"How'd you serve that ice cream so quickly?" "I've got scooper powers." (It was a sherbet I'd post this.)
@Mike You might say that was a cold shot.
@Mike Sorry, I don’t want to be a dip, so I’ll split.
@Mike Serving up puns Divertentissimo, It's our hero Mike Intelligentissimo. His wordplay pizzicato, Glissando, stacatto! Not too plain, not too bold Smooth parole gelato. No post is neutro, Alla fine - cioccolato! O V
@Mike I love how your puns are so spoontaneous !
@Mike You tossed out a soft serve with that one. Sundae you'll have one that's more challenging.
Found an article from the NYT back in 2017. It should give people a chance to enjoy themselves without feeling guilty. “Crosswords are ultimately learning tools, whether you’re learning some trivia or an interesting new word or phrase. When you look something up, you’re learning so you’ll know it for next time. Of course, some solvers may tell you that looking up the answer to a clue is “cheating,” but to us, that way lies frustration and a path to giving up. And that’s no fun. Crosswords are a game, and games are supposed to be fun. Still not sure looking things up is fair? Here is outright permission: “It’s your puzzle. Solve it any way you like.” — Will Weng, the second crosswords editor of The New York Times (1969 — 1977)” - - Deb Amlen.
@D M Mojo Exactly. And congrats on your streak. Have an ice cream.
@D M Mojo remembers the episode of “Friends” where Rachel hounded people around her for answers while insisted on doing the crossword puzzle herself? The funny moment was when Gunther tripped himself after Rachel completed it.
@D M Mojo I wouldn't accuse anyone of cheating for however many lookups they take. I just don't feel right doing it. I've lost streaks because of it, but I feel better doing it the way I do.
@D M Mojo "Cheating is learning!" is one of my personal rules of crossword puzzles. I do crossword puzzles because they are fun for me. If I get stuck, I get help. On those days, I learn something new while I'm having fun. Woo hoo!
My local ice cream shop recently opened a new location here in town that serves only frozen yogurt. It’s a self service deal - pay at the end based on weight. Now, I love taking the kids to ice cream for an occasional treat. They pick two flavors - most times they seem to complement each other. Sometimes they’ll get a topping that ties it together. Delicious. Refined. Wonderful. But frozen yogurt is a different beast all together. The kids go CUCKOO. They fill big tubs with all sorts of nasty flavor combos and candy. There’s something unholy about mixing watermelon sorbet with chocolate peanut butter swirl, topping it with marshmallows, sour worms, and whatever else is within arm’s reach of the sneeze guard. It’s not a dessert. It’s a *crime scene*. So, between you and me, I’m not taking them to froyo anymore. I’m not depriving them. I’m guiding them back to civilization. They’ll thank me one day. Until then, they’ll have to suffer through a delicious O O V
@Striker Bravo! But I’ll just add that if I had been one of your kids, you wouldn’t have opted for that configuration with me! As kids, our parents would take us to Carvel for soft ice cream — are they even still around? — and while everyone else got cones, slowpoke me was only allowed a cup! Chocolate soft ice cream with chocolate sprinkles. By the time I was finished, it was pure liquid mush! And I loved it! I still recall enjoy eating my ice cream slow and melty!
@Striker I went to Junior High in Queens and had to take two buses home. One of the stops where I had to change buses was at a Carvel store. If I timed it right, I could have a Carvel soft cone between buses.
Very important to finish this puzzle quickly. Before it melts.
@Marlene But then you'll get that "brain freeze" head ache! Beware!
This puzzle has the stamp of quality. A fun visual theme, excellently presented, amidst a just-right Tuesday answer set and clue level. From start to end, I felt as if I were in the hands of a craftsperson. Not to mention that this is the perfect puzzle to counter the heat of a very hot summer. A pick-me-up. Theme echoes all over: EAT ME, BEACH, ORB, MENU, and even I LOVE YOU SO MUCH and GOES CUCKOO OVER. SHINE in the box as well, with the lovely HAVOC, ONYX, GNAW, and TALL ORDER. This is the second day in a row with a terrific theme, after yesterday’s GOTTA CATCH ‘EM ALL, and Jeremy is all about theme – not a themeless among his 29 Times puzzles. Joy in the box today, and a splendid outing. Thank you, Jeremy!
