Rock Around the Christmas Tree - The New York Times

WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — Is it that time of year already? Not quite, but some of you are probably already thinking about who has been naughty and who has been nice. Or, at the very least, who could use a new pair of socks.

Not surprisingly — I try not to spoil the theme of the puzzle in the first paragraph — this has very little to do with Paul Coulter’s crossword. Mr. Coulter’s puzzle has to do with negative calories, which are what you consume when you eat with your eyes closed and ignore nutritional labels.

Tricky Clues

1A. This one went in last for me. I guessed its cross-referenced partner, 5A’s LAPS, but wasn’t familiar enough with car racing to know PACE. Now I know.

23A. Some solvers might know CLIO as the muse of history, but the CLIO is also an award given to the best in advertising (I know, but they still give out awards). The entry has appeared in the New York Times Crossword 170 times.

71A. I had DEBT before COST for the parenthetical number in an income statement.

1D. Tricky one! My brain went right to newspapers, of course, for “Print sources, maybe,” but this clue was hinting at prints in the earth, and the answer is PAWS.

3D. This one took me a while. I knew from the presence of the question mark that we weren’t “rocking out” in a musical sense, but that we were looking for a rock that was somewhere around a Christmas tree. For some reason, I did not make the connection between that and the lump of COAL I found in my Christmas stocking last year.

10D. Marco! “Polo grounds?” are not where people ride horses while hitting balls with mallets, at least not in this puzzle. They are the grounds upon which Marco Polo tread, and the answer is ASIA.

27D. Sure, sometimes a snack is just a snack. The answer is Cheese NIPS.

28D. Today I Learned (TIL) that OSLO residents refer to their city as a “kommune.”

62D. An opening in a calendar is a time SLOT, and a meter or vending machine might have a dime SLOT.

Today’s Theme

Mr. Coulter offers us food-tangential entries — the entries are not really about the food they refer to — that have entered the lexicon (vigorous protests involving the phrase “Not my lexicon!” in 3 … 2 … 1 …) as his theme. All theme clues are clued as “Negative fast-food review?”

For example, at 27A, the answer is NOTHING BURGER, which would not be an ideal review at a fast-food place, but is used to describe something that is thought to be important and is really a whole lot of nothing.

Similarly, at 17A, the answer to the clue “Negative fast-food review?” is WEAK SAUCE, which is something that is considered to be unimpressive, disappointing or of poor quality. It is, in a way, the opposite of the phrase “awesome sauce.”

And then Mr. Coulter asks us to switch gears completely for the revealer at 64A, which reads “Certain fast-food offering … or what 17-, 27- and 47-Across certainly don’t add up to?” The answer is the McDonald’s HAPPY MEAL.

Constructor Notes

The working title for this one was “Fast Food Critic.” I’d noticed that several fairly recent slang expressions for disappointing items can be applied to fast food. I thought it would be cool to balance WEAK SAUCE and NOTHING BURGER with older expressions like NO GREAT SHAKES and (in my original submission) HOT POTATO.

This last one didn’t quite work with the rest, but Andy Kravis from Will’s team [At this writing, Mr. Kravis works for The New Yorker. — D.A.] suggested a revealer of HAPPY MEAL. Then the cluing angle of a fast food critic’s negative comments really came together.

I think it’s great how Will and his assistants are always willing to work with constructors to improve a “semi-okay” theme into one that has some zing.

Regulars at the L.A. Times Crossword Corner, where my puzzles appear quite frequently, have noted that I must be a foodie. Food-related themes do pop up often in my grids. It’s true that I love both eating and cooking. Back in the 1970s, I worked my way through college as a fraternity house cook. Now that I’m retired, I have much time for both cooking and making crossword puzzles.

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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Rock Around the Christmas Tree - The New York Times
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