Meg

@Aaron it’s a house, or “pad” made out of sticks.

@Joe P It’s mise en place, which is French for putting in place. It means prepping all your ingredients prior to starting to cook.

@Eric Hougland Those are the exact same three answers I got on my first pass. I thought the solve was going to be out of reach for me, but I got there eventually. Only took me…ahem…forty minutes longer than my average.

@Heidi I couldn’t find my mistake, so I turned on the auto check. Turns out, I had respected Lady Liberty’s privacy and left her unlit. I had never heard of a newee, but I’d never seen pewee spelled in that fashion, either, and I figured the “wee” part was what the clue was referring to.

@Steven M. This is what kept me from finishing quickly. I knew Guess wasn’t right but I couldn’t come up with Lowe’s for at least 3 minutes.

@UCCF Same; I’m not sure why it unfolded so slowly for me today, and I nearly lost hope when I filled in nothing but “ENO” on my first pass.

@Andrzej thank you for this. I pondered this particular clue for an embarrassingly long time.

@Eric Hougland it was O, CanaKa for me.

@Andrzej same here! I had never seen either and e seemed the likely choice. Was my last fill while I held my breath.