BTW -- I thought I'd seen a theme like this before, and a commenter on Rex confirmed it, a puzzle from six years ago. Worth a look in the archives: 9/4/2019.
There has been some discussion recently in these comments about whether solvers pay attention to the theme while solving. Here, the answers came to me so fast (though not quite as fast as the Monday puzzle) that there was no pause in which I stopped to consider what was in the shaded squares. When I finished, I saw V, OV, OOV, and OOOV. I thought, "Wha...?" And then I said, let me look at the reveal again, since I didn't get past the [Eagerly obtained...] part of it. And then I noticed: Ice cream cones. SCOOOOOOOPED UP. I get it. But I didn't need any of this theme to solve the puzzle. So it was basically a very fast themeless with a post-solve lagniappe at the end.
@Steve L I never noticed a theme here. Too easy and quick to pick up the theme.
@Steve L I dunno, I could see a pattern emerging and it helped with the crosses, even though at first I wasn't sure there wouldn't be more V's! Cute theme! Isn't National Ice Cream day coming up? Did I miss it?
@Steve L Same here, even though as I was solving it, I thought, "I should pause a minute to figure out those shaded squares." I'm glad I didn't, though. Melted ice cream is so messy.
Interesting. When I solve, I like to read the entire clue even if I get the answer quickly, and I like to look for themes. After reading the first revealer at 16A, I watched the shaded squares as I filled them. I had a good idea what the second revealer would reveal before I got to it. I'm in no rush to finish, and my ice cream didn't melt.
🧵 I have to say, I’m NOT much of a fan of the recently introduced “ME” section. I don’t NEED that “Welcome back, [player alias]” popup THING. I know who I am! I was doing just fine BEFORE, without any NEW software jazz to get used to. But leaving that aside: Today I learned how DIFFERENTLY the crossword stats are presented, and they will certainly have to be corrected: Unlike before, where EACH DAY was shown with a very readable vertical BAR GRAPH, of AVERAGE, THIS WEEK, and BEST, now that easily readable format has been CHANGED to individual horizontal bars, AND THEY JUMP MARKEDLY from stat to stat, 😒‼️ FOR EXAMPLE, my Tuesday AVERAGE TIME is 20:43. So far, so good. BUT THEN, I tap on the THIS WEEK graph, and it says I solved today’s puzzle in 12:39 minutes, but it LOOKS LIKE I took about AN HOUR, compared to my average, because the horizontal bar is about 3️⃣ times longer than the AVERAGE. And the same visual miscues exist when I want to see my BEST times. You have GOT to fix this backward step in your crossword stats. IT’S JUST NUTS! Does anyone else agree?
@David Pearce I haven't updated my NYT games app in over a year. I liked the old version. FWIW you can probably locate and install the previous installation package until they fix it (or in case they don't)
@David Pearce @DBG wrote a good comment a couple of days ago addressing your first concern. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/48uvip?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/48uvip?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a>
@David Pearce I usually solve on a laptop, not the app, and the stats look the same as they always have...
@David Pearce “ I don’t NEED that “Welcome back, [player alias]” popup THING. I know who I am!” YES. This is driving me crazy. But in my case, I apparently DON’T know who I am. At least, I don’t remember creating that player alias. But there it is, in my face, every time I open the app. Does anyone know how to make it go away? Or at least, is there a way to change what it calls me? I’ve looked and looked, and that alias doesn’t seem to exist anywhere in my account profile. It just lives in the pop-up, mocking me.
@David Pearce, I totally agree. My solve time today was well below average, yet the bar went all the way to the end. It makes zero sense and is eminently frustrating. Also, my streak was messed up in the conversion; I was docked approximately 100 puzzles! I'm waiting for a response to my email inquiry, and I've read in the column that the tech team is overwhelmed by similar requests at the moment and that it could take a week. 🤷🏼♀️ The rollout of the new format has been less than well received, if the comments are any indication. I hate to sound as if I'm resistant to change; generally I'm not. But this change doesn't seem like an improvement in any way.
