If you want to trigger a farmer, call them “OREO cows” They’re belted galloways! - Signed, an American who has on numerous occasions annoyed her farmer Kiwi husband with calling them OREO cows
@Kate J I just heard of these for the first time, today! Listening to a Nick Offerman book on a long drive.
@Kate J Do you have a favorite? Did you name it Cookie?
@Kate J The last time I belted a Galloway was on me barque, The Gusty Nacre, we had at each other and took no prisoners. The cove had drunk too much sake and abused my pet goat, Amanda. T'were a romp! I got the better of the ostentatious swab warned him there'd be no fairytale ending. Then I logged him into the brig for the remainder o' the voyage!
@Kate J Or Lakenvelders, which is Dutch for Oreo cow, and also how I will refer to the cookies from now on.
@Kate J The first time I ever saw a belted Galloway was many years ago on a road trip up to Maine and the Maritimes. It was way before the internet, so I had a hard time finding out what they were called. And I don't remember how I ever did!
@Kate J Agreed! Belted Galloway cows are majestic (IMHO) and should never be reduced to an OREO!
I try to explain to non-solving friends and family the pure pleasure I get in seeing two long, totally unrelated and somewhat odd phrases (like 15A and 17A) piled on each other, and still all the crosses form legitimate words. Anyway, people here get it.
"Are you buying those drapes?" "I'm all but curtain of it." (These puns make me shutter.)
@Mike That''s what I would call blind faith
@Mike Don't leave us hanging. It sounds like a shady deal.
@Mike Pull yourself together!
@Mike A little vanity ought to cover it.
When I RAISEdTHECURTAIN on this puzzle I thought I was in for a tough ride, but I HAdAT it and decided to TAKENOPRISONERS. My tactical approach was to REVERSEENGINEER the puzzle by working from the middle downward and finally to the top. Voila, a FAIRYTALEENDING. I liked the way the long spanners revealed themselves without being too obvious. I also liked learning about SAMUELCHASE, an interesting historical precedent.
@Marshall Walthew I thought he was the one for whom Chase Bank was named, but that was Salmon Chase -- Treasury Secretary under Lincoln. He was just a friend of the bank founder!
I just want to hear Deb’s pirate accent.
@Laura. A favorite New Yorker pirate cartoon. <a href="https://share.google/images/r4QQMaLq25ukYVviE" target="_blank">https://share.google/images/r4QQMaLq25ukYVviE</a>
My initial guess for 10D [Where many gather to form a line?] was a television "writers RoOm" which I thought was brilliant! Alas, it was wrong. LOL
@Gregg It’s always tough when your (better!) answer turns out to be wrong.
@Gregg And l was awfully proud of TATOO there for a while. And DOH! Now that I write it here, I see that it doesn't even fit! Sometimes down answers are hard to proofread.
@Gregg "Brilliant" and "wrong" are not mutually exclusive.
I hope everyone will be speeding through the wide open spaces in the grid. Take no prisoners? This puzzle? I hope not. With this one, everyone should have a fairy tale ending. A romp.
@Barry Ancona Interesting. Of the Fridays this month (there have been 4 puzzles) today’s solve was my slowest by far. But all them quick by my normal standards. I struggled with the aforementioned, FAIRYTALEENDING. I just could not stop thinking about a negotiation-type of ‘resolution.’ I did think it a good Friday though.
This puzzle proves you don't have to actually know much to finish without lookups. Examples: SAMUELCHASE: I got Chase from the crosses (remembered NACRE from previous puzzles) and then had to come up with a first name. Asked myself what a good first name starting with S for a founding father might be and tried Samuel. Ding ding ding! VIOL: Originally had lute, which worked when I had roe instead of EEL, rune instead of EMMA (People cast runes, right? And they can be made out of stone?), and SUV instead of GMC. Once I tried the only other 3-letter sushi word I could think of, that section fell into place and I crossed my fingers that VIOL was a thing. ADAPTOR: Did not know this British spelling, although with the overseas clue, it makes sense. It couldn't be ADAPTeR because then what's an eSTENTATION? LARAM and OMANI: These were the last ones to fall for me. Had tapINTO and diGINTO for 24A, but neither of those was giving me anything that looked like a football team. Finally realized that iMANI should have been OMANI, which led to LOG INTO. But still, where the heck is Laram? So after finishing the puzzle, I Googled "who won Superbowl 56" and slapped my head. What's that term we use for mis-parsing an answer? And did anyone else think the 6D clue referred to the TV network before realizing it was more straightforward than that? Sometimes a peacock is just a peacock.
