Happy Chanukah, everybody! — to those among you who are Jewish, and those among you who are Jew-ish. We are having our Chanukah dinner with 83.3% of our grandchildren tonight — on the eleventh night. How’s that for a miracle! It’s all symbolic, right? This year it’s symbolizing the Jews’ inability to get their act together during the regular holiday.
How fitting that today’s puzzle is a NYT debut for a Jewish constructor: Josh Goodman, who cuts right to the chase at 40D with the granddaddy of us all: ABRAHAM, clued with “Isaac’s father, in the Bible.” Goodman includes this sweet note in the “Constructor’s Notes” section of Wordplay in the Times:
“It’s especially exciting to be making my New York Times debut because the Times puzzle holds sentimental value for me. During college, I did the crossword every day at lunch, and in my sophomore year I was joined by another member of my dining co-op. We would solve the puzzle together and then sit and talk, sometimes for hours. Eight years later, she’s now my fiancée (and No. 1 test solver). Love you, Talia!”
It’s a good puzzle. The clue at 32A was “Lowest pitches in chords,” and the answer was BASS NOTES. One comment asked: “Why would chords require that the lowest pitch be in the bass range?”
And the response was: “The lowest note in a chord is called the bass note no matter where it falls pitch wise. If you’re playing a chord all the way to the right on a piano, the lowest note is still called the bass note even though it’s above the treble clef. Often the bass note is the same note as the name of the chord and then it’s also called a root note.”
Music was certainly the order of the day. The theme centered on the only three women to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: Once with a band or partner, and again as a solo artist.
Ready?
TINA TURNER, CAROLE KING, AND STEVIE NICKS…
Goodman noted a “glaring gender inequality” in that 23 men fall into that category.
Nicks, who is 74 now, was born in Phoenix and started singing duets with her grandfather at age 4. She majored in Speech Communication at San Jose State, planning to be an English teacher, but dropped out with her dad’s blessing to pursue a musical career with Lindsay Buckingham, whom she met as a senior in HS. LB was at San Jose State too. On New Year’s Eve, 1974, Mick Fleetwood invited Buckingham to join Fleetwood Mac, and Buckingham insisted that Nicks be welcome too.
In 1975, the album Fleetwood Mac was a hit. Nicks’ “Rhiannon” was voted one of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time by Rolling Stone. Her live performances of the song took on a theatrical intensity and built to a climax in which Nicks’ vocals were so impassioned that Fleetwood said “her ‘Rhiannon’ was like an exorcism.”
She is unusually pretty, with a soulful look.
Carole King, who is turning 81 in February, was born in Manhattan. Her mom was a teacher and her dad a firefighter and they met in an elevator in Brooklyn College. (Comic Sam Levenson, whose birthday it is today (but who is dead), said, “If you die in an elevator, try to make sure it’s heading up.”)
Carole attended Queens College but at 17 got pregnant and married Gerry Goffin and dropped out to get a job and write songs with him. Good move (the songs part). Earlier, Neil Sedaka dated King in high school and had a hit “Oh! Carol” in 1959.
Among King’s 25 solo albums, Tapestry sold over 30 million copies, was No. 1 for over three months, and remained on the charts for nearly six years.
Here’s a song she wrote over fifty years ago that still moves me to tears. Click on the arrow — you’ll be transported.
I saw James Taylor perform at Tanglewood about five years ago with Sam and Sarah (in the audience — they weren’t performing). As you can see in the video, Taylor is bald now, and he told a story about his recent performance in Jamaica. He hadn’t played there for about 30 years, and at one point he took his cap off and a startled Jamaican fellow in the front row said “Wha hoppin mon?”
Tina Turner, born Anna Mae Bullock in Brownsville TN, is 83. Wikipedia says she is widely regarded as the Queen of Rock and Roll. No argument here.
Impossible to capture the fire in a photo.
Ever hear of NANAIMO? I hadn’t, which made getting 12 down a challenge. The clue was “Vancouver Island city.” It’s in British Columbia, Canada, and used to be called Hub City because of its central location on the island and the way its streets radiate from the shoreline like the spokes of a wagon wheel. The indigenous people of the area are the Snuneymuxw. It’s called Nanaimo because that’s as close as we can come to pronouncing it. Allison Crowe and Dianna Krall come from Nanaimo.