@David Pearce I don’t have that feature thankfully. I use the Games app, but have found that if I access Games from the main NYT app it glitches all over the place and won’t let me access comments. Ditto if I have the news app, but enter Games via the stand alone app. No clue how that works. I now access the news via google and Games via the app. All is harmony. Plus no gimmicks by the sound of it 🤷♀️
@David Pearce Please go easy on capital letters ... they're tough on the eyes so early in the morning!
@David Pearce and everyone else on this thread :) You are not the first to comment here about the changes to the app. And your opinion matters! If you haven't already, I highly recommend emailing the Games staff: send an email to the address at the top of the comments page and request customer care to pass along your comments. (It's great to commiserate with fellow players, but your comments almost certainly will not be seen by anyone who can effect change.)
I needed surprisingly long to deal with the NE corner - had it not been for it, I would have solved the puzzle in Monday time. SPUR and SOUTH were my only toeholds there. I've been drinking tea all my life but I'm no tea snob (I'm happy with Dilmah tea bags), so PEKOE was no gimme. I've never had an opportunity to learn microwave lingo - it's not something that features in films or on tv, and I've never lived in an English language household. Thus, NUKE wasn't obvious, either. I thought the building block clue would be literal, since it's Tuesday. The whole corner unlocked for me when I finally came up with SCUSE ME - crosses from it and SOUTH gave me ATOM and WHEE, and it was smooth sailing from there. The theme was fine. I once did many "drawings" with my keyboard, and the theme reminded me of it. My best creations were Darth Vader ([:< and Princess Leia @^|^@ Darth Vader eating a TALL ORDER of ice cream? ([:< OOO> I think only McDonald's operates drive-thrus in Poland. I never understood the point. On the extremely rare occasions I eat fast food, at all (usually on the road), I find it much more convenient to get out of the car and eat at a table than struggle to communicate over that crackling speaker and then risk getting food all over my clothes and upholstery 🤷
@Andrzej I feel like NUKE was 80's slang for microwaving something. Back when they first became prevalent. I don't think Americans say that anymore. But it seems to be the most benign way to clue that word.
@Lpr Thanks, and you're right, of course, about there being no better way to clue that. I also know NUKE from gamer lingo - when your group is fighting a major boss in an MMO game, you use different tactics, sometimes quite supple. However, sometimes it makes sense to give the boss everything you've got. The leader of the group will shout: NUKE! and everybody forgets about tactics, and just goes crazy. It's usually done when things start going badly in the final phase of the encounter, and desperation is all that remains 🤣. As for microwave nuking, it was interesting for me to realize what sorts of terms I don't know in English. If it's not sexy enough to be in books, films, or on tv - like something extremely domestic, say - I won't be familiar with it. Take cooking terminology. I learned mine from my tutor, and then from cook books, cooking shows, films, books, and series. A microwave may be used on tv, sure, but it's always in the background, never subject of conversations. I think you have to have lived in an English-speaking household (possibly in the 80s,as you say) to know NUKE as a microwave term. Btw. Your nickname. LPR, Liga Polskich Rodzin, the League of Polish Families, was a far right, ultra Catholic political party in Poland 20 years ago, embroiled in many scandals. I just can't get over how your nick reminds me of it 🤣.
@Andrzej My husband still says nuke for microwaving to this day. As I mentioned yesterday, he has seen me through terrible stuff, getting turned into a newt and not yet getting bett, so I have chosen to allow the word nuke as pertains to microwaving. And yes, I'm all in for a trip to Poland!! 😍 More the so if you can be a tour guide. It is actually on our very short list of places to go. Poland, Scotland, Croatia... Those are, at least theoretically, my ethnic background. But also would to love to visit, Australia in New Zealand. And then every place in the Caribbean We haven't been to yet.
