Mortars for grinding Mexican spices / SAT 4-12-25 / Improv tenet / Wayne's co-star in 1966's "El Dorado" / Bad kind of insider / Onetime first name at Springfield Elementary / Curmudgeonly boss on TV's "Parks and Recreation" / Portrayer of a noted sitcom boss / Pool shooters / Choir supporters

Constructor: Jesse Cohn

Relative difficulty: Started very easy, ended up ... maybe Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: MOLCAJETES (29D: Mortars for grinding Mexican spices) —

A molcajete (Spanish: [molkaˈxete]; Mexican Spanish, from Nahuatl molcaxitl) and tejolote (from Nahuatl texolotl) are stone tools, the traditional Mexican version of the mortar and pestle, similar to the South American batan, used for grinding various food products. // The molcajete was used by pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures, including the Aztec and Maya, stretching back several thousand years. Traditionally carved out of a single block of vesicular basalt, molcajetes are typically round in shape and supported by three short legs. They are frequently decorated with the carved head of an animal on the outside edge of the bowl, giving the molcajete the appearance of a short, stout, three-legged animal. The pig is the most common animal head used for decoration of this type. [...]Molcajetes are used to crush and grind spices, and to prepare salsas and guacamole. The rough surface of the basalt stone creates a superb grinding surface that maintains itself over time as tiny bubbles in the basalt are ground down, replenishing the textured surface. // A new basalt molcajete needs to be "broken in" because small grains of basalt can be loosened from the surface when it is first used and this will give an unpleasant gritty texture to the first few items prepared in it. A simple way to do the initial "seasoning" is to grind uncooked white rice in the molcajete, a handful at a time. When the white rice flour has no visible grains of basalt in it, the molcajete is ready to use. Some rice flour may remain ground into the surface of the molcajete, but this causes no problems.

• • •

[32A: Another name for Princess
Diana of Themyscira]

Another day, another Jesse. Back-to-back constructors named Jesse. It's Jesse's turn to shine! We're in our Jesse Era. etc. Liked this puzzle somewhat better than yesterday's because the marquee answers just have a little more pop and zing. And whoosh. The grid design allows for more flow, for longer words to unfold, for more interplay among answers (or that's how it felt). Plus, I MEAN, COME ON ... that's a good answer. See also FALSE ALARM, THRONE ROOM, WONDER WOMAN, "NOT TODAY," etc. The puzzle played upside-down for me, in that normally, as on any day, particularly a Saturday, getting started is the toughest (or one of the toughest) parts, but today the start was so easy it actually freaked me out a little. "This can't be right..." I thought as I filled in answer after answer with virtually no crosses. By my rough count, I got the first 17 answers I looked at, from "IT'S A BET" up top (1A: "You're on!") to IDLY down there on the middle left (41A: How some sit by), including every single Down in the NW, in succession off just their first letters (which came from "IT'S A BET," the answer that started it all). Add in YES, AND (15D: Improv tenet) and that Down avalanche is really something.

Getting STEVE CARELL off the "S" feels impressive but it also feels supereasy (3D: Portrayer of a noted sitcom boss). He was the first "sitcom boss" I thought of, and I'd just seen him in some coffee commercial last night with John Krasinski (also of The Office). I don't know what the conceit of the commercial was, as I mute commercials. They just seemed to be sitting there, calmly drinking coffee. STEVE CARELL was on my mind, is what I'm saying, and I've watched every episode of The Office, so ... not hard. Also not hard: the other sitcom boss in this grid—the legendary RON Swanson of Parks & Rec (played by Nick Offerman) (49D: Curmudgeonly boss on TV's "Parks and Recreation"). Really needed RON, because that SW corner was way more problematic than the NW corner, or really any other part of this grid. My streak of correct answers came to a stop around "I MEAN, COME ON!" (just couldn't parse it quickly) and then absolutely stopped at MOLCAJETES, a term I've probably seen but had no recollection of. Every letter an adventure! Then because EASY WINS was also a problem (I had EASY WORK) (34D: Cakewalks), getting into that SW corner was a bear ... and yet the little answers weren't that hard, so I bailed myself out.