@Beth in Greenbelt I too went down the NBC peacock road.
@Beth in Greenbelt The VIOL is definitely a thing. Precursor to the modern string instrument family which includes the violin and the cello (originally violoncello). It's pronounced with a long I, which once gave my boss in the classical-music biz the opportunity to say, "If it's so 'viol', why do you play it?" I don't think ADVISOR is a British spelling, though someone may correct me on this. There are a few words that used to be spelled with an OR, like "advisor", and now seem to be spelled with an ER, which always looks wrong to me.
@Beth in Greenbelt I had SAMUEL early on and thought Adams, but figured the only cases associated with him were filled with beer. I figured out ADAPT_R. but figured out I'd better wait for the cross. As for LA RAM, you were dooked.
@Beth in Greenbelt I did a VERY brief stint as a music teacher at SAMUELCHASE Elementary School, which is in Prince George's County and is a little over twenty miles from Greenbelt!
@Jennifer I was, in fact, living in Greenbelt at the time!
@Beth in Greenbelt I very cleverly put in L_ _E, sure it was either lyre or lute…
@Beth in Greenbelt ADAPTOR: Did not know this British spelling, although with the overseas clue, it makes sense. It couldn't be ADAPTeR because then what's an eSTENTATION? I did the same thing and did not get my music until I edited it!
Color in the box today – that gorgeous stack of REVERSE ENGINEER / FAIRY TALE ENDING, bolstered by RAISE THE CURTAIN and TAKE NO PRISONERS. Answers like this lift a puzzle beyond simply filling in the boxes, beyond simply cracking clues. Freshness as well, for spark. That brand-new clue for OREO, which has appeared more than 500 times in the Times puzzle, and along comes this terrific debut cow clue! Freshness from 13 answers seen three times or less in the 80+ years of this puzzle. Add a bit of adorability with ARFS and PET GOAT, mix in a bit of class with OSTENTATION and UNDEVIATING, and, for me, this was feel-good on top of a fun fill-in that included areas of rub on one hand, and on the other, “Whee!” areas where answers cascaded in a splat. Stellar and day-brightening – a gift. Thank you, Gia. Your puzzles have shown that you’ve got the knack, and I look forward to unwrapping more!
Wow that went quickly. For some reason, I seemed to be on the right wavelength for this puzzle. Even though it was a quick solve for me, I liked it as it didn't have a lot of emus. The fill really helped with the long entries. This was fun.
@Philly Carey For me, the long entries really helped with the fill.
On Wednesday I was stumped because I was 100% sure that the gas brand was SoNOCO and I didn't remember the T-Rex named SUE. I did eventually google the answer and filled it in, but I was upset with myself because I had felt too much pressure about maintaining my streak and I had decided that if I ever couldn't finish a puzzle without any lookups, I would just let the streak go. Like with connections, I never worry about my streak, I just do the puzzles when I can - sometimes catching up after several days. So on Thursday, I decided to stick to my word (to myself) and fall on my sword. I left the top-left square empty and after completing the rest of the puzzle, I finished by revealing the puzzle. Previous streak: 533 (though really 532 with no lookups). Current streak: 1 😊
@Jeb Jones it’s so so liberating. Previous 596 current 47 Enjoy the low streak world
@Jeb Jones Good for you!!! A streak becomes a Sword of Damocles.
@Jeb Jones In case it comes up again, Sunoco stands for Sun Oil Company. I find it's easier to remember things when there's a sense to them.
@Jeb Jones I didn't realize Sunoco was so little-known. I still buy gas at the corner Sunoco every time I go visit my mother in South Jersey, most recently 3 weeks ago. I believe that service station has been there 60 years or so.
@Jeb Jones Love this. I intentionally revealed Escape Room after being stuck for 10 mins on the middle part because I knew it was going to absolutely destroy my day until I figured it out, and decided that going forward I wasn’t going to spend more than a few minutes fly specking before revealing. Max 427, current 5 (I just knew Alta beauty felt wrong).
@Jeb Jones I have no qualms about look-ups to keep my streak going. When I break it, it's because life gets busy and I miss a day. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and remembered I hadn't finished the Thursday puzzle! So I did it there, in the dark, lying in bed, listening to DH snore. :o) I know I could have waited until morning and just done it before i started Friday, but what's the fun in that? I don't do them the night before when they first come out. i do the puzzle, usually after dinner while DH does the dishes. [I cook, he cleans.] So, it's already after 8 pm in Calif and no one will read this because they are already working on Saturday.....