@Andrzej I love your keyboard drawings — especially Leia! I'm philosophically opposed to drive-thru restaurants, banks, dry cleaner, whatever. Too much gas wasted. Once, we took my future mother-in-law to a fast-food place and she wanted to use the drive-thru. I was driving and said "This car doesn't do drive-thrus." I can be such a snot sometimes.
@Andrzej Nuke is both a good and bad analogy for microwave heating. Microwave ovens heat with radio frequency (RF) waves at a certain wavelength that happens to react with water to cause heating. Nuclear fission also produces RF waves, typically x-rays or gamma rays. These however carry 1 million or more times more energy than microwaves. So much energy it can blow electrons off of atoms - which is called ionizing radiation. Microwaves can't do that, so they're called non-ionizing radiation. Non-ionizing radiation can cause severe burns in people (and other living things), while ionizing radiation can cause cancer and other very nasty effects. So the difference between microwaving and actually nuking is in large part a matter of the energy levels involved. In my book, the similarities totally justify calling microwaving "nuking", which we do in my household.
@Andrzej Those of us with hearing impairment have another reason to go inside to order instead of using the drive-through. Those crackly speakers are practically useless.
Good puzzle but Pekoe is a tea grade not a variety such as Assam or Darjeeling.
@Lauren Thank you! I was planning to mention the same. Mark
@Lauren is a grade not a form of variety? Crosswords have "clues" not strict technical definitions. Don't think this sort of pedantry gets us anywhere...
The little micro-creamery we owned for a dozen years is helping me out this week! When we began, we had a toddler. The second year, a toddler and an infant. So they grew up in an ice cream parlor. We knew we needed a plan. Neither of us wanted to monitor how much they ate. So they had carte blanche to have at it. The cream, brownies, toppings, sauces… Our eldest was 4 when he realized three scoops gave him a bellyache, and four was utterly regrettable. So 2 scoops it was! For their birthdays they asked for pasta, chicken, salads, veggies… No cake. No ice cream. Is there a lesson here? Dunno! Have a terrific Tuesday all!
@CCNY my mom owned a bakery when I was growing up. She allowed her kids as well as her employees to eat as much of anything they wanted. Perfect strategy as we were all sick of everything pretty quickly.
@CCNY In and after high school I had a job filling vending machines. The boss said I could have as much candy and soda as I wanted. (But I couldn't take any cigarettes, so that tells you how long ago this was.) it wasn't long before I didn't want very much.
@CCNY et alia The "overboard" satiation strategy can work wonders. Our kids complained that they couldn't have boxed cereal for breakfast on school days (instead of a full breakfast--eggs and toast, or pancakes, or farina, along with fruit, etc.) So when Summer came, I declared it was "Cereal every day!" LOL it didn't take long for the diet to pall, with the kids begging for egg burritos, muffins, omelets--anything but boxed cereal....
@CCNY In defense of only ever wanting vanilla ice cream, my mom always told the tale of working in an ice cream shop as a teen, saying it cured her of ever wanting more. So teenaged me thought I'd try the same treatment, and off I went to work at a local creamery. (I guess what you call a micro-creamery: there was only the one location. I still have the apron I -- ahem -- acquired during my tenure.) Well, what's good for the goose does not necessarily work for the gosling! I still adore ice cream. And frozen treats, in basically all forms. Just in smaller portions... 😋
i'd like to brag i recognized the ice creams as soon as i got "goes cuckoo over" and noticed the similarity of the o-v shape in the middle which was completely filled out. then i was more confident that vying was a word, so i filled that in to get the third ice cream. from there i figured out "tall order" and "scooped up" and i was able to finish the puzzle quite fast for someone who usually has to use auto-check on any non-monday puzzle
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure an orca isn't a deep sea predator...?
@Eli According to Wikipedia, they will dive several hundred feet if pursuing prey. (Though do spend most of their time in shallow waters.)
