Funny how people zero in on a minor stumble or two and blame the constructor. I doubt that a natick or two made anyone's average time SOAR and if there had been nothing to WORKFOR there would have been a chorus of NE! NE! too easy! I had fun working your puzzle, Rena. Just ignore the Snyder comments.
@dutchiris I have to ask. "Just ignore the Snyder comments." Does that mean that there is a commenter named Snyder, or was that a play on "snider"?
"I love the new salt you're using on your doughy snacks!" "What a twist, huh? It's my pretzel sharpener!" (I love pretzels! How could you knot?)
Couple of potential naticks for a Tuesday (SAL/ZARA and INUK/ULTA), hope people don't get too caught up here.
@JJ I had Z-RA and was able to guess that ZARA was a more likely name for a fashion chain, but I cycled every letter to get the SAL/ELON square.
@JJ Me, too. Especially SAL/ZARS for me. Never heard of Sal Kahn of Kahn Academy, nor of the Spanish fashion retailer. (I am ignorant of everything involving fashion--and I'm proud of it.)
@JJi got them wrong. Rest of fill no issue. I was thinking this is hard for a Tuesday. Oh well…onward.
@JJ Ulta sells beauty products and Zara sells trendy fashion. They might skew toward a gender/sexuality/generational cohort that you are not a part of, but a lot of clues and answers do that for me. I just take a guess or look things up, rather than blame someone else for my lack of knowledge. I think it’s impressive and amazing that a college sophomore has published so many crosswords in the NYT.
Wooo! Today’s puzzle marks my 2000th gold star in a row and my 3620th puzzle in total! I’ll have some pretzels to celebrate. (Really my streak should be a little longer, starting 1 Sept 2019, but I didn’t understand how streaks worked when I started; also I think the qualifying rules have changed a little since then.)
@abelsey, Woohoo! Congratulations on reaching 2000!! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Rena, if you frequent these comments, congrats on your fifth NYT puzzle as a college sophomore!! (I'm kind of IN AWE!) It was great fun and included some cute and clever clues and answers. Wash U is a wonderful school, pretzels are a worthy theme, and I hope you have a great second year of college! OK, BYE!
“These pretzels are making me thirsty!” (From Seinfeld 😁)
@Sandy These pretzels...are making me thirsty!
@Sandy Actually it's from "Woody Allen" (since he writes all his movies).
I seem to remember Rena Cohen's grids tend to rely too much on proper names and trivia, and today's was no different. I solved it without outside help in regular Tuesday time but I can't say I enjoyed it, really. The theme did nothing for me, either. Pretzel shapes. Well, ok. /shrug Poland's iconic shape for a pretzel-like snack is sticks. We call them paluszki, little fingers, and they were one of the few salty snacks made over here before 1989. They are still quite popular.
@Andrzej The fill didn’t bother me, but I agree the theme was a little meh. Seems like if you are going to have a pretzel theme some grid art would be nice.
@Andrzej welcome back. Hope you had a great holiday.
@Andrzej your comment about snacks intrigued me. If not salty, were snacks sweet? Or was there simply no snacking?
Random thoughts: • Three palindromes in the box (LIL, EKE, TET), plus a semordnilap pair (ONE/ENO), not to mention a pair of opposites (DROP/ASCEND). • I guessed at ZARA / SAL (inferred correctly), but would have preferred ZOLA / SOL. • Never heard of MOMAGER, but its wordplay brought out a big “Hah!” • A backward IRON crossing TITANIUM made me wonder which is stronger, and a bit of research revealed it’s the latter, no contest. • The first three theme answers – TITAINIUM ROD, TEETHING RING, and RUSSIAN TWIST – not only have terrific pop, but are also NYT answer debuts. Brava, Rena! • “Bravarena” sounds like a party dance. • SOARED plopped at the bottom next to LEAD made me think of “lead balloon”. Another "Hah!" So, many happy pings for me in your savory concoction, Rena. Thank you so much for making this!
@Lewis Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the Kardashian/Jenner family, is an example of a MOMAGER.
@Lewis I toyed with the idea of MOMazon, MOMagon, and found the actual answer...well, lacking.
@Lewis My post from a few hours ago giving an example of a momanger never showed up. She might be the Uber momager. Her most well-known children have names that start with K, as does hers.
ULTA/INUK and SAL/ELON, two potential Naticks on a Tuesday. The U obviously had to be a vowel, and I suppose Elon fails under "crosswordese"
@Steven M. SAL/ELON had me hunting down a typo for about a minute, which I'm not happy about.