The Nanaimo Bar is a dessert that requires no baking. It’s named after the city (duh). It consists of three layers: (1) a wafer, nut (walnuts, almonds, or pecans), and coconut crumb base; (2) custard icing in the middle; and (3) a layer of chocolate ganache on top. (Ganache is a paste made of chocolate and cream.) Variations are allowed. It’s been associated with the city from as far back as the 19th century.
In 1985, Mayor Graeme Roberts initiated a contest to find the ultimate Nanaimo bar recipe. The recipe submitted by Joyce Hardcastle, a resident of Nanaimo (voo den?), was unanimously selected by a panel of judges. As a service to the readers of owl chatter, it is reproduced below.
The designation “Nanaimo bar” appears in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.
A U.S. state dinner hosted by the Obamas in honor of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016 featured Nanaimo bars as the main dessert.
In 2019, Canada Post issued a booklet of postage stamps dedicated to Canadian desserts and sweets. The booklet of 10 stamps features images of the Nanaimo bar, the butter tart, tarte au sucre (sugar pie), blueberry grunt, and Saskatoon berry pie. [OMG — blueberry grunt!] The booklet of stamps resembled a recipe card. The image of the Nanaimo bar on the stamp received some criticism for its ratio of “the crumbly base, the custard filling, and the chocolate ganache icing.” Seriously.
JOYCE’S OFFICIAL NANAIMO BAR RECIPE
Bottom Layer
½ cup unsalted butter (European style cultured)
¼ cup sugar
5 tbsp. cocoa
1 egg beaten
1 ¼ cups graham wafer crumbs
½ c. finely chapped almonds
1 cup coconut
Melt first 3 ingredients in top of double boiler. Add egg and stir to cook and thicken. Remove from heat. Stir in crumbs, coconut, and nuts. Press firmly into an ungreased 8″ x 8″ pan.
Second Layer
½ cup unsalted butter
2 Tbsp. and 2 Tsp. cream
2 Tbsp. vanilla custard powder
2 cups icing sugar
Cream butter, cream, custard powder, and icing sugar together well. Beat until light. Spread over bottom layer.
Third Layer
4 squares semi-sweet chocolate (1 oz. each)
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
Melt chocolate and butter over low heat. Cool. Once cool, but still liquid, pour over second layer and chill in refrigerator.
(Judy from Lake Havasu says she used egg nog in place of the cream in the custard and it was a huge hit. Just sayin’.)
The clue at 47A completely threw me: “Brit who wrote “The Vanishing Half.” Those of you familiar with the very popular book know how I was led astray. It’s not a British author — it’s an American author whose first name is “Brit.” Brit Bennett. “The Vanishing Half” came out in 2020 and rose to #1 on the NYT best-seller list. It was also named a top ten book of 2020 by the Times. Ms. Bennett is of particular interest to owl chatter because she pursued her graduate studies at UMich — Go Blue!
There’s simply no end to the extraordinary women Josh Goodman was able to cram into the grid today. And JANE ADDAMS takes the cake (or at least the Nanaimo bar). She was born in Cedarville, IL, on Sept. 6, 1860. A lifelong pacifist, in 1931 she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. She co-founded Hull House in Chicago, one of the country’s leading settlement houses providing aid to the poor. She essentially brought into being the field of social work as it is known today, and her work helped establish Sociology as an academic discipline.
Mary Rozet Smith was the love of her life. They owned a summer home in Bar Harbor, Maine, and were together for 40 years until Mary’s death. When apart they wrote to each once or twice daily. “I miss you dreadfully and am yours ’til death,” Addams wrote.
Addams herself died in Chicago on May 21, 1935 at the age of 74. In 1940, a 10c U.S. postage stamp was issued honoring her.
Arggggh!– as ennobling as it would be to close with Jane Addams, I can’t let go of that Blueberry Grunt. Here’s what they look like, said Tom droolingly, with a clump of vanilla on the side.
The Wellington Files 