Slightly breezy Friday for me, as I solved at around 40 percent under my average time. I enjoyed the long fills…however (and this may be only me, and is not a complaint or even a nit), I’d always heard it as lift THE CURTAIN in that context so it took me half a moment to get RAISE since it didn’t come automatically. Anyone else? I felt a twinge of sadness at 31A, AMANDA Gorman, as it sent me back to January 20, 2021, and her recitation of her moving poem, as I was thinking then that we’d survived the madness and were on the other side. Foolish, naive me.
@Joe Same here! She still writes beautiful poems and they touch me deeply.
Queen NOOR led me into the puzzle, but I was fixated on NBC's Peacock so I had ????STATION. If only (famous last words) IF ONLY I had looked at ALL of the crossings, I could have saved myself from further embarrassment, but after my difficulty with the last two days of puzzles, what's one more Fail? So, 2 wrong letters before I gave up. Just don't have the time to devout to more puzzlement. (What happened to "Leisurely Retirement"??? Most of my (once meager) savings is in ROTH IRAS....hallelujah! After the Ohio state teachers' retirement fund went bankrupt for the 4th time (some decades ago, don't panic!) and I was for some years Not Employed (medical disasters cost more than money) the chance to put the funds into an IRA, and later to roll it into the ROTH IRA. Even with the "required annual distribution" I'm doing better... I hope it's safe from the chain saws!
Now this is a puzzle! A very welcomed enjoyable solve with a good fil and clever clues; unlike yesterdays debacle
@G O Not sure why you consider yesterday's puzzle a debacle. I thought it was very clever and finished it in only slightly more than my average time.
@G O I loved yesterday's puzzle.
I used to dread Friday and Saturday themeless puzzles because of their difficulty, and it would take me AGES to complete them. Two years into daily solving, and I now look forward to them. Sticking with it pays off! Loved the spanners in this one. Thanks to the creator and editors for a great start to the weekend!
@Angela Our experiences match. It took years for me to be able to finish a Friday and that was in print newspaper days. Well done.
@Angela Congratulations! Crossword solving really is one of those things where the more you do it, the easier it gets.
@Angela It seems I'm not as far along as you, with the late week puzzles, but I hung in there with this one, worked on it all day, in between my daily activities. About half way through, it really started to come together, and I got it done! Yesterday's was a bust for me, so completing today's is a big win. I actually prefer the puzzles that don't have a gimmick, though rebus are fine, I've learned to like those. Have a good weekend!
I was pleased that I remembered the name of the Queen of Jordan. A few minutes later my little bubble was burst when the crossings reminded me that it was spelled NOOR, not NOIR. Interesting, "noor" means light and "noir" means black.
@Deb Once upon a time, Queen NOOR was almost as common in crosswords as OREO is today. As for NOOR and noir, note also blanc (and blank) and black.
A bit tough, and didn't have much to start with, so started down the grid and found some possible answers, continued and had more success at the bottom and worked my way back up to finish out. Good one, Gia, keep working on that cycle.
Kite flying is difficult in MISTY weather also....
People talk about stacks... I see LENT next to ORGY
@Drew, I suppose someone could give up modesty and decorum for Lent …
Whew. Typical tough Friday for me, but ended up being an enjoyable workout. None of the grid spanners coming to me just from the clues, but that just meant a bunch of nice 'aha' moments when they finally dawned on me with some crosses. Three debut answers in this one, but each of them quite familiar terms. A bit surprised at that. Pretty amazing feat of construction. Puzzle find today I'll put in a reply. ...
@Rich in Atlanta As threatened: A Sunday from June 4, 2006 by Patrick Blindauer with the title: "Overcharged." Every theme answer had the same trick. Here are some clue and answer examples: "Gold gathering dust?" SITTINGBULLION "What Edmund Hillary had?" MOUNTAINPASSION "Let's try e-tailing!" NOTIONFORPROFIT "Neigh?" PONYEXPRESSION Here's the Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=6/4/2006&g=13&d=D" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=6/4/2006&g=13&d=D</a> ...
What a fantastic Friday ROMP! I started last night and finished up this morning. My gimmes in this one were AMANDA Gorman, ELOISE at the Plaza, and Queen NOOR. I got the chance to meet Queen NOOR at one of the CA Governor’s Conference for Women when Maria Shriver was our First Lady. They were both lovely and gracious women. I also was familiar with “OREO” cows as I saw them on many road trips while living in Texas. The grid spanners were so satisfying as well. Thank you, Gia. Keep them coming and I hope you hit the cycle!
This puzzle took no prisoners but had a fairy tale ending. Merci, Gia!