@Eli yes I picked up on that too. According to ChatGPT an ORCA is "a marine apex predator that hunts primarily in shallow to mid-depth ocean waters, often near coastlines or on the continental shelf" That being said I still enjoyed the puzzle 😋🍨🍦
@Eli As a marine mammal scientist and orca enthusiast, I absolutely agree with you. Even if they dive a little deeper to pursue prey, it’s not where they are hunting for prey. Sperm whales, on the other hand, are deep-sea predators, diving up to 2 miles deep to hunt for prey. Orcas don’t even come close to anything like that. “Apex ocean predator” would have been a much better clue.
@Eli I was going to post that but I knew I would get nit-picked. There was a study which found an orca diving to 1,087 meters in search of Patagonian Toothfish. <a href="https://hakaimagazine.com/news/a-record-breaking-dive-by-a-hungry-killer-whale" target="_blank">https://hakaimagazine.com/news/a-record-breaking-dive-by-a-hungry-killer-whale</a>/ So I guess it's fair game for the crossword.
@Grumpy Grumpy, did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed today? I thought the puzzle was delightful. And I’ll also add that as someone who tends to view things quite literally, I actually took the time to Google “ov, oov, ooov” and I’m not embarrassed to admit that. Even knowing “tall order” and “scooped up” I was still looking at the puzzle in a literal sense, rather than seeing it figuratively. I was about to visit the Urban Dictionary, naturally assuming that middle-aged me didn’t get the memo on these new texting terms! But your criticism seems so unwarranted. It was an ice cream theme. It’s summertime. Who doesn’t love ice cream?
@Diane Schaefer Apparently the criticism was warranted for Grumpy. Why do you, and people in general, often, insist on all people agreeing on things, and completely trivial ones, too, like liking a puzzle? I've known people who don't love ice cream. And even those who do don't have to love a puzzle with an ice cream theme, do they? You may disagree with somebody's opinion, but refusing to understand they may have one seems disrespectful.
I didn't yet know it was a double scooped ice cream cone but filling it in in 24D on the basis of Vs with varying numbers of Os on top gave me that answer and led me to correct a couple of errors I had made in that part of the puzzle, so the "theme" was important for me.
DOH moment. I was so sure the orders were coffee sizes that while I dutifully filled in the O's, it didn't click. Guess I hadn't had enough coffee yet. I'm sure I could never manage a triple scoop. As in the Judith Viorst book, "Alexander and the No Good Horrible Very Bad Day", the ice cream part would fall off the cone part and land in Australia.
Thanks Jeremy. From the depths of winter, a summer treat.
Such a cute theme, thoroughly enjoyed this one. Happy Tuesday!
@Kit Hmmm.. interesting to see a comment from Kit right above a comment from someone with the surname Carson. Oh, and KITCARSON has been an answer in 3 puzzles. I'll shut up now.
You gotta love an ice cream puzzle during the dog days of summer! WHEE🍧🍦🍨 I'll take the triple scoop thank you. No calories in crossword ice cream.
I love ice cream for breakfast. Or any time. I just love ice cream. Mom says those were my first words, ice cream. Perhaps she exaggerates, but the cone-shaped sign at the frozen custard stand down the road was definitely the first symbol I knew. I'm driving up to see Mom this week, she'll be 96 on Sunday. So I'll be mostly off-line and out of crossword land for a fortnight.
@Linda Jo Despite having a very sweet tooth ice cream has never been my thing. I’ll have a small Italian gelato once in a blue moon; there’s a local company in Dorset that make gelato that even I can get my teeth into. Their peanut cup gelato is amazing, not too sweet with crunchy nuts sprinkled through. But once or twice a year is enough for me. Everyone else I know here is obsessed with them. Now, if you were to offer me a bar of chocolate, that’s an entirely different matter. Totally irresistible. Which is sad, because I have to resist for my health. It’s like the seventh circle of you know where.
@Linda Jo Safe travels...to? Atlanta? We'll miss you, but 96 is quite a milestone, so be sure to have ice cream!
