Chiming in from New Zealand. My sister spent the past two weeks visiting me here where we played Spelling Bee and Wordle together every morning and she tacked a giant crossword puzzle to the wall to do with my kids (who have been inspired by her to love and solve and create puzzles) and they also completed a 1000-piece Frankenstein jigsaw puzzle together. We celebrated her birthday last week, and of course the cake décor was a nod to (part of) this puzzle’s theme. I dropped her off at the airport yesterday afternoon … she was still airborne when History Course was initially published! Glad she has returned home to see her puzzle in print, and to receive well-deserved kudos. We have always been a puzzle-loving family and huge fans of the NYT Sunday puzzle, so this is all just so special. I couldn’t be more proud of Miranda!
@Jess What a delightful addition to our knowledge about Miranda. Thank you for this story, and no wonder you are so proud of her. (We like her a lot too!)
@Jess Thanks for sharing this. So much to love about our Constructrix. But now I'm wondering about that birthday cake: Caesar-Salad-themed cake? Assasination-in-the-Senate-themed? (Et tu, Butter Cream?) Middlemarch-themed?
@Jess This is so sweet, and also "the complicator" is a legendarily useful phrase, so cheers to you both. lol
So, there I was at the point where I was correctly filling in the rebus squares, and had filled in the theme cross of MIDDLEMARCH and BEWARE THE IDES, amazed that the sixth letter of each is E. “Cute theme,” I thought. “But what is all this gorgeously written recipe stuff?” That question crescendoed as I went along. Just as the riddle reached fever pitch, I filled in CAESAR. When that answer’s double meaning hit me, it was like when you trim the Christmas tree, plug it in for the first time, and it transforms the room. It lit ME up – my jaw dropped, I broke into a wide smile, and that grin feeling permeated my entire body and beyond. “Now THIS is what crosswords are all about!” After the fill-in I looked closer at the grid-build. Because the recipe answers were symmetrical, its eight ingredients had to fall into four pairs, each with the same number of letters – BREAD CUBES / LEMON JUICE, ANCHOVY PASTE / DIJON MUSTARD and so on. There’s only one way to say EGG YOLK, ROMAINE, GARLIC, PEPPER, and the others. How can it be that the recipe for Caesar salad consists of four such pairs? How??? Stunning. Otherworldly. And she fit all that plus the rebuses and magnificent center cross in the box! That E square dead center in the box at the nexus of MIDDLEMARCH and BEWARE THE IDES? I have decided it stands for Exquisite. You have made an exquisite puzzle, Miranda, and it’s easily found a home on my Sunday Puzzle Of The Year list. Thank you for making it!
Saw the title. Filled 19A and 22A and got the double theme (as referenced in 126A). Loved the amazing cross of 40A and 69A. Had fun finding the remaining rebuses and completing the recipe. Brava, Miranda! Chef's kiss! Sunday POY nominee.
Agree. The double theme and multiple meta references made for a fun and enjoyable solve.
Eating salad in Italy is a romaine holiday. (Lettuce go on one!)
@Mike We could make up a club, but we'd need more ingredients. Guess there's always a fork in the road.
@Mike I knew you'd COBBle something together for today, and it wouldn't be anything caprese-ioous. (For dessert, we could have whiimsicles!)
@Mike Some people ogle my Greek salad before it’s got dressed and seem to want unfeta-ed access. This is why i keep my salads Waldorf in a separate part of the fridge (the Caesarian section)
@Mike DH and I are leaving for Italy on 4 pm flight from SFO to FCO tomorrow! We'll eat some Romaine for you.
Well, first this is an amazing layered theme that would be on my POY list regardless based on its incredible amount of theme material and immaculate grid, but gets even more points for a decent challenge level that has been sadly missing of late on Sundays. Now the fun part. I’ve mentioned lots of eerie crossword coincidences before but this one absolutely blows them all away. Today I am in New York visiting my kids. We stop at a lovely little used bookstore in the upper west side. There’s a little shelf of inexpensive old books and literally the first book I put my hand on (without even reading the spine) was an 1887 edition of Eliot’s “Themes from a Clerical Life” (8 bucks). A little digging and I find on the same shelf an 1887 edition of my favorite novel ever—you guessed it—MIDDLEMARCH. (Also 8 bucks, I bought both). I spent the rest of the day expounding on the plot to my kids and reading them my favorite passages from what I believe is the best novel written in the English language. And now this puzzle comes out 6 hours later. Talk about crossword gods—man, you just can’t make this stuff up.
