Fatty tuna in Japanese cuisine / FRI 11-26-21 / Yaga folklore villain / Bucky in comic strip Get Fuzzy / TV character who said I am so smart I am so smart S-M-R-T / Old worker with pads

Constructor: Kate Hawkins

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: TORO (36D: Fatty tuna in Japanese cuisine) —

In Japan, a blue fin tuna is graded by the quality of the cuts of meat which can be obtained from it, particularly the prized toro, the fatty belly of the tuna. Tuna for sushi is carefully handled, to ensure that the flesh is not bruised or damaged. When the tuna arrives at the fish market, core samples of the flesh are taken with a special tool so that the color, texture, and flavor of the meat can be assessed before the tuna is priced. While sushi uses many different types of tuna including yellow fin and big eye, true toro is only taken from blue fin tuna. // Toro comes from the underbelly of the tuna, and is itself divided into grades which are distinguished based on the marbling of the meat, much like in grading beef. The most valuable toro, otoro, is from the underside of the fish close to the head. Chutoro, a lesser grade, comes from the belly in the middle and back of the fish, and is less marbled than otoro. (delightedcooking.com)

A walk in the park, which is exactly what I needed. Puzzle felt like it was made just for me—my real last name is even a clue!—and since it's my birthday, I will take it, thank you. The construction on this one is very elegant, with long-answer latticework comprising the bulk of the grid. There are a smattering of 6s and 5s, but mostly the answers in this puzzle are long, gorgeous things, 9 letters or longer, or else they are largely (appropriately) nondescript 3s and 4s holding the gorgeous answers in place. FRESH MEAT hooks into the NW corner, STRIKE PAY hooks into the SE corner, and then "DON'T BE A STRANGER" (the real showstopper) drives down through both those answers, connecting the 10-stack at the top to the 10-stack at the bottom. It's striking just how much of this grid is made out of long answers, since the puzzle does not feel like it's drowning in white space. It's an easy-flowing, open grid. Lots of ways to come at answers. Not surprisingly, the hardest part of the puzzle for me was the part that was hardest to get at, most isolated, least accessible—that is, the far corner of the SW. One little mistake in there and you got trouble. My little mistake: SPEEDING UP instead of ROUNDING UP (61A: Going from 99 to 100). I was understandably pretty confident about my (wrong) answer, since it both fit the clue and worked perfectly in the crosses ... at first. But I was pretty sure there was no such thing as the EHL (62D: Senators' org. = NHL), so I knew SPEEDING was probably wrong, but ROUNDING was not something I got til very late. I normally "round" decimals if I "round" anything. Still, it's a good trick clue. I also went with ROTE before AUTO down there (56D: What you might unthinkingly be on), though in the cold light of day "on ROTE" is not a thing. Further, I had ON THE SCENE instead of ON THE SCENT (65A: In hot pursuit), even though that felt wrong, since once you're ON THE SCENE you aren't really "pursuing" any more, are you? If the PTS clue had been clearer to me, maybe I would've been quicker with ON THE SCENT. But no matter. It's good to have a little workout on a Friday, and the rest of the puzzle hadn't put up much of a fight. So there was some struggle at the end, but overall, this was easy, and as I say, delightful.