0717-26 NY Times Crossword 17 Jul 26, Friday

Bill’s time: 15m 29s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A Savory Chinese dish prepared on a griddle : SCALLION PANCAKE

Scallion pancakes are savory pancakes made with scallions (duh!), and they sound delicious to me. A Korean version is known as “pajeon”, and a Chinese version is “cong you bing”.

17A Had a little of this and that, say : ORDERED A LA CARTE

On a restaurant menu, items that are “à la carte” are priced and ordered separately. A menu marked “table d’hôte” (also called “prix fixe”) is a fixed-price menu with limited choice. “Table d’hôte” translates from French as “table of the host”.

18A Dream setting, for short : REM

“REM” is an acronym standing for “rapid eye movement”. REM sleep takes up 20-25% of the sleeping hours and is the period associated with one’s most vivid dreams.

19A Does as a group? : DEER

A male deer is usually called a buck, and a female is a doe. However, the male red deer is usually referred to as a stag. The males of even larger species of deer are often called bulls, and the females called cows. In older English, male deer of over 5 years were called harts, and females of over 3 years were called hinds. The young of small species are known as fawns, and of larger species are called calves. All very confusing …

21A Water bearer : EWER

A pitcher is a container for liquid that has a handle, mouth and spout. The term “jug” is used for the same container in other English-speaking countries. “Ewer” is an older term describing a pitcher/jug. Today, a ewer is a highly decorative pitcher, often with a base and flared spout.

40A Historical figure known to have acquired and dissected human corpses : LEONARDO DA VINCI

Leonardo da Vinci was perhaps the most diversely talented person who ever contributed to society. He was a gifted painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer and writer. Da Vinci’s mural “The Last Supper” is the most reproduced work of art in the world.

42A It lacks a permanent host, for short : SNL

The “Five-Timers Club” on Saturday Night Live is an exclusive, fictional club for celebrities who have hosted the show five or more times. The concept was introduced during Tom Hanks’ fifth hosting appearance in 1990. The list of members who have hosted five or more times includes Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, Tina Fey, Scarlett Johansson and Martin Short.

43A Comedian Margaret : CHO

Margaret Cho is a very successful stand-up comedian, and also a fashion designer with her own line of clothing. Cho acts as well, and you might have seen her in the John Travolta/Nicolas Cage movie “Face/Off” in which she played John Travolta’s FBI colleague.

47A Candy bar similar to Heath : SKOR

The candy bar named “Skor” is produced by Hershey’s. “Skor” is Swedish for “shoes”, and the candy bar’s wrapping features a crown that is identical to that found in the Swedish national emblem. What shoes have to do with candy, I don’t know …

Down

1D Sweet sandwich : S’MORE

S’mores are treats peculiar to North America that are usually eaten around a campfire. A s’more consists of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate sandwiched between two graham crackers. The earliest written reference to the recipe is in a 1927 publication called “Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts”. Girl Scouts always did corner the market on cookies and the like!

2D Rod whom the annual A.L. batting title is named after : CAREW

Rod Carew is a former Major League Baseball player from Panama. Actually, Carew is a “Zonian”, meaning that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, a political entity that existed for decades from 1903.

4D Pulitzer-winning author whose only two novels were published 55 years apart : LEE

Nelle Harper Lee was an author from Monroeville, Alabama. For many years, Lee had only one published novel to her name, i.e. “To Kill a Mockingbird”. That contribution to the world of literature was enough to earn her the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Pulitzer Prize. Harper Lee was a close friend of fellow author Truman Capote who was the inspiration for the character named “Dill” in her novel. Lee was all over the news in 2015 as she had published a second novel, titled “Go Set a Watchman”. The experts seem to be agreeing that “Go Set a Watchman” is actually the first draft of “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Lee passed away less than a year after “Go Set a Watchman” hit the stores.

5D Pie crust ingredient : LARD

The hard fat extracted from the loins and kidneys of beef and mutton is called suet. Untreated suet decomposes at room temperature quite easily so it has to be rendered, purified to make it stable. Rendered fat from pigs is what we call lard. Rendered beef or mutton fat is known as tallow.

