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I love it when the world high-level crosswordese collides with reality. Two weekends ago at the ACPT, I was chatting with ace solver Amy Reynaldo and noted crossword constructing assassin Byron Walden. And while we were nursing our beers, Amy was grousing about what she felt was a ridiculous entry Byron put in one of his tournament puzzles nearly ten years ago. (Amy has been known to hold grudges.) The answer was PIAVE, which is an Italian cheese made from cow’s milk. Byron’s been known to throw a couple two three tough-but-fair entries in his puzzles now and then. He didn’t feel PIAVE was that big of a deal as it was available at every Whole Foods delicatessen. I couldn’t add anything to the conversation as I don’t eat cheese so I’d never heard of it either.
So flash forward to last weekend, I’m on a date with Liz and the restaurant where we were dining must have had a huge shipment of piave, as it was on about a quarter of the dishes on the menu. I’ve been trying to explain to Liz how stumbling upon crosswordese in real life is the puzzle equivalent of seeing Bigfoot swimming with the Loch Ness monster. But alas, she doesn’t understand the high I get when a word goes from being theoretical to very real. Heaven help me if the two of us ever stumble upon a real-life ESNE or ADIT. I will freak.
Share the puzzle. New one on Thursday.
This was particularly enjoyable, despite my local stations’ never having aired, or to my knowledge even mentioned, “Ask Me Another.” So 8D is a concatenation of phonemes that is new.
I wasn’t holding a grudge, as I aced that puzzle. But the absence of that cheese from every crossword I’ve seen since … well, it tells you something when a 60%-vowel cheese name doesn’t get used.
Now picturing an esne clambering out of an adit clutching a hunk of Piave between his teeth, and an erne swoops down and steals the cheese right out of his mouth.
Piave is a great cheese. Trader Joes had it as a monthly special last year. It’s Parmesan-like, but a little sweeter/nuttier.
I’ve seen a letter that was sent to a client of mine (from a state mining agency) that used the word “adit” — made my day!
Really liked TREER. And TIMEMACHINE. Good, scrappy puz.
Also really enjoyed yer WSJ puz last Friday. Looked like they left “(Japan)” off one of yer themer clues, tho, in my copy of the paper. That’s assuming I knew what I was doing, and they didn’t.
This felt like the censored chapter of Lord of The Rings from years back. Really edgy but made it thru with 2 mistakes. & One mistake I notice: 65A is a repeat (altho an abbr.) of 30A. Other than that, XLNT.
I made some total guesses in the middle (PDRS, ESAI, SRTA, PARD – not a great looking section of the puzzle) but somehow managed to get everything right. Good job working in the 15 that was offered up as a challenge at the ACPT finals.
I started with TAXSOFTWARE in 15A on my first pass (hate to leave all the big lights blank), but quickly fixed it once I got the phrasing of 1A from a few downs.
And I remember, when visiting the National Zoo here in DC, getting excited about seeing an Oryx.