Constructor: Tom Pepper and Zhouqin Burnikel
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Downs-only solve)
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THEME: MOUNTAIN CLIMBER (55A: One who encounters the last parts of the answers to the starred clues on the way up) — themers are familiar phrases whose last words can also be parts of a mountain:
Theme answers:
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Well, it had to happen eventually, and today, it finally did: I absolutely face-planted my Downs-only solve. The face plant was all the more face-planty because I was *so* close. *This* close [holds fingers apart only as wide as a layer of strudel pastry, which, it turns out, is a pastry, not a "Crumbly pastry topping," and is definitely not spelled STREUDEL, as I erroneously and fatally imagined]. Long Downs everywhere were already creating a kind of Down-only nightmare, and I had to fight like crazy to get three of the four corners, particularly the NW. But I really thought I had it, and was proud when I finally got the PUMP (!?!) part of IV PUMP to fall into place. "That's it!" I thought. But no "Congratulations" message. So I checked my answers all over again, and checked every Across to make sure everything I'd entered at least formed plausible answers. And they did. Mission accomplished. But still no "Congratulations, you finished your stupid puzzle!" message. So I had to give up and hit "Reveal Grid" or whatever the command is. It was then I discovered that I'd mistaken STREUSEL for STRUDEL *and* misspelled STR(E)UDEL. All the crosses looked good! (MEDS instead of MESS, but ... MEDS is a thing, so it set off no alarms). Sigh. Undone by pastry. And I love pastry. Tragic. What a betrayal.
I also don't think WORLD FOOD SUMMIT is anywhere near a Monday-level answer. Feels like a hyper-specific, not terribly widely known thing that just happened to fit the theme and the grid. The wikipedia page hasn't even been updated since before 2021. Real outlier, familiarity-wise.
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (for a Downs-only solve)
Theme answers:
- WORLD FOOD SUMMIT (17A: *U.N. conference seeking to eliminate hunger)
- LOSES FACE (24A: *Suffers humiliation)
- SLIPPERY SLOPE (34A: *Gradual, seemingly harmless course of action that ultimately results in bad consequences)
- NAVAL BASE (48A: *Place of warship?)
In baking and pastry making, streusel (German pronunciation: [ˈʃtʁɔʏzl̩]) is a crumbly topping of flour, butter, and sugar that is baked on top of muffins, breads, pies, and cakes. Some modern recipes add spices and chopped nuts. The mixture can also be layered or ribboned in the middle of a cake.
Some baked dishes which have a streusel topping are streuselkuchen, coffee cake, babka, and apple crisp.
The term is also sometimes used for rich pastries topped with, or mixed with, streusel. (wikipedia)
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This theme feels strange, in that you descend the grid ... but then you're supposed to ... reclimb it to make sense of the revealer? Also, I think I don't know the difference between the FACE of a mountain and the SLOPE of a mountain. I'm guessing the FACE is ... higher? Maybe the last steep bit before the SUMMIT? I dunno. I keep trying to google the definition of "mountain face" but all I get are mountains that look like faces, or someplace called Face Mountain (in Alaska), which appears to get its name because, well, part of its peak looks like a face.
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| [not seeing it] |
The answers that caused trouble today were "IT WAS ME" (1D: Sheepish "I'm to blame") (absolutely no idea how that straightforward statement is "sheepish (!?!?!)); ROOTLESS (2D: Forever wandering) (just ... no clue, for a long time); GYM BAG (I had CLOSET at first) (10D: Holder of sneakers, athletic attire, etc.); ROTTED (12D: Biodegraded) (I wanted something ... fancier-sounding?); and IV PUMP (45D: Medical device that infuses fluids into the body, in brief) (got the IV part easy enough, but then ... YIPE (which should be YIPES!, come on, can we stop this dumb singular YIPE thing!?)—IV ... DUCT? ON-E was tough to infer, as I only wanted ONCE or ONZE ... didn't consider the two-word ON ME until very late). So, yeah, lots of flailing around. But I really thought I had it, in the end. But I did not. Ah well. Hope you fared better. See you tomorrow.