11D Airer of the original “Star Trek” series : NBC

When Gene Roddenberry first proposed the science fiction series that became “Star Trek”, he marketed it as “Wagon Train to the Stars”, a pioneer-style Western in outer space. In fact, his idea was to produce something more like “Gulliver’s Travels”, as he intended to write episodes that were adventure stories on one level, but morality tales on another. Personally, I think that he best achieved this model with the spin-off series “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (TNG). If you watch individual episodes you will see thinly disguised treatments of moral issues such as racism, homosexuality, genocide etc. For my money, “The Next Generation” is the best of the whole franchise …

12D Marathoner’s woe : CRAMP

“Charley horse” is a very American phrase describing painful muscle spasms in the legs. The term possibly arose in the late 19th century, and may be named for baseball pitcher Charlie “Old Hoss” Radbourn who apparently suffered a lot from leg cramps.

14D Kaelin of the O.J. trial : KATO

Actor Kato Kaelin’s 15 minutes of fame came in 1995 when he was called as a witness in the trial of O. J. Simpson for the murders of his wife and Ronald Goldman. Kaelin had been staying at the guest house on the Simpson property and was called to account for some of the movements of O. J. on that fateful night.

25D Island nation north of Fiji : TUVALU

Tuvalu is a Polynesian island nation that was formerly called the Ellice Islands. It lies midway between Hawaii and Australia. Tuvalu is the third least populous sovereign state in the world with under 11,000 inhabitants, ahead of Vatican City and Nauru.

29D Kitt who played Catwoman : EARTHA

Eartha Kitt really did have a unique voice and singing style. Her rendition of “Santa Baby” has to be one of the most distinctive and memorable recordings in the popular repertoire. Some of you will no doubt remember Eartha playing Catwoman on the final series of the 1960s TV show “Batman”.

Catwoman, the alter ego of Selina Kyle, is a supervillain who is usually depicted as an adversary of Batman in comics. In the sixties television show “Batman”, Catwoman was first portrayed by actress Julie Newmar, but then the more memorable Eartha Kitt took over, with the marvelously “feline voice”. On the big screen, Catwoman has been played by Lee Meriwether in “Batman” (1966), Michelle Pfeiffer in “Batman Returns” (1992), Halle Berry in “Catwoman” (2004) and Anne Hathaway in “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012).

30D Marvel antagonist who wears a metal mask : DR DOOM

Doctor Doom is a supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. He is an archenemy of the Fantastic Four.

34D First name of the singer dubbed the “King of Soul” : OTIS

Otis Redding is often referred to as the “King of Soul”, and what a voice he had. Like so many of the greats in the world of popular music it seems, Redding was killed in a plane crash, in 1967 when he was just 26 years old. Just three days earlier he had recorded what was to be his biggest hit, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”.

36D Like some lights : NEON

The basic design of neon lighting was first demonstrated at the Paris Motor Show in 1910. Such lighting is made up of glass tubes containing a vacuum into which has been introduced a small amount of neon gas. When a voltage is applied between two electrodes inside the tube, the neon gas “glows” and gives off the familiar light.

45D Incite to attack, as a dog : SIC ON

To sic on is to let at or set on. The verb “to sic on” comes from the attack command given to a dog: “sic ‘em”.

48D Knightley of “Bend It Like Beckham” : KEIRA

English actress Keira Knightley had her big break in the movies when she co-starred in 2002’s “Bend It Like Beckham”. Knightley played one of my favorite movie roles, Elizabeth Bennet in 2005’s “Pride and Prejudice”, although that isn’t the best adaptation of Austen’s novel in my humble opinion …

“Bend It Like Beckham” is a 2002 British-Indian movie that centers on a young Punjabi Sikh living in London who loves soccer, but is forbidden to play by her parents. The two leads in the film are Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley. Nagra went on to play Dr. Neela Rasgotra in the TV medical drama “ER”, and Knightley went on to a remarkably successful Hollywood career.

57D Disney antagonist who rules the Pride Lands : SCAR

In the 1994 movie “The Lion King”, the protagonist is Simba, a lion cub born to Mufasa and Sarabi. The main antagonist is Scar, Simba’s uncle and Mufasa’s brother. Simba is voiced by Matthew Broderick, and Scar is voiced by Jeremy Irons. “Simba” is Swahili for “lion”.

60D Station information, for short : ETD

Estimated time of departure (ETD)

62D Sch. that releases admission decisions on Pi Day : MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

The first three digits of the mathematical constant pi are 3.14. Pi Day has been celebrated on March 14th (3/14) every year since 1988, when it was inaugurated at the San Francisco Exploratorium. In countries where the day is usually written before the month, Pi Day is July 22nd, reflecting the more accurate approximation of pi as 22/7. Interestingly, March 14th is also Albert Einstein’s birthday.