@SP The cynics will say that, given a large enough population, that it was likely to happen to somebody. But it didn't happen to "somebody" it happened to you. As I've said here before: The laws of karma and synchronicity work in mysterious ways. Treat it as a gift for a life well lived.
@SP to recall an earlier theme, how serendipitous!
@SP I saw your comment on my post…lovely double coincidence…and here’s another: your location says Cincinnati. Yesterday would have been my mother’s 104th birthday and to acknowledge it, I sent a group text to my siblings, three of whom live in Cincinnati, which is where we were primarily raised. Not as eerie as our MIDDLEMARCH coincidences, but an interesting one. I envy your bookstore finds.
@SP sounds like you were in my neighborhood--question is were you one block away or ten. ;)
Thank you, Miranda. You constructed a double winner. Not only a very fun theme, but also a rebus to boot! Perfect!
Because I solve in blocks starting in the NW, I kind of knew what was going on right from the start. The fact that that didn't diminish my enjoyment of this puzzle one bit is a testament to how artfully created it was. Usually, I'm looking for a struggle, but this was just pure unadulterated fun. Cruising along wondering when the next rebus or ingredient would pop up, seeing all of the bonus theme material, marveling at how Miranda was able to pull all of this together just made it a delight to solve. Normally, a puzzle has to leave me broken and bleeding to get my POY nod, but this goes straight into the folder. Oh, and Caitlin, best photo title ever: "You can’t spell “lettuce” without “Et tu.”"
The cook downloaded a new crust recipe, to use in celebrating Mar 14 and 15. It started out mentioning lemon juice and bread cubes. “Hmm, weird, but okay…” Then, egg yolk. “Hmmm.” Then, anchovy paste!! “Now hold on here!” Her conclusion: Beware the pies of March.
This is why we subscribe. Absolutely joyous. Bravo!
I believe that the world needs a word to describe that feeling of euphoria that arises from filling out the Sunday NYTimes crossword, and upon entering a letter in the very last open square, getting the happy music immediately. Since I don't believe that such a word exists, I would like to propose FILLINBLISS to describe that sensation. Thanks to Miranda (and admittedly, a whole lot of luck), I experienced FILLINBLISS today, and the afterglow will hopefully keep me warm as I head outside to do battle with snow drifts.
@MP Rogers I’d like to say that I experienced FILLINBLISS, but the crossing of “The U of UX” and “Psychologist Solomon”, a single square, foiled me. That said, I enjoyed the puzzle immensely.
Really enjoyed solving this in my hotel room in Rome this morning. Yesterday I walked down the Scala Santa the wrong way and today is the Ides of March. If I see a two-headed calf I’m done for.
Nothing in the puzzle seemed forced or strained. The theme fills were supported by interesting crosses, and the intertwining of the themes was elegantly done. Or, to put it more succinctly, WOTTA PUZZLE!!! All the dimensions made it wonderfully engaging, and now I want one every day. Thank you, Miranda. For your next one, I'll dress more formally, something more appropriate for a special occasion than my mammoth, baggy, striped hoodie and seedy old cargo pants, like maybe a slim satin slip dress, and arrange my laptop on a linen tablecloth. We need all the lighthearted causes for celebration we can find in these dark days, and why not for beautiful crosswords?
Delightful Sunday Puzzle and i was lucky to see half the theme early (though I did type in LETTUCE) and got a Sunday personal best. Veni, Vidi, Vinaigrette.
This was one of the most enjoyable Sunday puzzles I have ever solved. I thought the theme was very well thought out and implemented, and the fill was pretty much just right for me - not too hard, not too easy. Still, I ended up checking it because I couldn't be bothered to flyspeck the huge grid for inevitable typos, but that's on me.