@Norwood I assume you mean a Disney fairy tale ending. The Grimm fairy tale endings were um…a little grim.
I absolutely loved this puzzle!!! Great/unique clues, great answers and wonderful spanning entries. This is why I like crosswords !
I reckon, like me, a lot of fellow solvers dropped an N in square 44 as their last letter to fall. Mother of pearl! That cross was a toughie. That little alphabet run aside, today’s puzzle was *much* kinder to me than yesterday’s. But I enjoyed them both.
@Striker Another generational gap, I suppose. People of a certain age remember that Queen Noor, born in the USA, often appeared in American newspapers.
@Striker Nope, they were both gimmes for me. Try to remember nacre, which has been in the puzzle a number of times before. But younger solvers won't remember Queen Noor, who got a lot of publicity.
@Striker Knackered by nacre, eh? I dunno, it seems to me you should know nacre if you've ever picked up a shell at a beach. Or at least learned it in high school biology. Obvs, milage and wheelhouses vary.
@Striker I’m putting NACRE in the vault. I’ve definitely seen it here before and it gets me every time. I’m not much of a guitar player (but I kinda rip on my kids ukulele!) NOOR is new to me and she’ll probably need to burn me a few more times before she sticks. For now: NACRE NACRE NACRE
One of the best puzzles in a long while. Loved all the long entries, and the shorter entries were unique and well clued. Can we do this every Friday?
Enjoyed it enormously - there is such a charge when I spot what a grid spanning answer it. Personal fave was a FAIRYTALEENDING Tried the new domino game. Meh - all those years of matching end pieces with family and friends means this doesn’t work for me. It’s a maths based problem packaged in a familiar form. I love me maths based games (when is the NYT gonna give us Killer Sudoku??) but these just doesn’t work for me.
@Caitríona Shanahan so far I think Pips has been far too easy even on hard mode…I’m no genius so I assume it’s too easy for everyone.
I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind for this puzzle. More experienced players seem to be zipping through it. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.
@Elizabeth Connors I didn't exactly zip through it (not that I'm an experienced solver). I was quite slow tonight, and felt suitably challenged when I was done.
For a little while I thought I’d learned something new and interesting about SAMUELadAms.
@Joe P Samuel Chase (1741-1811) was impeached in 1804 for making court decisions reflecting partisan bias (eight counts) but acquitted. Not so modern a situation, it seems.
A tough but fair Friday offering. I certainly found this smoother than the last few days, despite a good chunk of unknowns. REVERSE ENGINEERING gave me a good start, as did some of the names; both AMANDA and Queen NOOR were gimmes. I remember watching that young lady at Pres Biden’s inauguration and being blown away by her talent and confidence. Made me go look up more of her work. Took several attempts to spell CABELLO using crosses. I knew who she was, just not sure of her surname. ROTH and ANT trap threw me, but you all have kindly answered my fellow Brits queries. Always something new to learn. Do the OREO cows come with cookie dispensers to dip in freshly squeezed milk?? Asking for a friend. Might make my Alpacas up their game as I’ve had to discard the ruined fleeces for this year.
Stayed with IRK waaay too long for 5D. Once I fixed that one, everything fell together quite nicely. Fun Friday!
Nice pairing of Lent and Orgy!
Very briefly intimidating and then almost immediately easy to complete. Very straightforward Q&A and simple to do. But I still enjoyed the experience. I'm wondering if I had it unusually well in hand, or if it was just an easier Friday than normal. It almost always turns out to be the latter....
No cakewalk for me, but I got there in the end (and I’ll admit to looking up the Jordan queen, which I’ll remember someday, for my final letter). For 56 across I originally had “go for the jugular,” which I was quite pleased with. Then I realized other idioms fit, too, which in a difficult puzzle really “hit where it hurts.”
@Aaron Teasdale What do you do when you're attacked by a group of clowns? Go for the juggler!
I thought I was off to an all time great start when I got REVERSEENGINEER without the help of a single cross, and then nailed the gimme right under it which I was sure was winwinsituation. When the crosses indicated that at least one of them was wrong I came back down to earth, but I finished well below my Friday average. Still I enjoyed that brief moment and the delusions of adequacy that accompanied it. Oh well…
@Vislander I thought about WIN WIN, too, but the crosses made that unlikely.
I’m not a novice solver, but I can still relate to Deb’s advice to them… and urge them to take heart! This one was still intimidating to me at first—and even second—glance, yet it ended up being one of my faster solves. Once you find a foothold you can usually just keep going, letter by letter, word by word. Such a satisfying feeling to find you’ve filled in all that white space!