@Steven M. Both ELON and SAL Khan are definitely crosswordese. INUK is general geography though, and ULTA stores are ubiquitous. I had a typo tonight, DULES IT OUT. And subsequently I got to find out that DULES sounds the same as DUELS, and — on a third Labor Day beer — it’s hard to catch when flyspecking the down clues.
@Steven M. For me, SAL/ZARA was much worse. But you're right, ELON makes it doubly tough.
@Steven M. I first heard of Elon from the YouTube account Areyoukiddingtv.
@Steven M. If only there was some other Tuesday-appropriate way to clue ELON.
@Steven M. I found lots of Naticks here. Aside from Elon qua university (which I have never seen outside xwords), there was ULTA which I infer must be a USian chain (which I had never seen /anywhere/), and SAL as head of something-or-other. Pretty natick-licious. Fortunately, INUK was right up my alley; commonly used here in discussing indigenous peoples.
@Steven M. I think I probably agree with you but have no idea what a “Natick” is. (Also “Emu”. Naticks and Emus are the Oreos and antes of the comments!)
"These pretzels are making *me* thirsty!" "These pretzels are *making* me thirsty!" "THESE PRETZELS....making me THIRSTY!" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/B8Kh0HmfJTY" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/shorts/B8Kh0HmfJTY</a>
Two Naticks in one Tuesday puzzle is rarity. SAL/ZARA and INUK/ULTA. All four words were completely new to me.
@Paul R Yeah, that was quite a one-two punch. I was mostly, but not completely sure about INUK. ULTA was completely new.
@Paul R I knew ZARA and ULTA, but I had a natick issue with SAL/ELON. I first put in EtON ... that shows up in crosswords sometimes. When something was wrong after I filled everything in, I decided maybe SAt didn't look quite right and tried L
@Paul R I‘m not sure these are quite natick territory. ZARA is the biggest fast-fashion retailer in the world (bigger than H&M). ULTA is an NYT-crossword mainstay; people complain about it often — 'often' being the operative word. I‘ve you come to expect it every time there‘s a 4-letter thing about beauty/cosmetic stores. Much like you come to expect ENO any time Brian/electronic clues three squares. Or NENE at the slightest mention of Hawaii and birds in the same clue.
@Paul R I got stuck in exactly the same two spots! I'm glad to find out that I'm not the only person in the world that didn't know the answers to those two clues.
@Paul R I take it you’ve never been to a mall?
@Paul R for me as well. I wouldn’t have been able to “solve” this one on paper. The U in INUK seemed plausible but had to swap vowels, o -> A, for the gold star. One of the benefits of electronic puzzles. And @Steve L, I avoid malls religiously
New product launches: For the fan of really really stale snacks: TITANIUM pretzels For the very young: TEETHING pretzels For the vodka drinking snacker: RUSSIAN pretzels For the narcissist: SELFIE pretzels
Our esteemed columnist can't distinguish logs from sticks. Like their wooden counterparts, pretzel sticks are shorter and thinner while logs are longer and thicker. Logs are much better at providing a perch for a glob of viscous dip like hummus. Faced with the same challenge, a stick will break and leave a hapless shard irretrievably moored in the dip bowl and you holding a dry dipless crumbling remnant.
@SBK to me a pretzel log is about 12 inches long and as fat as my thumb. A pretzel stick is about 2 inches long as as thin as a refiller for a pen.
@SBK And here's me thinking that pretzels are .... pretzel shaped!
@SBK I think you mean “Rod.” No logs in this puzzle. But otherwise I agree. And to Sam’s claim that the difference is more evident outside the pretzel world, fishing rods and hockey sticks excepted, many things that may be called sticks may also be called rods and vice versa.
Proud to say I've consumed the very pretzels this puzzle inspired... WashU represent!!!
For anyone who cares, today’s Spelling Bee has an S in it! And the world didn’t come to an end!
@Steve L It might be A Sign, though. (I posted on the Commentary site... I take it as a sign of desperation. Tsk.)
@Steve L Yes and the shameful thing is that I haven't gotten Genius yet. Of course that's just because it rejects OBOL (I should have sent that one in the last time it happened!) and BOSK (not so sure if that's really a word...as in BOSKY DELL?)
@Steve L And yet I’ve found it almost impossible to find many words. Beware what you wish for indeed.
Yum! I love puzzles made by young constructors because I finally actually know all the pop culture references and names! This was fun and quick for me (a rarity, honestly). Wonderful job.
As someone who lives, not only on Spain, but the actual town where ZARA is headquartered, I was quite chuffed to see it in today's puzzle. Interestingly, ZARA is owned by one of the world's richest people and Europes biggest philanthropists - Amancio Ortega.