@Andrzej I agree with you. Time spent flyspecking is not real time! LOL
Miranda even managed to work in the Rubicon -- sheer brilliance. Lettuce rejoice. Sorry....
This was an IDEal Sunday, chock full of as many delectable treats as the CAESAR salad recipe sprinkled so elegantly through the grid. The rebus squares were fun, as always, and hopefully easy to spot for those new to the ways of crossword trickery. The capper was the historical/literary cross at the heart of the grid. MIDDLEMARCH - just perfect. The only improvement I can think of would be an additional clue: [Orange ________], preferably positioned just to the left of 126A. As a bird watcher I got a good chuckle out the inventive clue for the old crossword standby NENE [Creatures to take a gander at on Haleakala]. I see what you did there Miranda. And thanks for a lovely puzzle that was entertaining through and through.
@Marshall Walthew Ha ha, I didn't get the "gander" part until your post! Well done.
@Marshall Walthew [Orange ______] took me a minute! Nice one. And like @Nora, I didn't *fully* get the NENE clue until you uncovered it. Well done indeed!
Miranda Kany! Wow! For me, this was one of those puzzles that became more and more appealing as I solved, layer by layer. Rebus, recipe, double revealers that cross! A beautiful feat of construction IMHO, and one that left a sweet afterglow for me such that it lands at the top of my list for Sunday POY so far this year.
This was one of the most impressively constructed puzzles I've done in a long time. Just ::chef's kiss:: (pun intended). Brava Miranda Kany!
Brilliant double-theme ( )a! Brava!
Wow, a puzzle that’s chock-full of thematic fun. Two revealers, seven rebus squares, and ten symmetrically placed CAESER salad ingredients. Very impressive! The rebus squares were gentle, no need to beware. I was glad they were randomly placed, making them a bit more fun to find. Soupçon is such a lovely sounding word. Thanks, Miranda. I got more enjoyment from this puzzle than I ever did from reading Middlemarch.
@Anita I agree this puzzle was loads of fun but you're a bit tough on Middlemarch. After vigorously ignoring it for decades I finally read it a few years ago and absolutely loved it. That's my experience anyway.
@Anita Sadly I couldn't get through it either. But the effort helped today at any rate. :)
What a delightful puzzle! At first, I thought it was an easy theme, too easy. I filled in CRAYOLA and ROMAN, so ROMAINE was a gimme. At which point, I thought, oh we're building a salad in honor of Caesar. Italics and everything. Whoop de do. But I had a few entries that defied me. Now, if I hadn't already discovered the theme, I would have suspected a rebus. But noooo, I already had the theme, so my Rebus Radar was completely down. Hah! At 69A, I was sure I was supposed to BEWARE something, but what fits? Then all of a sudden, MIDDLEMARCH. What the heck? But it's a salad! I think my favorite rebuses are the short ones, because they are easy to miss. This rebus only needed two extra letters, very easy for me to miss. That was a great workout, I enjoyed it immensely.
This is so clever on so many different levels. Let's start with 1D. The genius here is the disguise of the rebus by the deft clue. If the "provided assistance" is a noun, then AID would be the answer. But if it's a verb, it would be AIDED. How many clues could accomplish such a nifty trick? Then there's the double meaning of CAESAR. I was wondering what all those recipes were doing in a puzzle about BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH. Again, a really nifty idea, really well executed. Of course it's delicious that the puzzle appears on March 15th. Did you research this, Miranda, you sly dog, realize months or even longer ago that March 15 would fall on a Sunday this year, and plan your puzzle accordingly? And did you alert WS and the puzzle team? Did you send in the puzzle under the title: TIME SENSITIVE!!!!! MUST APPEAR ON MARCH 15, 2026!!!! DON'T SHILLY-SHALLY IN GETTING AROUND TO THIS, PLEASE!!!!! I was helped in this solve by my great familiarity with IDEE FIXE -- something I suffer from often and say about myself all the time. I needed it because AIDED was no help at all. Once I had the IDE, I knew it was going to be BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH without even looking. But that was well before picking up on the salad recipe. An elegant and complex theme, Miranda, that's very well-executed. Kudos.
