Tend to the Sauce - The New York Times

Kate Hawkins’s puzzle takes us for a stride.

WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — This is Kate Hawkins’s fourth crossword for The New York Times, but she has been published elsewhere. You can find her work in the American Values Crossword Club, better known as AVXC; The Inkubator; USA Today; The Atlantic; Universal Syndicate; and Spyscape, but it’s a testament to her talent that she debuted in The Times in mid-2020 and has already had four accepted puzzles so far.

Keep them coming, Ms. Hawkins.

Tricky Clues

6A. A SCAB is a worker who crosses a picket line.

14A. I feel like I should have known this without any letters, but HANOI is the “World capital that’s home to the Temple of Literature, built in 1070.” I had H_N_I, so it wasn’t hard to guess the answer.

34A. If you are a newer solver, take note that the word “month” is abbreviated in the clue to indicate that the answer should also be an abbreviation. In this puzzle, the “Mo. with a holiday on its final day” is OCT., and the holiday is Halloween.

42A. Another way to improve your solving if you are new to crossword puzzles: Understand the rules of cluing. In this case, the clue (“Uno y uno,” or one plus one) is in Spanish, so the answer (DOS, or two) also has to be in Spanish.

If you’d like to learn more about how to read crossword clues, please read our guide, “How to Solve the New York Times Crossword.” There are easy rules you can learn to improve your solving skills, and interactive Mini crosswords in which you can practice them. If you are already solving midweek puzzles and would like to press on to the harder ones, the guide also reveals the secrets of the tougher, late-week clues.

63A. Even if you are not a hockey fan, it’s easy enough to get the word NINE (“Number of M.V.P. awards won by Wayne Gretzky”) from the crossings.

64A. The revealer! I told you we’d talk about this. The “Kind of beer” Ms. Hawkins is hinting at is a STOUT, which can also be parsed as ST OUT, which is our directive to take the letters ST out.

66A. TIL (Today I Learned) that proponents of the temperance movement in the early 20th century were called “drys.”

2D. Nice play on words. A “Road hog?” can be someone who can’t pick a lane on the highway (you know who you are), but in this puzzle, the answer involves the slang term for a HARLEY motorcycle.

11D. I had a sentimental moment when I read this clue. I must have read “ARE You My Mother?” by P.D. Eastman to my children at least 100 times.

38D. In the Before Times (before the pandemic), people used to go door-to-door to sell products like AVON. Since then, I’ve seen a huge uptick in online “parties” where these products are sold.

48D. I liked how the entry YEASTY crossed both the revealer, STOUT, and the theme entry ALE MATE.

60D. Chinua Achebe was an African writer who chronicled the imposition of Western culture and values on traditional African society. In the novel “Things Fall Apart,” published in 1958, the crop item grown is the YAM.

Today’s Theme

Ms. Hawkins offers us five phrases that normally start with the letters ST. In this puzzle, however, the ST is left off, or OUT (we’ll get to that in a moment), and the resulting phrases are clued in a wacky way.

For example, at 18A, when you omit the first two letters of the phrase “stump speech,” you wind up with UMP SPEECH, which is the answer to the clue “‘Strike three!’ or ‘Yer out!’?”

Similarly — and this was my favorite one — at 37A, the answer to the clue “The main characters of ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ e.g.?” is RANGE BEDFELLOWS, which is based on the phrase “strange bedfellows.” Spoiler ahead, for those who have not seen the film: The protagonists, who are cowboys, fall in love. On the range.

This was a nice midweek puzzle with a theme that I really enjoyed. I don’t remember having seen a tight letter deletion theme like this for a while (there may have been Sunday themes like this that were covered by the weekend columnist, Caitlin Lovinger), and I appreciate them because I find them entertaining.

Constructor Notes

I love this puzzle and hope you do too!

When my grandmother was in the hospital last year, I visited her with a draft of this puzzle. Watching my dad and grandmother solve this puzzle together — him reading the clues and her dictating most of the answers — was one of the highlights of my crossword construction journey so far. Much love to them both!

Thank you to Andrea Carla Michaels for suggesting this puzzle’s revealer, and for being an enthusiastic first test solver. I started writing crosswords a little over a year ago thanks to encouragement from a constructor’s note about a Facebook group that connects constructing mentors with people who are in groups that are underrepresented in crosswords. If you’re a member of an underrepresented group, I encourage you to check out the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory or to reach out on Twitter (@kateshawkins) for help getting started.

Some notes about the grid:

A few years ago, I encountered a population of 46 Downs that hangs out at the top of Half Dome in Yosemite. They’re fearless and will rip through any unattended backpacks while nearby hikers take pictures of the view. Cute? Yes. Ruthless? Also yes. Squirrels? Apparently.

Some B-squad theme entry options left on the cutting room floor: RING THEORY, AMP COLLECTOR, INK BUGS, RANGER DANGER.

I hope solvers got as much of a kick out of 37 Across as I did!

The Tipping Point

Almost finished solving but need a bit more help? We’ve got you covered.

Warning: There be spoilers ahead, but subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.

Trying to get back to the puzzle page? Right here.

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