@Anthony Yeah, he is such a beautiful person! <a href="https://cleanclothes.org/fashions-problems/issues-old/migrants-in-depth/stories/slave-like-conditions-at-zara-supplier" target="_blank">https://cleanclothes.org/fashions-problems/issues-old/migrants-in-depth/stories/slave-like-conditions-at-zara-supplier</a> <a href="https://www.just-style.com/news/greenpeace-investigation-criticises-zara-mango-clothing-recycling-schemes" target="_blank">https://www.just-style.com/news/greenpeace-investigation-criticises-zara-mango-clothing-recycling-schemes</a>/
@Anthony Not a fan of ZARA. Who on earth are their muses? The sizing is ridiculously small yet equally ridiculously long, fit only for the statuesque catwalk models, not us lesser mortals.
SAL Khan and his eponymous Academy may not be well-known in these parts, but it's worth checking out. In general, I tend to be skeptical of "on-line learning", but I often used the videos from that site when teaching Art History in my History of Western Civilization course. Art History textbooks were becoming prohibitively expensive, and the lessons at Khan Academy were free. Steve Zucker and Beth Harris proved to be excellent teachers in helping students become more sophisticated viewers of the great works of Western Art. Here's a sample of their lessons: <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/high-ren-florence-rome/leonardo-da-vinci/v/celebrity-art-leonardo-s-mona-lisa" target="_blank">https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/high-ren-florence-rome/leonardo-da-vinci/v/celebrity-art-leonardo-s-mona-lisa</a> <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/greek-art/classical/v/polykleitos-doryphoros-spear-bearer" target="_blank">https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/greek-art/classical/v/polykleitos-doryphoros-spear-bearer</a>
This puzzle did not tie me up in knots, nor was it terribly crunchy, so there was no need for me to feel salty while solving. I did like MOMAGER and the clue for INTEL.
Re 57d: Nemo doesn’t really interact with Dory. It’s his dad, Marlin, who’s the pal
@Patricia Henry But I think Nemo and Dory had coffee a couple of times, didn't they?
@Patricia Henry thank you for speaking up. The clue reallly should be “Dory’s casual acquaintance”.
@Patricia Henry They spend more time together in Finding Dory. (It's been a while since I've watched it so I had to look it up to confirm. Perhaps a little tricky if the clue was intended to reference the sequel, but apparently it made $150 million more than Nemo. 😯)
Today was the opposite on my experience on Sunday. I got to SA_ crossed with E_ON as my last space to fill and thought I might have to try several letters, but I had seen those answers just enough times in the NYT xword that L was my first guess and the little tune played. I started doing the crossword in late February and now am getting all Mondays and the majority of Tuesdays without help. I have also gone back as far as February 2024, so that achievement is from a year and a half's worth of crosswords, not six months'. And I have long experience of cryptics in UK newspapers. My average solve times are coming down too, though it will take a long time to properly make up for initially needing over an hour for Wednesdays on wards and over two for Sundays.
@Peter Congratulations on what you’ve done in the NYT crossword. I have been doing the NYT XW since retiring roughly eight years ago and have been thinking about trying some UK puzzles but haven’t gotten the nerve yet. Are there any you’d recommend as starters?
@Peter Another crypto-crypticist! Welcome, fellow addict. Are you familiar with the excellent cryptic composing team of Cox & Rathvon? I've never seen a bad puzzle from them. Their work used to appear regularly in Harper's or the Atlantic and it's worth hunting for back issues online.
After the past week or so, I finally committed NENE to memory. It's taken a long time but now I can fill it confidently.
I think it's great that the NYT x-word now recognizes that the singular of INUIT is INUK, and we don't have to argue about that anymore.
Esmerelda, I remember the arguments, but the transition happened a while ago. The last singular INUIT was October 24, 2023; INUK made its debut on December 15, 2023.
@Esmerelda I'm just glad the answer wasn't DANE. Imagine the kerfuffle that would have touched off. (See also; BOER, from yesterday.) Plenty of Eskimos in the archives, by the way
When the answer is SENORAS (actually SEÑORAS), entering MUJERES tends to slow one down a bit.
The RAMADA x AARP crossing was just mean. Also, pretzels aren't really a thing in Finland, which is something I just noticed and will now bother me.
@Sonja I'm now picturing a woman, standing in the dim early-morning light of the streets of Helsinki, hands in her pockets, gazing at her shoes with a frown, and thinking to herself: "Pretzels..."
