’m ABLE to WHUP OSHA, And yet *you* I should fear?” Then, carving a PATH by me, He STEALS through to the tree, Muttering OATHs as he goes, “You can’t handle my chi.” Once done he then turned to The AGUA and OREOS, We had laid out for St. Nick, Then back out into the snows. Looking out, I expected To see a sleigh, pulled by deer. Instead, there’s a KIA, pulled by RHEA, “Hey man, less chance of wind shear!” Then he smiled at me, And, while reining the bird, Yelled at the top of his lungs, “Here’s to Ms. Sinclair’s Crossword!”
@Warren what a tour de force! Loads of fun. Well done and thanks for the chuckles.
The four "smiles" (gritted teeth) were sort of a give-away, but it's hard to put one over on folks when it's Christmas Eve! We are ready! Daughter on site. Pasta already made; spinach chopped; tomato sauce at the ready: Lasagna in sight. The decorations are hanging from the chandelier (cat in residence) and the Christmas tablecloth will adorn the table in a while. HMM. CANE TOADs for Christmas? EW GROSS, indeed. 2024 will go down in history as the year a GATOR made its way into the Village lake; it really cut down on the number of Canada geese hanging around... There are no LOONs about, but we do get small flocks of Buffleheads stopping by. They are adorable.
@Mean Old Lady One year we had a passel of kittens in the house and we forgot to coral them before we went to bed. We were half asleep when we heard sinister little tinkling sounds from the living room, along with rustles as creaks, then c r a s h! as the whole Christmas tree keeled over. We jumped out of bed and rushed to the disaster site just in time to see the perpetrators crawling out from under the branches and scampering in every direction. We righted the tree and went back to bed, assuming they had learned their lesson, but they were kitties, and the only lesson they learned was how exciting and fun it was to crash a tree, so of course they did it again. We decided to wait until morning to deal with it.
I guess I’m the only one who saw escalators or stairs thinking one side of the puzzle went up or down to the other…. 😃 Solved straightforwardly without ever getting the theme until I got here. A nice early Tuesday puzzle Thanks
@Ιασων Close. I saw ladders. Never got the connection until I came here.
@Ιασων I saw movie reel tape, so I was way off!
@Ιασων I saw train tracks connecting the two answers, which actually helped me to see the nuts. Of course, that's the opposite of what was intended.
Great puzzle with a slightly less obvious Christmas theme. I love The Nutcracker. Last time I watched it was at Covent Garden Opera House a couple of years ago; a Christmas treat from my daughter. Oh, the costumes, the music, the ridiculously lithe dancers. How do they make the spine bend like that?? The cracked nut theme was sweet. It took me a while to parse ALM OND, but the others leapt out. I was initially thrown by TAO/TAU as being too similar to possibly feature in the same crossword. For those who reacted to my post yesterday, I have responded but only this morning (GMT).
@Helen Wright Regarding TAU/TAO, would you have the same reaction to tee/tea, see/sea, can/cat, our/out or any similar pair of common English words?
I knew peanuts are legumes, not nuts. It appears almonds are not "true" nuts, either. "A true nut is a dry fruit with a hard shell that covers a single seed. Almonds are seeds that grow inside a fleshy fruit called a drupe". Macadamia nuts also grow inside a fleshy fruit called a drupe. Ditto for cashews and yes, pistachios. Crosswords are educational.
@The Poet McTeagle Almonds are pretty much analogous to peach pits. Shelled almonds are analogous to the kernels inside peach pits. Both are called “noyaux”. Peach kernels contain some amount of amygdalin, which can metabolize to become cyanide. Which is why we eats almond kernels and not peach kernels, at least in quantity.
@The Poet McTeagle Cashew seeds actually grow outside the fruit, protruding from the bottom. I have a great photo I took of one hanging in our kitchen. People are always amazed. The cashew apple is delicious!!