@Linda Jo Ice cream for breakfast, yes! Like gelato in a brioche that I had in Sicily. Also affogato. Yum... You very likely won't see my comment so many hours after you got on the road, but I will think of you on my own drive tomorrow to see my own mom. Happy birthday to yours!
As if we needed additional evidence of my impairment, when I saw SCOOPEDUP, I took the O..V segments to be some variant of “Hoover” (the vacuum cleaner, not the US president), especially because 8D ends in ER 😝 Spent too much time around Brits for whom “hoover” is a verb … Staring at the grid post-solve per Sam’s suggestion got me to the ice cream cones. Quick but fun one today. Thanks! Mark
Okay, I didn't get the theme until after I finished, but once I did, I said, "OMG, that is so cute." It brightened my morning.
Umbrella clue fooled me a bit. Had stand for the longest time.
I enjoyed the theme. Now I need an ice cream cone.
Hmm... it took me a minute! Excuse for fuzzy-brain: I'm just back from my walk--it was 80 degrees at 6:15 this morning, with 96% humidity. I'm having some coffee to cool down. How long would a triple SCOOP cone last ....splat! DHubby has brought home some (purportedly lactose-free) ice cream which is passable...but what I wouldn't give for some fresh peach ice cream straight from the old freezer bucket! (No cone necessary.) It would be worth it... Nice tie-ins with CAPE (May?) BEACH, TALL ORDER, and EAT ME. On with the day!
@Mean Old Lady A few weeks ago, I decided to get an ice cream cone at a place famous for their HUGE scoops of ice cream. It was a very hot day. I felt like a little kid trying to lick that ice cream cone faster than it was melting! But, boy, was it ever good.
What a great puzzle, especially for this hot summer. Was able to fill in every square without lookups (a rarity these days). That makes it so much more fun. The theme revealed itself when the puzzle was done. Yum, yum. My favourite flavours in a multi-scoop cone are dark chocolate and maple walnut. How about you? Congrats to the constructor. More, please!
I'll take 3 scoops, please and thank you. In 2020, I did a lot of hiking in the White Mountains, and I rewarded myself with ice cream from the New Hampshire Ice Cream Trail, traveling all over the state. I finished the trail and got a sweatshirt for my efforts. Would do it again if I didn't hate driving.
8D and 13D are perfect for me today because today is my wonderful 58A husband's birthday today and both of those are spot-on!! 😍
@HeathieJ Happy birthday, Husband of HeathieJ! (I'm on my PC at the moment, so no proper emojis, please imagine my usual abundant set :D)
@HeathieJ, Happy Birthday 🎂 to the World’s Luckiest Man 🏆!!!
Well, I’m feeling dense for not getting the theme on my own…But fun to see it after the fact. I never crave or want ice cream until it’s presented to me, and then I wonder why I don’t have it every day. I was recently introduced to salted caramel with (the old cruciverbial fave) Oreo chunks. Utter genius 🤯!
@Kate Do they have Kroger grocery stores in your area? They make a salted caramel ice cream with chocolate chunky things that are much better than any Oreo. It was our gp-to ice cream until we discover the chocolate peanut butter with fudgy swirls.
Excellent Tuesday, good difficulty and cute theme.
Loved this puzzle and loved the theme, though, like Sam, I finished it without quite understanding what the vertical V’s and O’s were doing. I was so glad she explained. I never manage to read ALL the comments, but I did see that some others didn’t quite figure it out and some did, so I’m happy. And as usual, some thought it was too easy.
If the quote in the clue for 30D can actually be attributed to Cicero and not a bumper sticker from a yoga retreat, I’ll eat any of my hats: editor’s choice as to which one. (Except for my original Utah Utes hat; that one is a collectible by now. Or the Alta hat. Also vintage by now.)
@Sam Lyons Maybe it's from a bumper tablet on Cicero's litter? Styled by Tiro, possibly.