When it comes to pretzels vs. potato chips, I've always been a potato chip person (preferably with French onion dip), but today's puzzle reminded me of comedian David Brenner's memoir of growing up in Philadelphia, "Soft Pretzels with Mustard". <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQYNZtpzocg" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQYNZtpzocg</a> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/910108.Soft_Pretzels_With_Mustard" target="_blank">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/910108.Soft_Pretzels_With_Mustard</a> You used to be able to find them being hawked on the streets of Philly. Can anyone tell me if that's still a thing there?
@The X-Phile Grew up in Philly and this was the first thing I thought of too. Happy to say it is still a thing to see vendors on the street. My wife tells the story of the nuns at Immaculate Conception parish in Germantown who made soft pretzels as a fundraiser. They would hang the bags of fresh pretzels on the classroom doors in the morning to sell to the kids.
@The X-Phile very much still a thing! Will forever be a delicacy here 🥨
Crossing ZARA with SAL and INUK with ULTA did me in. Natick hell, those two.
@Jon Onstot -- I kept trying vowels until they worked. (ZARA seemed right, at least.)
@Jon Onstoti I came here to see the same thing, some unfortunate dual guesswork going there to finish up the puzzle. Oh well, it was good fun aside from that!
@Jon Onstot When a constructor obviously has to google fill just to come up with naticks, it is not a good puzzle. Go to the archives and do some puzzles from 10 or 15 or more years ago. You'll notice very quickly how much the quality of these puzzles has declined.
I also fell victim to the SAt/EtON crossing. But SAt was the only thing that looked odd to me, so it was an easy enough fix. Fun to see ELIS, ELIE, ELON and ILE in the same puzzle. Thanks, Rena. Happy Tuesday everyone ☺️
Though not a fan of pretzels, I am a fan of this puzzle. Thanks for the fun, Rena. Now for a little Pretzel Logic. <a href="https://youtu.be/jT5eIvd7dZA?si=OkoVEySO0EDRV2L8" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/jT5eIvd7dZA?si=OkoVEySO0EDRV2L8</a>
I'm not familiar with Spanish fashion houses, and although I do know about Kahn academy, I didn't know the given name of its namesake. Two relatively obscure proper names intersecting...hmm. Imagine my frustrated fury and shame when I had to look something up in a Tuesday puzzle. <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8EnsUeR2MyI" target="_blank">https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8EnsUeR2MyI</a>
OOooooKAY. PRETZEL STICKS: check! (Especially Dot's.) Other than that, just SOFT PRETZELs or regular ole PRETZELs. If someone offered me a PRETZEL ROD, or a RING, or a TWIST, I would look at them with narrowed eyes and decline ...just to be safe. Unfortunately, I did the extra puzzle (By Sam Donaldson) after that, and now I want to go around saying, "Foiled again!" RUSSIAN TWIST...(mental image of Putin throwing his back out)... That's about it. OK BYE.
@Mean Old Lady hah! A pretzel rod is a giant pretzel stick and a pretzel twist is two pretzel sticks twisted together. I’ve seen ring shaped pretzels but I don’t know it they were actually called rings. I narrowed my eyes at that one too!
What kind of solver are you, one who welcomes naticks kindly or one who frowns upon them? I am the latter. 😟
I see the Natick Police finally stopped biting their tongues, 🤣
Turns out there is a ZARA, which I had never heard of, at the big old Mall of America here in the Twin Cities but MOA is so not for me! Being a proper hostess, I only go there if I have visitors to the area who want to see it. Perhaps I would do better at some puzzles if I hung out at the MOA once in a while, but I actually do not think it would be worth it for me. Pretty sure there's an Auntie Annie's there though, and I do super love a big soft pretzel!! 😋 Still, I am not a mall girl and certainly not a mall on steroids girl! 😆 Plus, happily, many of the tavern type establishments around here serve delicious big soft pretzels... Ooh, now I really want one! However, there is an ULTA right here in Roseville and I also knew INUK, so it was only one tricky crossing for me by not knowing SAL, ELON, or ZARA. Oh well, sometimes the blind squirrel gets the nut, sometimes they don'. 🐿️🌰 I did like seeing ELIE Wiesel and NESSIE both in there. And I liked thinking about the old Seinfeld bit of "These pretzels are making me thirsty!" All right, back to work with me!
@HeathieJ It took me ages to stop putting in ZARA for the character in Doctor Zhivago, because I've never seen the movie. I know, I'm a terrible person, but LARA is Superman's mother, to me.
Great puzzle fortunately I had a sweet snack to go with it. A little early in the week for the aforementioned natiks. Will we see Grahame Greene who passed today honoured soon?
