Sam

I really didn't care for this theme. This is one of the few times where I solved the entire puzzle without understanding the theme clues at all. With the puzzle done, I squinted at the answers and still couldn't make heads or tails of what was going on. After looking at the blog and seeing the explanation, I still don't think it's strong. "Identity" for instance doesn't feel like a compelling clue to me. Even if I was thinking "Idaho" I don't know that I would ever associate "entity" with their major food export. It just feels like a case were the clues had to suffer to make the theme "work". It does say a lot that the rest of the clues were so strong that I was able to fill in the theme answers without getting them at all though!