TEETH?????? They're doing such interesting things with squares these days -- and I had no idea what was being done with these. But they sure looked like teeth to me. I skipped down to THE NUTCRACKER, which I wrote in immediately -- but it didn't tell me much at that point, so I continued to wonder what I would need to do to solve this ODD-squared puzzle. But it turns out I didn't have to do anything myself beyond just filling it in and then looking more closely. The cracking of the nuts had already been done for me by the constructor. Aw shucks -- I was hoping for crunchier nuts. Still, it's Tuesday after all and the embedding of the nuts was smoothly done -- along with the grid and the cluing. A well-made and enjoyable puzzle.
This puzzle most assuredly did not drive me nuts, although I admit that, despite getting the nutcracker theme, I didn’t see the graphics as teeth. I did try to make additional sense out of the word pairs on either side of teeth. ESCAPE and CANETOAD made some sense, as did EUROPEAN and UTOPIA. However, all I could think of when contemplating LIPBALM ONDRAFT was EWGROSS. all in all, a fun Tuesday excursion with a cute holiday theme.
@Marshall Walthew I can’t see the teeth either. Hoping someone might shed some light on how to do that.mv
Steve, My reply may or may not show up. I only noted "This is nuts."
I believe OSHA has assigned deep-fried Oreos a two-alarm designation. County fairs, take note, and remember to submit the appropriate forms in case of any incidents. Ew. Gross. (Nice to see some Ontario- and Manitoba-based coins in the grid.)
@JohnWM LOONIES abound, eh? Happy Christmas, John. Stay warm!
@JohnWM I've never been to a county fair, and I don't like Oreos all that much, but still I have tried fried Oreos. And they are delicious. ____________________ Jesse Goldberg 8/28/2024 for Puzzle of the Decade (emu filler)
@JohnWM And just to bring it full circle, OSHAwa is a city in Ontario.
Peanuts aren't nuts. They're extraterrestrial pod beings hellbent on earthly conquest. Invasive. But in a good way. Sarah Sinclair is so gridding creative. A multimedia artist. I'm only sorry she didn't collaborate with Paolo Pascal on this one as they always seem to include a cute photo to accompany their puzzle. Imagine what they could have done with this one! Happy holidays!
@ad absurdum I'm sure customers are very understanding of waiting staff who, after they've been told of a nut allergy, ask whether that includes peanuts.
CANE TOADs are interesting little critters. Although they are in introduced, invasive pest in many places, I appreciated them being abundant around my house when I lived in Bermuda. My house was surrounded by palmettos. There is a reason the giant cockroaches in subtropical areas are also called "palmetto bugs" - they really do seem to like living around palmettos. The CANE TOADs would feast on them. The TOADs would leave little, um, deposits, not much different from what a toy chihuahua might leave, size- and shape-wise. The ones I would see around my house glistened with the fragmented remains of cockroach exoskeletons. Thank you, CANE TOADs! (Although some vertebrates can digest chitin, I guess CANE TOADs cannot.) There was a quirky and fun film produced almost 40 years ago about the invasion of the CANE TOADs in Australia. It is worth viewing, if you have 45 minutes to spare. I used to assign it in my environmental science classes. It is on the You Tubes: <a href="https://youtu.be/wkxwrpJg5W0?si=zzpRmyJUJwKw2h1V" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/wkxwrpJg5W0?si=zzpRmyJUJwKw2h1V</a>
This was a fun puzzle and brought to surface a childhood memory. In our home, I was the official "nutcracker," cracking open walnuts with a hammer and digging out the meat that my mother needed to make her delicious confections. One special cake was her "Butter Torte" which had a filling of sour cream, sugar and loads of finely chopped walnuts. It would be served in slivers, because it was so rich. It was always the special occasion cake. I haven't made one in a long while - hmmm. :) Happy Holidays - Happy Everday - to all. May you know good health, good fortune, good folk and, of course, joy-filled puzzle-solving.
Loved the theme, found it genuinely funny and appropriately straightforward for a Tuesday. I just wish the fill hadn't suffered quite as much to make the theme work. I suspect that KERR/RHEA cross is going to aggravate a fair number of people.