Fairly smooth Tuesday, although I had to find a typo. Didn't have much trouble except I wasn't all that familiar with SAL Khan, although I've hear of the Academy as a good online resource. Not familiar with ZARA, but I was familiar with ELON since this is the fifth time it's appeared this year, and 95th in the Shortz era. ULTA was familiar because it's present in a lot of the shopping centers that I've visited over the last 10 years or so. My other minor quandary was WORKs at instead of WORK FOR, but that didn't match up with the crosses, so got fixed quickly. Nice puzzle. Rena, and thanks!
@JayTee ZARA is well known in Europe. It was one of the original fast fashion brands, known for atrocious working conditions at its factories, and horrible practices regarding unsold garments 🫤
@Andrzej True. They would force unsold clothing unto unhoused canines. Atrocious.
If Pretzelholic Anonymous existed I would be a charter member. I inherited my obsession from my dad and have many wonderful memories of sharing one with him while cheering on the Mets at Shea Stadium. Thanks Rena, this was a real TREAT!
@Anita How about those doughy huge pretzels covered in big chips of salt? They are a kind of pretzel too.
@Anita It feels great to picture you and your dad at Shea Stadium, sharing a bag of pretzels.
Cute Tuesday. Having never eaten a PRETZEL I had no idea they came in various shapes, but it didn’t stop me catching the theme. I chuckled at 55D, as my ‘rover’ was chasing an empty cream pot aka his TREAT around the kitchen. I had a grumble re ZARA below; ridiculous sizes, both too small and yet too long for the average woman. I put it in the Abercrombie and Fitch category; intended for very thin, very young waifs.
@Helen Wright Wow. So are pretzels not a British thing or not a Helen thing?
My first fill-in for 56A was DANE, the whole while thinking, "Oh G.d, I hope not!" BUT-- It's worth considering-- Between about 2500BCE and 1CE, there was sporadic settlement of Greenland, by humans, from arctic North America. Between about 1CE and about 750CE, there were no humans, just polar bears. Dorset culture humans--who may or may not have been of Inuit stock--settled Greenland (from the west) about 750CE Norse culture humans settled Greenland (from the east) in 980CE. Thule culture humans--who were certainly Inuit--settled Greenland (again, from the west) about 1150CE. Obviously, there was contact between west and east. Not always happy. Now, I am in no way condoning colonialism. But we tend to think of aboriginal groups as existing, well, *ab origine*, when in fact, they came, at some time, from somewhere else as well. It is worth remembering that all human cultures migrate, expand, settle, colonize, displace: it's what we do. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_settlements_in_Greenland#/media/File:Grtemp.png" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_settlements_in_Greenland#/media/File:Grtemp.png</a>
Lots of fun to solve. Took me a tad longer than Tuesdays usually do. My favorite theme answer was TITANIUM ROD, oddly enough. I had to have a titanium rod inserted into one leg from knee to ankle when I had a really bad bicycle accident in 2012. We were staying with friends in Tucson at the time and luckily for me, the local hospital deals with many similar cases. A very good surgeon operated on me the next day, which happened to be Thanksgiving Day. It was a couple of years before I could get back to hiking, and also quite a long time before I could fly back home to California. I’m still grateful to that surgeon.
As hard as any Friday for me, due to (I’m assuming) fairly basic trivia I just didn’t know. Eventually hit reveal rather than brute force three or four naticks.
A bit too much arcana for me in a Tuesday puzzle. Especially SAL/ZARA and INUK/ALTA. And fill like INEEDIT, IMTORN, ITRY, INAWE leaves me underwhelmed. Solved, but not enjoyed. Might just be grumpy since I failed at Wordle today. Won't say how, since that might spoil things for others.
@Xword Junkie I'm going in doing Wordle today thinking Xword Junkie failed at Wordle today. What approach should I take? My point is, what you said probably somehow affects how I play Wordle today, although I can't say exactly how. I would prefer no comments on one's solve of the Wordle in these comments as there are those who have not yet played today's game.
@Xword Junkie The Wordle took me 5 because I delayed using a Sorter; it would have sped me on my way very nicely. It was either stay in First Letter Hell and risk it all, or accept a Tsk Score....so I did the wise thing. A completion is a completion.
I was STOKED to see the River OTTER finally getting some love; the sea-going variety has been dominant lately. I do love a hot (soft) PRETZEL at a football game, topped with plenty of stadium mustard. That's how we do it here. OK BYE.
Another wonderful puzzle with a fun theme! Thanks so much, Rena! Hope all y’all have a terrific Tuesday!
Dory’s friend was Marlin, they were both seeking Nemo.
@Gene Herman - After finding Nemo they also became friends, as shown in the sequel, Finding Dory.
2 naticks on a Tuesday. Came down to just a guessing game. Otherwise, nice.