[oh look, there's a robot]

The other tricky part of the grid for me was a little bottleneck where the middle right flows down to the bottom right. Muffed the "I" in CIO (38A: Co. tech leader)—felt like a "T," except "tech" was in the clue ... except ... if "tech" is in the clue, then isn't that person's job "technical"? The CIO is the "Information" leader, the CTO is the "tech" leader—or should be. Y'all have too many self-important titles for yourselves. First Earl of Pushing Paper Around, Marquis de Management, Countess of Coding. Chief this, chief that. We used to just have C*E*O and we liked it that way. As for TRU, I guessed TRU, but TRU to me is a TV station or a play about Capote. Seemed more likely than CRU, that's why I picked it, but I wasn't sure of it. Was not prepared for the corniness of some guy putting a POEM in his love letter (43A: Inclusion in a love letter, maybe). I had STEM, which is bizarre, I'll grant you (what did you do with the flower itself!?), but at the time it felt right, or at least plausible. I had NET instead of GEL (I suspect that will be a common mistake) (51D: Mesh). But the worst part for me down there in the SE was a single square—had to run the alphabet to finish the puzzle. I'm talking of course about -EAL / -OLE (46A: You might want to sit down for this / 46D: Bad kind of insider). The answers seem straightforward enough when you're staring at them, but while I was solving, nothing was leaping to mind. Do you sit down ... for a DEAL (in poker)? Probably! Eventually I tested "M" and yep, that made sense. MEAL MOLE! Mmm, MOLE ... I want Mexican food now. MOLE for my MEAL! Do they make MOLE in [checks spelling] MOLCAJETES? (Traditionally, you would grind the toasted ingredients, but apparently today most recipes call for a blender.)

Bullets:

• 16A: Base ruling ("HE'S OUT!") — had "YER OUT!" in here at first. Let's go to the scoreboard now, and ... looks like "HE'S OUT!" still trails "YER OUT!" 7-3. (this is the first "HE'S OUT!" in almost eighteen years)
• 23A: Wayne's co-star in 1966's "El Dorado" (CAAN) — wow, I had no idea James CAAN's work went back that far.

• 24A: Missile type (SCUD) — you pretty much have to have lived through the Gulf War (1991) to know this. I have never heard the term in another context, but during that war, in news coverage, you heard it All The Time.
• 42A: Pool shooters (JETS) — not CUES, losers! Nice try!
• 6D: Onetime first name at Springfield Elementary (EDNA) — EDNA Krabappel. Marsha Wallace (who voiced her) died in 2013, and so EDNA was retired. Lots of sitcom characters in this puzzle, but for me, this is the most iconic.

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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Creature with over 200 tiny eyes along its shell / FRI 4-11-25 / Music genre that's experimental yet radio-friendly / Certain ephemeral social media post, informally / Makings of some homemade pipes / "Sort by" option in a credit card history / How Romeo dies, in the eyes of the audience / Simple question written with two question marks / Fitting name for a girl born in October

Constructor: Jesse Guzman

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: step (in music) (31A: It's one step down from an F = E FLAT) —

In the language of music theory, a step is the distance between notes of different pitches. A half step, or semitone, is the smallest interval between notes in Western music. Notes that are directly next to each other—such as E and F, or A sharp and B—are a half step apart. Two half steps equal one whole step. The notes G and A are one whole step apart, as are the notes B flat and C. (masterclass.com)

• • •

Solid but a bit flat. Is the puzzle IRONICALLY flat if it opens with COCA-COLAS? (1A: Some pops). There just weren't enough pleasing marquee answers today. Again, it's all fine, but I don't think I ever smiled or said "nice!" while I was solving. Well, I take that back; I definitely smiled at least once, not because of something that was in the puzzle, but because of something that was not in the puzzle, something I wrote in the grid that was absurdly, ridiculously wrong. It may be the dumbest wrong answer of all time. I dare you to beat it for dumbness. I had the SEAS- at the beginning of 9D: Creature with over 200 tiny eyes along its shell and wrote in SEA SERPENT (a dumb answer, to be sure, but not the dumb answer I'm talking about); thankfully, it didn't take me long to realize that SEA SERPENTs, in addition to being maybe fictional (?!), is almost certainly shell-less. So I left that answer and came back to it. When I came back to it, I had the -ALLO- part, and after a split second of wanting SEA SWALLOW, whatever that is, I thought "oh, no, it's the seafood thing, the thing you never order at restaurants ... what's it called? ... oh yeah, shallot! It's SEA SHALLOT! (it was not, in fact, SEA SHALLOT, as a shallot is a kind of onion, as you likely know). In my defense, a shallot is roughly the size of a scallop (I'm just kidding, I have no defense, I plead insanity). 