As a high school English teacher who always tells my sophomores they better know "Et Tu Brute" and "Beware the Ides of March" because they are often referenced, THANK YOU NYT for vindication in today's Midi and main crossword! LOVED THEM BOTH!
A real CASCAde of fun to solve this Sunday crossword. No BRUTUS force required. Would have been a CINNA to be stumped. And the double meanings for Caesar, coupled with the rebuses! A real TREBONIUS. Miranda, you had quite a story to METELLUS, all about how a bunch of conspiratorial Roman senators vowed, “Today is the day that Caesar CASSIUS in his chips.”
@Strudel Dad Et tu, Strudel Dad.
Winner, winner—chicken CAESAR salad dinner!! This was a really terrific puzzle, I thought, as many of you so far have. Really fun theme that felt very zesty throughout. Today I realized that lettuce, cabbage, and ROMAINE have the same number of letters. Once I figured out CAESAR at the bottom, it was obvious which one it was. I have been craving a good chicken CAESAR salad lately, so hopefully, the ingredients will manifest themselves for me soon after appearing in here. Expecting a snowpacalypse overnight, so won't be tomorrow. I had a few difficult crosses to contend with (I coulda been a contender) where names or symbols I didn't know crossed. Some were easier for me to logic out than others. My last fill was the lower right corner. I didn't know ROARK. I haven't consumed any Ayn Rand. I know I've encountered the Samurai sword out here but could not remember the first letter. C sounded most likely to me, but I didn't think the name would likely end in Rc, though you never know with names, and I knew Ms. Clooney's name but was not sure if it started with A or e. In the end I was able to get it and the other couple trickly for me crossings unAIDED somehow—either by instinct or maybe shriveled up nuggets of the information IDLE-ing in the dark, cobwebby crevices of my brain. Really wanted 43D to be wink, but TEAR is good. Truly top NOTCH! I hope that this puzzle will be enjoyed by most of the commentariat. A rare gem, indeed! ☺️
@HeathieJ Consuming Ayn Rand can be hazardous to your mental health. I read "Atlas Shrugged" twice. Once in high school and once in college, and I'm still recovering. One thing I will say, though, is that Ayn Rand characters, unlike modern financiers, to their credit actually produced something: Roark produced architecture, Talbert produced rail traffic, D'Anconia produced silver, and Rearden produced steel. All current money masters do is move money around, buy a company to load it up with debt, and sell all the assets for profits, and impoverish somebody else. Nothing whatsoever is actually produced to back that wealth. We don't even live in an age where wealth actually does something. All it does today is produce more wealth, with nothing substantial to back it. Our entire economy is a pyramid scheme.
I know it's early, but I can't imagine a way that this puzzle doesn't end up being the Puzzle of the Year.
Always go with the Caesar salad. Beware the sides of starch. What a loaded puzzle! I didn’t even miss the bacon bits! (and everyone chimes in to say “how gauche”)
Also, BRAVO to the constructor for mixing Caesar salad with Middlemarch. Loved everything about this layered puzzle!
Hands down, this is my favorite puzzle of the year, thus far -- just wow! Thank you, Miranda, for such an extraordinary construction feat!! Today's grid was especially meaningful to me as my late, beloved dad would have turned 97 today and I'm missing him. He was a wonderful father who lived a long, purposeful life until passing at 93 years young. Given his birthdate, he loved referring to Shakespeare when the moment called for it ('be careful, Brutus was nice too"). Love you, Dad!❤️🎂❤️ Beware the IDES OF MARCH!🏛️
A fabulous grid, perfect for Sunday. Got the recipe in reasonable time, but it took a TAD longer to find the IDES. Melding the two CAESARs was amazing. Plus any puzzle that can incorporate MIDDLEMARCH gets my vote. It’s Mother’s day here in the UK. I’ve had a blustery walk in some beautiful gardens; the Camelias are just going over, with Azaleas and Rhododendrons coming into bloom. Daffodils and Primroses carpeting the undergrowth with a splash of yellow. A lovely cream tea to follow, with my youngest cooking dinner tonight. Now sat in front of the log burner, feet up, with the Sunday crossword complete. Bliss. Wishing all Mothers a happy day.