In today's Mini, a Southern accent has a drawl, not a twang. Texans have a twang.
@Scott There is more than one definition of twang. Such as this from MW: “the characteristic speech of a region, locality, or group of people”
@Scott My grandmother, from the North Georgia mountains, had a twang. My grandfather, from the North Georgia lowlands, had a drawl.
Scott As a non American I'm asking this question as a pure geographical one, and apologise in advance for any possibly offence, but isn't Texas in the southern parts of the US?
@Scott In case any Georgians are protesting, I confess there aren't actually any North Georgia lowlands. We lived in the rolling hills, the piedmont. An older accent chart I found showed that as a region where mountain and lowland accents came together, and that certainly seemed to be true in my family.
Perfect Friday level challenge. Thank you!
Great puzzle! I'm having fun pursuing my streak which started on August 1. Coming into today at 21 and despaired of getting to 22. Bit by bit it came together. I told myself the time did not matter. What mattered was finishing the puzzle which I did in slightly above average so that's OK. proud as a peacock (peahen?) to get to 22. Glad to have people I can share puzzling with. Never heard Havana which is now my ear worm. (thanks a lot Deb! Ha ha) very catchy tune. Have a great day all.
Really enjoyable themeless puzzle, nearly every clue seemed to click with me. Good stuff, Gia!
That was a fun puzzle, classic Friday difficulty that seems impenetrable at first but then starts coming together smoothly after you fill in a few minutes key words. I'll admit to being thrown off by ADAPTOR with an O, though, I was so certain it had an E that I had to look up the solution to finish off the puzzle. I should've known that the crossing was OSTENTATION, but I just assumed it starting with an E was a term I'd never heard of. Oh well, I got an interesting read about regional spelling variants out of the whole thing, at least.
Ended up having to guess letters for the cross between NOOR and NACRE but such is life. Otherwise fairly straightforward. I did like OSTENTATION, though. New one for me.
The "unakyu" part of 32D had a very Japanese look to it, but it wasn't a word I had seen before. But then 32D gradually changed from ___ to _E_ to EE_, and I realized the first part of the word was "unagi" with the "gi" chopped off. I haven't figured out the "kyu" (likely "kyuu") part yet, Japanese is full of "kyuu"s. Maybe in the morning.
@kilaueabart Think of a vegetable (although, some might argue fruit) that might accompany eel in a sushi roll.
Absolutely loved this. What fun with so many long words! Enjoyable, even though I usually prefer themes.
Some of us are old enough to remember when the stereotypical fairytale ending was "And those who survived lived miserably ever after." Not sure how many of us would call that "ideal". Loved all the great longs in this! Having mastered chess-boxing, I recently took up bingo-parkor(I don't use the British spelting).
@ad absurdum WHAT?? "parkor"???? What does parkor mean?
Funny that I was briefly stumped by OREO cow. I knew very well that the bovine described was a Belted Galloway, but that didn't quite fit. The "Duh!" moment came after, I think, one crossing letter.
This one seemed like a themeless Tuesday puzzle to me. Just kidding. This was a solid Friday workout. Struggled more than usual to decipher the top three spanners. The bottom two came easily. Was unfamiliar with CABELLO, AMANDA, ELOISE and MARA, but these came readily enough from the crosses. "Magnet" rather than CATNIP for "Something very attractive" and ADAPTeR instead of ADAPTOR slowed me down. All the long entries were nice, but HASAT, GAPESAT, READTO and LARAM weren't. All in all, a good Friday challenge. Solved it unaided, but took almost 36 minutes.
@Xword Junkie -- "Magnet" for [Something very attractive] -- Nice!
@Xword Junkie, I also had magnet at first but it quickly became clear that wasn't correct! I giggled when I figured out catnip. And -ter vs -tor for adapter cost me some time! This puzzle took me longer than usual too, just shy of 28 minutes, but it was time well spent.
This Friday felt much more accessible to me and ironically that resulted in a longer time… I find that when I can actually slowly chip away at a late week puzzle then my end time is longer because I can go much longer before relying on the auto check setting to help. I got a good 2/3 of this puzzle filled in correctly before my first puzzle check, which almost never happens on a Fri/Sat/Sun. I don’t know if this puzzle was just well clued or if I’m getting better at solving or the topics are more in my wheelhouse (likely a combo of the three) but hey I’ll take a longer solve time for a more fun and (personally) successful fill.
Everyone must be in a great Friday mood because no one is talking about ADAPTOR vs ADAPTER .. lol fun puzzle :) love REVERSE ENGINEER
B, Somebody did mention it earlier, but it seemed to be ostentation.