Broadcasting from the lovely Rodeway Inn on the outskirts of Historic (sorta) Brookville, PA, Thanksgiving night. Halfway between NJ and Michigan, on the way to visit Sam, Sarah, Morris, and (for the owls) Worthington. Outstanding holiday dinner comprised of Ma Po Tofu and Shrimp in Black Bean Sauce from Chatham’s Garden Rice, reheated in the in-room microwave. Ice cold ale. Perfect.
If it’s not too late, consider this cranberry sauce recipe from a Rex comment:
Ingredients:
- One can of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce
- A can opener
Directions: use can opener to open can. Slide contents onto plate. Serve immediately.
Commenter Jberg added this C-sauce memory:
I once made a big patch of Susan Stamberg’s cranberry sauce recipe, featuring horseradish, which she used to read on the radio. I wrapped it up tightly, flew with it to Green Bay, and took it to my Mom’s house for Thanksgiving. No one would eat it.
Some days the commentariat just doesn’t cut it, and some days, like today, it’s one delight after another. For PAEAN (“Song of triumph”), someone noted: PAEAN looks like a word that melted when it was left out of the fridge and then got put back in when it should have been placed in the trash and properly disposed of.
I always thought it was pronounced pay-un, but it’s pronounced pee-un.
SLAKE (“Quench”) brought this memory out for commenter jberg:
SLAKE reminded me of one of my favorite episodes from M*A*S*H. I couldn’t find a video but here is a drag-and-drop from mash.fandom.com:
Unfortunately, Simmons is not interested in movies, preferring to stay in, listen to music or read poetry. Seizing this opening, Radar turns up at Simmons’ tent that night with Klinger’s poetry book. Simmons invites him in and asks him to read some poems to her. He opens the book and clumsily reads some thoroughly unromantic lines from Rupert Brooke’s “Channel Passage” about retching and being sick on a ship. Suddenly Simmons pounces on Radar exclaiming, “You don’t give a girl a chance do you!” and “There ought to be a law against guys like you!” She pushes Radar onto the bed, with Radar all the while protesting that she is “bending the book!”
Much later, Radar staggers into the company office, shirt ripped open and lipstick all over his face. Trapper and Hawkeye, who are there for Klinger’s wedding to his fiancée over the radio, are astonished. “Radar, what happened to you?” “I think I’ve been slaked,” Radar says.
1 across had a great clue that set a great tone for the puzzle. It used a Jose Saramago quote (I know: Who?) in the clue: “Order waiting to be deciphered,” and the answer was CHAOS. I should have heard of him — he’s a Portuguese writer who won the Nobel Prize in Lit in 1998. The Nobel committee praised his “parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony,” and his “modern skepticism” about official truths.
For the third day in a row, I loved the theme. It was “DOT THE I’s,” and for all seven of the letters “I” that were in answers the squares above had to be filled in with a “dot.” Reading down, the dot was just a dot over the I, but reading across it had to be read as D, O, T. (Confused? Now you know how my students feel.) Here’s an example. The across clue was “They’re spotted on Lucille Ball and Minnie Mouse.” The answer was POLKA (.) DRESSES, with the dot to be read as DOT. But going down the answer was (.) IONS, and the dot was just a dot over the I.
There were no tuchas sightings in the grid, but the staid NYT went with HORNY at 13A, clued as “Aroused, informally.” And right across from it was OPEN ARMS, so make of that what you will.
7 down was “Olivia Rodrigo or Billie Eilish” for POP IDOL, and LOLA Kirke of “Mozart in the Jungle” dropped in too. Hey! Here’s Olivia! All are welcome on this wonderful holiday! — as soon as I find the can opener, we can dig into that cranberry sauce.
The Wellington Files 