Salad base similar to Swiss chard / MON 5-10-21 / NASCAR champion Hamlin / TV journalist Hill / Sherri's twin sister on the simpsons / Angsty music genre

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Relative difficulty: Medium (normalish Monday time) (3:05)

THEME: food coloring— last words of four themes are all plural noun colors:

Theme answers:

• MANDARIN ORANGES (17A: Easy-to-peel citrus fruits)
• EGG WHITES (22A: Main ingredients in meringue)
• HASH BROWNS (28D: Crispy breakfast side dish)
• BEET GREENS (30D: Salad base similar to Swiss chard)

Word of the Day: DENNY Hamlin (42A: NASCAR champion Hamlin) —

James Dennis Alan "Denny" Hamlin (born November 18, 1980) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 11 Toyota Camry and part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 54 Toyota Supra, both for Joe Gibbs Racing. He has won 44 NASCAR Cup Series races, including the Daytona 500 in 2016, 2019, and 2020. In 2020, he became the fourth person to win the race in back-to-back seasons, joining Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough, and Sterling Marlin. (wikipedia)

Nice to see Zhouqin Burnikel's name back on the byline again. Feels like it's been a while, and her work is always solid, often dazzling. I really like the mirror-symmetry grid here (feels unusual for a Monday), and the theme is simple but also deceptively tight—I didn't really notice the consistent food angle in the theme answers until I was going over them post-solve. A lesser puzzle would've been content to give you a bunch of plural noun colors, but this one gives you a much more focused grouping. This is low-key fancy, and I dig it. No bells and whistles—just a tight theme, clean fill, cool-looking grid. It's a model Monday in that regard. I found the puzzle very easy except (predictably) in and around the two proper nouns I didn't know. I try not to know *any* "TV journalists" if I can help it, so I needed most of the crosses to get ERICA (27D: TV journalist), she only slowed me down a little. The real slower-downer today was DENNY Hamlin, who, now that I mull his name over, I have probably heard or seen mentioned here and there on some ESPN-showing TV screen in the gym. DENNY Hamlin really sounds like a baseball pitcher ... who am I thinking of? I think I'm conflating DENNY McClain (Tigers pitcher who won absolutely every award imaginable in the late '60s) and Harry Hamlin, who did not play baseball that I am aware of (unless there was a friendly game among lawyers in "L.A. Law" that I missed). I had -ENN- and since the clue involved racing, I went straight to PENNA ... which is how I remembered the name of Brazilian Formula One legend Ayrton SENNA. Anyway, NASCAR and Formula One are very different. Not knowing the first or last letters of DENNY cost me a ton, since each of those letters was the primary means of descending into the bottom portion of the grid (The "D" is the front of DID LAPS (42D: Worked out in a pool) and the "Y" is the front of "YES, LET'S (43D: "We should do that!"), both of which I struggled with). In the end, still a pretty normal Monday time.