IDE say this puzzle was un-Kany! Thank you Miranda!
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🙌🏼 Now this is what I’m talking about! Perfect puzzle for today with great fill. BEWARE THE (IDE)S of March indeed. I liked ROMAN crossing ROMAINE and ROAR crossing ROARK. I also tried iceberg, then cabbage, then lettuce before finally landing on ROMAINE once I realized I was making a CAESAR salad. Chef’s kiss 🧑🍳 💋 Thank you, Miranda. You never CAESAR to amaze me. MORE(L) of these, please!
I absolutely loved this puzzle! All those years of high school Latin plus cooking finally paid off
Amazing Sunday puzzle on multiple levels. Loved the rebuses especially spIDEr! Tricky move having the rebus in the revealer! And able to fit in all the Caesar salad ingredients to boot !!!🥬🥬🥬
This is my favorite puzzle of the year, perhaps ever! Not only a wonderfully layered puzzle, but I've always been partial to the Ides of March. And I love Caesar salads. And I appreciated so many of the other bread cubes sprinkled throughout the grid. I don't know if the editors have been making a dedicated effort, but over the past few weeks the puzzles have seemed to be trending back toward what I'd always felt was special about the NYT. Increasing difficulty over the course of the week, most difficult on Saturdays (I loved the past two weeks), and a fun, challenging, clever puzzle to sink one's teeth into with a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning. If this was intentional, then thank you!! You are achieving your aim, and I am very grateful. If not, then I hope you will review the past couple of weeks and, well, keep doing that. Miranda, thank you for a truly delightful puzzle. You made my week!
@Shauron I second everything you say! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Does anyone else solve the Mini, the Midi, and the full crossword, and say out loud Mini, Midi, Mici, as I do? Apt today. Didn’t love that the Midi theme was the same as the full crossword’s theme. I suppose that’s to be expected on specific dates, but it weakened the impact of the full puzzle for me, just a little.
I was benaticked by USER and ASCH for the longest time. How could it not be UBER? And who's Doctor ABCH? Very gratifying Sunday which almost but not quite transported me off these internal and spatio-temporal planes. Certainly a solid Sunday.
@Matt I puzzled over the same. It was my one square to fix when I checked the crossword.
@Matt I googled Solomon Abch. No help there.
@Matt I had just learned about UberX and was So Sure....! DHubby (a psychologist) knew ASCH, so I went back and retooled. What is up betwixt "Beckster" and yourself? Long-range feud? I hate missing out on a Hatfield-McCoy scenario....
I’m so late to the party that the confetti has mostly blown away, but I couldn’t resist sending up another balloon… What an amazing puzzle, on so many levels. This is what other jealous Sundays aspire to. I think I’ll make a Caesar salad for dinner tonight. (If anyone needs a good recipe, call me!)
@Heidi I usually make the salad with a (blasphemous?) twist in the form of adding chicken - I cut stale bread (Polish rye, which is totally unlike American rye, or Polish sourdough) into cubes, put them in a baking dish, and I cover them with good quality, well seasoned boneless chicken thighs. I pop the dish into the oven - the chicken fat drips onto the bread cubes, giving them a heavenly taste. The trick is to let the bread rest for a bit after you take the baked chicken off the top - otherwise it will disintegrate, being initially mushy with the chicken juices. I make a typical, rich Caesar dressing, shred romaine lettuce, and combine everything, with the chicken cut into bite-size bits.
@Heidi Can I have your recipe now please? :D
Well now...this was waaaay more fun than the usual Sunday! Hat tip to Miranda for a truly intricate and clever puzzle design, with clues that just sparkled. I don't know why people are borderline enraged at rebuses on Sundays. They're usually very straightforward compared to Thursdays and, for my money, introduce a different type of mental challenge that (hopefully) helps maintain a few extra synapses worth of cognitive agility. This can't be a bad thing right?