[fearsome ... so many eyes ...]

I also wrote in ALT RAP instead of ALT POP (43D: Music genre that's experimental yet radio-friendly), which is not that great a wrong answer, but in its defense, all wrong answers are going to pale before SEA SHALLOT. Between SEA SHALLOT and ALT RAP, that's 90% of the difficulty I experienced today, and I think we can all agree, that difficulty was entirely (and extremely anomalously) self-imposed. I didn't know SNAP had STORYs, I thought just CHATs, so I needed some crosses there (59A: Certain ephemeral social media post, informally), and I whiffed at my first pass at the GROUP / BUN area (the only GRO- word that came to mind for [Party] was GROOVE, and having had no hair on my head to speak of since 2010 when I shaved it all off, I am not up on the latest BUN technology. I've got MAN BUN and then ... nothing. "Messy," you say? Cool). 

Who is making pipes out of COBS? (1D: Makings of some homemade pipes). This feels folksy/mythical. "Some homemade pipes"? Besides Frosty the Snowman, who is smoking these? COBS could have been more ... relatably clued. Corn cores! Male swans! "A crudely struck old Spanish coin of irregular shape"! "A stocky short-legged riding horse"! OK, don't use those last two, they're pretty obscure, I only looked them up just now, but ... something non-pipe-ish! The plural brands kind of soured me on this one early. COCA-COLAS was tolerable, but when you chase it almost immediately with GI JOES, now we've entered a realm of plural unpleasantness—pluralizing brand names that are not normally pluralized. And while you might say GI JOES, you'd never say COCA-COLAS, you'd say COKES (if you pluralized it at all). A whole lot of other plurals follow, OCEANS and SLAM POETS and PAEANS and TUTUS and RESALES and SEXAHOLICS ... speaking of, who uses that term? It feels like what sex addiction might've been called in the '70s/'80s. back when we were -aholic'ing everything. Remember "chocoholic?" I think that answer is supposed to be fun and fresh, but it felt odd and dated to me. Some of the mid-range stuff was fun today: "I'LL WAIT..." and DARKEST and DEAD LAST, those all hold up. But overall there's just not enough SPARK in this one, for me, for a Friday.

Bullets:

• 2D: Fitting name for a girl born in October (OPAL) — October's birthstone
• 15A: Richard Nixon or Mao Zedong, in a 1987 premiere (OPERA ROLE) — look at me, remembering that Nixon in China was an opera. I did not remember that it was by John Adams, but I remembered it, somehow.

• 20A: Like Iceland's weather most of the year (WINDY) — tried to cram WINTRY in here.
• 31A: It's one step down from an F (E FLAT) — I ignorantly took "step" to mean "a single key away on the keyboard" and so couldn't figure out how I would be on a black key. One piano key down from F is E. But one "step" (as defined, above) is two keys, taking me (you, us) to E FLAT.
• 57A: Simple question written with two question marks ("¿COMO ESTAS?") — so "simple" that even I, a non-Spanish speaker, got it pretty easily. The "two question marks" is a dead giveaway for Spanish, and "¿COMO ESTAS?" is the first question that pops to mind when I think of Spanish questions (which is not often, but ... here we are!)
• 4D: One into modeling at school (ART MAJOR) — not sure I get this. Obviously the people who pose for art class, those models, are not (necessarily) ART MAJORs. Is this a reference to ... sculpting? Or are ART MAJORs "into" modeling because they ... paint (or sculpt) ... from models? Seems like a misdirection attempt gone slightly awry here.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to sea to hunt the Great Onion Leviathan, the SEA SHALLOT, on my onioning ship, The Leekquod). 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]

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