@Sam Lyons By the time I reached the clue for 30D, I didn’t give the quotation much thought, as the letter pattern pretty much dictated CICERO as the answer. Looking just now, I found a number of quote websites (not to be confused with quote websites unquote) that support the Cicero attribution. I did not find anything that cited a specific work by Cicero in which the quotation appears. In any case, I defer to your superior knowledge. But if you end up eating your hat, you’re welcome to borrow my Alta pint glass to hold the beverage of your choice to wash down said hat. (Just as long as said beverage is not an IPA.) If you want to taunt the snow gods, I also have a Snowbird glass, two from Brighton, and one from Solitude — and that’s just the Cottonwood Canyons.
@Sam Lyons Anyone else singing Cicero, Cicero, Cicero ? Oh, yeah, that was Figaro. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aAU_3MizMM" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aAU_3MizMM</a>
If you enjoyed Erik Agard’s Saturday puzzle, he has a very nice one in The New Yorker today. It might be a little easier than his Saturday puzzle.
I enjoyed the puzzle, and the theme, when I finally figured it out. But . . . I know I'm not supposed to be this picky about clues, but I felt a few were misleading. A SPUR is not part of a boot but an add-on to it. PEKOE is not a variety of tea but a grade of tea; any variety of black tea (Assam, Darjeeling, Nilgiri, etc.) can be graded as pekoe. It has to do with leaf size. An ORCA is not a deep-sea predator so much as a near-the-surface predator. Yeah. Come at me. It's okay.
Laura, I don't think anyone will come at you -- and it's late in the comments day -- but I hope you will scroll down to read discussions of the three answers you mention.
@Laura D You wrote well-formed comments on the puzzle. Not dismissive or insulting to others. It's a great comment. Nothing to come at you about whatsoever.
@Laura D if you’re nitpicking, I’ll add my own: Don’t people generally go cuckoo FOR and not OVER something? But the puzzle was so delightful I have to wave this off.
PEKOE is a Tea Musa for me, along with assam. Wait, that's not how I'm supposed to parse 51A??? ;)
@Isabeau Took me a bit t-oolong to get that. I had to go back to the puzzle. Pretty aMUSAng!
My Diary of a Crossword Fiend review: <a href="https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/07/21/tuesday-july-22-2025/#ny" target="_blank">https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/07/21/tuesday-july-22-2025/#ny</a> There's ice cream in the freezer and my husband is away for the night. Time to exercise a little discipline. Thanks, Mr. Newton!
@Eric Hougland Oh, my dear Eric... Discipline is so highly overrated when it comes to ice cream!! Enjoy!! 🍨😘🍦
@Eric Hougland I see you're a brown ale aficionado. I think I only ever drank that once, in the States, at a slightly run down motel south of the Tetons - and I remember, because who could forget a name like Moose Drool 😂. I've never seen any brown ale in Poland, even though we have a thriving micro brewery market.
@Eric Hougland I respect a person who knows what they like and are prepared to travel for it (even if it's probably more enviromentally unsound than using a drive-thru ;) ). My wife and I love a specific hazelnut liqueur made in Berchtesgaden, Germany. If we're on an Alpine holiday, we will take a detour to get a supply to last for a few years ;) @Francis Right? That's such a great name. My wife and I loved it instantly. I sense my nasty sister-in-law would instantly hate it (like she did Jorge the Lab, of all creatures, for which I will never forgive her, especially now), which makes it even better :>
My fastest, easiest solve yet. I barely stopped. Knowing some of the old faithfulls from earlier crosswords helped - IPAS, CPA, EPEE and I even knew HRC since that was fairly recent. So pleased to be able to solve without eg sport/rap/film star clues that I didn't even notice some squares were shaded. Past tense of sew I would say, is sewn, unlike sow/sowed seeds. Lovely.
@Jane Wheelaghan Sewn is a past participle, not a past tense. You would say, ”I have sewn the dress,” but “I SEWED the dress.” You wouldn’t say, “I sewn the dress,” would you?