@Shrike I think Deborah Kerr will have been an absolute gimme for just as many. Whereas I haven't heard of NPR let alone Ari Shapiro. The last man who knew everything died in 1829...
@Steve I was shocked that you’d never heard of NPR but then I’m sure there are some extremely prominent media outlets/personalities in the United Kingdom that I would absolutely go blank on. NPR is America’s National Public Radio — publicly funded, along with donations and “major contributors.” The republican party wants to defund it, of course, which means NPR has at least some positive relationship to the truth. It was not been completely scandal free, however. I listen to it daily for (usually) thoughtful and accurate news and analysis nationally, as well as local content. Since I’m in Portugal, I set it for my American home state. They produce all sorts of entertainment and feature programming, not completely unlike the BBC. ARI Shapiro is an NPR mainstay who appears often in crosswords.
@Pani Korunova Side note: a decade ago, Ari Shapiro was the London correspondent for NPR. He also sings with the band Pink Martini.
I'm not a fan of nuts, but don't pecan on me! (Just have to come out of my shell.)
As a note to the columnist, there have been two Sarah Sinclair puzzles since the pizza one (though that was the most notable in form)
@Joseph C Yes, thoroughly enjoyed the Halloween and Olivia Rodrigo puzzles as well (even if Olivia never showed up to comment).
@Joseph C Oof, well spotted; that was a misleading characterization on my part. It's been updated in the article — thank you for catching it!
Good morning! Close to a PB, and, yes, like others I had hoped for a nutcracker animation. Didn't even notice the cracked nuts until reading the comments. Maybe it's MY nut that's cracked! Happy Christmas Eve, everyone. I've got to get cooking!
"30 Across – Alphabet ender, in Britain" and Canada
We always put out a big bowl of walnuts and pecans, accompanied by our old silver nutcracker, around Xmas. Unlike the pecans I’ve been trying to crack (I haven’t been able to get many perfect halves.) this puzzle yielded easily enough. The nutcracker theme was fun.
Wow! This was so much fun. Great theme, pretty quick solve but no feeling of it being ho-hum easy. Loved the little nutcracker graphics. Thanks, Sarah Sinclair. You put a smile on my face before heading out to a busy, busy day. Looking forward to your next puzzle.
Thanks, Sarah, for a fun, clever, & seasonally relevant puzzle! It was somewhat easy (of course, being a Tuesday), but it took me a while to catch on to the theme. I first thought the nutcracker teeth were bridges! 😄 Thanks to Sam too! I don't feel I've fully completed each day's crossword until I've read the Wordplay column. 😀 Happy Holidays! ⛄
Just popping in to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, now that you’ve all had a delicious start with this marvelous puzzle with The Nutcracker right at its center. All the peace and joy you could ask for, fellow Wordplayers!
That was very enjoyable! A fun, holiday-themed puzzle.
Fun puzzle and typical smooth Tuesday solve. Must confess that I didn't catch on to the theme until I was almost completely done, but that just made for a great "Oh of course!" moment. One puzzle find today - a Monday from November 7, 2005 by Jay Livingston. That one just had three straightforwardly clued theme answers - all of them 15 letters. Here those are: NUTCRACKERSUITE BOLTFROMTHEBLUE SCREWBALLCOMEDY And... another puzzle find that I'll put in a reply. ...
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: A Sunday from January 2, 1977 by Josephine A. Felker with the title "Plains-speaking." Seven theme answers in that one - all using the same trick, and all of them appearing for the one and only time. There was no 'reveal' in the puzzle and I guess you were somehow supposed to catch on from the title, but must confess that I don't really get that. Anyway - some answers with their clues: "Connecticut :" THEPEANUTMEGSTATE "Insulting words :" PEANUTSTOYOU "Christmas favorite :" PEANUTCRACKERSUITE And some other theme answers: FROMSOUPTOPEANUTS PEANUTSANDBOLTS AHARDPEANUTTOCRACK Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=1/2/1977&g=17&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=1/2/1977&g=17&d=D</a> .....