I had AID for 1D instead of the rebus (by reading "provided assistance" as "assistance that was provided"), but saw that you could make the correct answer for 19A, IDEEFIXE, by going down, then right, then up, and then right. In other words, doing a sort of hairpin turn. So I thought that was the gimmick! So when I reached the revealer at 69 A, I thought at first that it was BEWARE TURNS. /facepalm IEFIXE DE
@Bob 1 Duran got me as well. Took me a couple turns through before I realized my problem
On a whim tonight I opened my crossword app for the first time in a long time and this was a delightful one to come back to.
This one takes pride of place 😎 My favorite Sunday puzzle EVER!!
Pretty breezy for a Sunday, but I nonetheless enjoyed this quite a bit. Caught onto the theme quickly and finished more than 40% under my average time. An eerie coincidence: my birthday is tomorrow and one of my daughters sent me a coffee mug with the first three paragraphs of MIDDLEMARCH spelled out on it (we both love the novel). Before I started doing the puzzle, or even reading any of the clues, I snapped a photo of the mug beside my tablet with the crossword open…I did it quickly because I didn’t want it to take too much time off the clock, and I sent it to her, saying, “Crossword and coffee on the Ides of March.” I laughed when I came to the first rebus…and laughed even harder when I came to the revealer. Though, of course, Miranda Kany could not have intended it, I nonetheless thank her for the bonus birthday present.
@Joe Read my similar experience last night. Coincidences happen but still it’s pretty amazing when they do
As a soon-to-be PhD in classics, I loved this puzzle! So clever, and I always love an ides reference. Immediately texted my department crossword buddy to see if he'd started, and am looking forward to his review. However, as someone whose dissertation is due in two weeks so she can finally get the PhD in classics... a bit of a jump scare when I realized! Back to revisions, now!
@g best of luck! So glad that you get to study something you love.
@g Good luck on finishing up your dissertation, and to a smooth ride through your orals. As someone who has just finished up a career in Academia (AoS: Ancient Philosophy), I am very curious to hear more about your journey.
Super fun! The melding of two theme ideas is perfect for a Sunday. And I always love a recipe puzzle. I'm tempted to make a CAESAR salad now, but it's a bit of a blizzard out there, so I think I'll just sit at home and eat the mountain of potatoes I bought in a typical pre-storm shopping panic. For the record: My favorite protest sign had no words, just a picture of a laser loon melting an ice cube.
I had UBER instead of USER and of course I've never heard of Solomon Asch. I knew something was off, and it took me way too long to sort it out. Frustrating end to an otherwise marvelous puzzle.
@Dave S Same here, though I also had 56D as SOWi. The weird thing is that when I fixed my UbER mistake, I got the gold star, even though I don’t think I fixed SOWi.
Whew. And Wow! Typical slow start for me, but finally tumbling to the theme was just a wonderful 'aha' moment and the big turning point in working it out. This was just one truly amazing puzzle. Fourteen entries with that rebus, and just can't imagine what it took to work in all of those with the crossings. And then managing to find an 'ides' Sunday. Just wow again. And I did have a puzzle find today. I'll put that in a reply. ...
@Rich in Atlanta Actually puzzle finds. Three different puzzles - one from 1996, one from 1987 and one from 1983. All of the theme answers were 15 letters. The 1983 puzzle: SINGININTHERAIN BLOWININTHEWIND The 1987 puzzle: PUTTINONTHERITZ SINGININTHERAIN The 1996 puzzle: PUTTINONTHERITZ JUMPINJACKFLASH BLOWININTHEWIND That's it. ....
Delightful puzzle that initially had me confused figuring out how the title connected to the answers for the italicized clues until I got to the revealer. That made solving the italicized clues so much easier. I figured the rebus much earlier on. I was also pleased to come across two personal connections (perhaps three, if you count me being of Italian heritage): I received my PhD in Psychology from THE Ohio State University (Go Buckeyes!) and I regularly taught Solomon Asch's theories in my personality course.
Beautifully constructed puzzle that somehow turned out to be my Sunday PB. I’m no salad expert, nor any kind of chef, but the ingredients fell right into place. Could have been a Philly thing, or a fill-y thing, or both.