@Jane Wheelaghan choosing between the past and the past participle would require some degree of interpretation of ‘stitched’. I would consider myself on the ‘have stitched’ side and thus SEWN being the ‘correct’ answer. But then again it’s just a crossword and there were 5 spaces so 🤷🏻
Well, it's hard not to like a July puzzle who's theme is ice cream. Can't say I was wowed by the visuals. Too bad the appropriate O's didn't turn into solid whites, browns, pink, etc. upon completion of the puzzle. Clues like "Something to feed a steed" for the singular OAT always make me smile. The image of offering a single oat groat to a majestic half-ton horse is priceless. Not sure why any constructor/editor would opt for FATE/OAT rather than, say, FAKE/OAK---except possibly to make folks like me smile. So thanks for that.
@Xword Junkie Oh. "whose"
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.* Where was I. Oh yeah - just a bit tough for a Tuesday but worked it all out, and must confess that I had to ponder for a bit before I completely got it, because I was trying to see how the two long across answers fit the theme. I guess they don't. No big deal. Odd puzzle find today - vaguely inspired by 'SCOOPEDUP' - a Thursday from October 28, 2010 by David J. Kahn. Five theme answers in that one, all clued in relation to each other: WHATISA GHOSTSFAVORITE DESSERT BOOBERRYPIEAND ISCREAM And a rather remarkable puzzle find that I'll put in a reply. ....
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: a Sunday from March 31, 1968 by Frances Hansen with the title "Limerick trick." I have never seen another puzzle like this. Five long answers - the first one clued as "Start of a limerick" and all the others clued as "Limerick continued." Here are those answers: SAIDWSOMERSETMAUGHAMIS HALLVISITTHEISLANDOFGUA MIFIFINDITISHOTIS HALLLEAVEONTHESPOTIDETE STFEELINGOVERLYWAUGHAM Odd. Can't help but wonder how many people managed to work that one out. Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=3/31/1968&g=79&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=3/31/1968&g=79&d=D</a> ....
@Rich in Atlanta TALL ORDER (like the last ice cream cone with three scoops, or even a single cone, since "taller" than wide) and SCOOPED UP (like the process of scooping ice cream) both fit the theme. In fact, SCOOPED UP was the answer that revealed to me that the gray squares were ice cream cones.
New personal best Tuesday at 5:41. Been an easy start to the week.
Deliciously cute! I thought the Vs and Os looked like someone juggling ping-pong balls with their mouth. Todays LA Times crossword theme pairs quite well with this one.
Oh, ice cream! I didn’t get it. Enjoyed the puzzle anyway. It would have been fun and informative to throw in some classic ice cream flavors. Overall this puzzle was more VANILLA than ROCKYROAD.
This just in: I have no idea what playground has ever heard that particular lead-in to DOTOO. Sometimes, people put umbrellas in a crock. Nonsense, you say? They don’t? DOTOO.
@JohnWM Ditto. Very odd.
Spurs and cowgirl boots. Wow. Two errors in one clue. Spurs are not a part of cowboy boots, they are an accessory worn with cowboy boots. It is strapped to the boot, not part of it. Cowgirls wear cowboy boots. Read a Wikipedia page.
@Ken Burk I can’t parse the boot/accessory divide, but surely a [cowgirl’s boot] can withstand your critique? The cowgirl can possess a boot (cowboy boot or other) and not find herself totally erased, no?
Ken, (1) Your first objection was anticipated: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/491flg?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/491flg?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a> (2) Even cowgirls get the boots.
@Ken Burk I don’t know how y’all do things up in Illinois, but I’m a Southwestern girl who refers to the dozen or so pairs in her closet as cowgirl boots. Nothing wrong with calling them women’s cowboy boots, of course—Lucchese et al. do—but most women I know don’t.
@Ken Burk I’ve always gotten car accessories at my dealer’s parts department, but maybe that was foolish of me!
@Barry Ancona LLokl LKol lokk LlKLoll lokl Lolk llol loll lool ugghgg hatee myy ffatt tthunbs
@Ken Burk. Many years ago I worked for a company that made very, very expensive men's ties. There was a job opening in the design department, and one woman showed up wearing boots with spurs. (And a mini skirt, and rainbow eyeshadow.) Who knows? She may have been great, but she flunked the culture test.