@Rich in Atlanta go nuts on the 3 December 2017 puzzle :-)
This was a good Tuesday puzzle. I once worked for Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration in cooperation with the federal OSHA. Can’t imagine how ‘Office monitor, in brief’ is an appropriate clue, given that the goal of the organization is to reduce occupational injuries and illnesses in all workplace settings. I had filled in all four letters from crossing clues and was amazed to see that the organization was described in that way.
@Bill The clue was clever wordplay, and OSHA oversees offices as well as other workplaces, right? Its Polish counterpart does. Crossword clues often work like that, but I suppose those who are close to the issues clued have a different sensibility than those who are not.
@Bill Yet, OSHA's oversight includes offices as well as factories and warehouses etc. I think this makes a clever clue, as one's first thought might be the office monitor is the BOSS or even some kind of computer component.
@Bill Think of all those paper cuts! They are very painful and even disabling!
‘Twas the day before Christmas, And what did she craft? EUROPEAN UTOPIA With LIPBALM ONDRAFT. Better stop there—-though perhaps EWGROSS is a proper response to a CANETOAD ESCAPE. Cute puzzle for the day, though I’m afraid the “cracker” squares evoked stairs for me.
I hope everyone out there has an enjoyable Christmas Eve and Christmas day, whether you celebrate or not. I'm meeting friends in Bangor for Chinese! And then a Boxing Day dinner. Celebrate, or not, however you please.
@CaptainQuahog I grew up in NYC - Christmas Chinese tradition! Merry Chanukka, Happy Christmas....Joy to the World!
@CaptainQuahog I did catch your later post yesterday. My dad had nothing to do with Zildjian cymbals, but he did work in a music store when he was growing up in Bangor. (Might have been Knapp's.) He had amusing stories about delivering pianos to out-of-the-way locations.
This sent me down the rabbit hole of researching whether I could help rescue Australia by teaching emus to eat cane toads. Or rescue us at NYTXW by inversing that food chain. Sadly, it appears not. Would cane toads be edible once skinned? Maybe with chili? Garlic? Kale? EWGROSS! Happy holiday eve, to all those who celebrate, whether naughty or nice.
@Rusty Wheelhouse - Well, if you watch the video I linked to, you will find that some people make a delectable tea out of CANE TOAD skins. Let's just say that the mebufotenin contained therein might be of interest to don Juan Matus.
At our home in Honduras, we have a humongous almond tree that provides canopy for our entire yard. It's glorious! (At least if you can escape the ants.) They like to stew the almonds more than they like to eat the seeds. This is also how I came to know of cashew fruit, which is delicious! When my husband says he could go for some seeds, I know he means what most here would call cashew nuts. The seeds hang below the fruit, on the outside. Here, I buy them at Trader Joe's (raw) and roast them dry and saltless in a cast iron skillet and he's over the moon. As for the puzzle, once I got over trying to figure out how the teeth worked, I sort of forgot the theme til I read the column. Oops! Usually I figure out the theme during the solve but suddenly I was done and forgot to look at it post solve. Cute but I do like a theme that makes me think and work a bit harder. Fun puzzle though!
Holiday puzzle? Monday? Nailed it. Thank you Sarah!
@Michael Everybody calls them nuts so they pretty much *are* nuts, linguistically. Also, "The legume cracker" would be a weird title for a ballet.
@Andrzej A better question is whether anyone has ever placed a peanut in the shell into a nutcracker of any kind in order to open it. In the U.S. South, peanuts are boiled in salted water and eaten out of the pod, just as edamame (a recognized legume) are. In Africa, peanuts are used to make a stew, just as any other legume is.
Enjoyed it. I can imagine that coming up with very many theme pairs was a tough nut to crack. Like, good luck finding an entry that ends with PIST and another that begins with ACHIO.
@Jamie The constructor mentions one in her notes
The nutcracker theme was great but would have been more fun if they had colored the squares that were being chopped up. Thanks!