“Ooh Baby, Baby, it’s a Wild Word” “News from around the globe!” Reviewer: Huff & Otto... Alphanumeric Synonymity; Pictures at an Exhibition; Objectionable adjective;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“News from around the globe!”

What do the plausible pair of headlines headlines and the possible feature-story quotation below share in common?

* “Monsoons, Tsunamis Saturate Africa” 

(a possible headline in The Africa Report)

* “Bathurst's Renewed Statues” 

(a possible headline of a photojournalistic feature in Australia’s New South Wales’ Western Advocate newspaper)

* “Friar Arthur’s unsung virtues demonstrate satisfactory hallowedness.” 

(a possible quotation, printed in a Washington Post feature story, spoken by the Dominican prior of Washington DC’s St. Dominic Priory)

Appetizer Menu

Minor “Word-Surgery” Appetizer:

“Ooh Baby, Baby, it’s a Wild Word…”

1. Name something found in many consumer products. Add a letter to the middle of that
word, and the result might explain why that thing is included.

2. Name a compound word for something you might see in a certain room.  

Divide the compound word into its two parts,
add the same noun in front of each of  those parts and the result will be two things you might see in a certain room.

3. Name a well-known author of the past, not an American.  

Replace the first letter of the last name with the first letter of the first name, reverse that and the result will be something you might do frequently.  

Who is the author and what do you do?

4. There are many words with the pattern t-i-t-i in which the letters t and i are pronounced differently: For example, petition, superstitious, etc.  

Can you name a common word with a similar x-y-x-y pattern where letters are pronounced differently? There are at least three common words, two uncommon words, and one fictional character related to well-known folktales.

5. Name a job title in a company or organization. Change the first letter to an adjoining letter on a standard typewriter or computer keyboard, and the result will be
where that person might be found.

6. Name three seven-letter words that share all but the first letter, and none of the words rhyme. What are the three words?

7. Think of something the Supreme Court recently granted.  

Move a letter in that word three places later in the alphabet, and the result describes how unscrupulous persons may try to act.  

What are the two words?

8. Name a symptom of an abnormality in a person’s musculoskeletal system. Change the third letter six places later in the alphabet, and you get a word describing a defect in a person’s speech system. What are the two words?

9. Name something the new president is on the inside, change the first letter and last letter [or change the first letter (p becomes n) and delete the last letter. Rearrange and the resulting word is something the new president wants on the outside.

MENU

Artistic Trio Hors d’Oeuvre

Pictures at an Exhibition

An adjective associated with finances often precedes the first syllable of a portrait artist’s surname. 

The adjective consists of the surname of a
French artist followed by an anagram of an American artist’s surname. 

What is this adjective. 

Who are these three artists?

Literary Slice

Objectionable adjective

Anagram the surname of a writer from the past to spell an adjective by which no writer, past or present, wants to be defined. 

Who is this writer? 

What is the adjective?

Hint: Take the combined nine letters of the writer’s first name and the kind of writer he is (novelist, essayist, etc.) Rearrange these letters to spell a nickname for a part of Italy and a word in a nickname of New York City. 

Riffing Off Shortz And Young Entrees:

Reviewer: Huff & Otto...

Will Shortz’s January 5th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, was created by Joseph Young, who conducts the blog Puzzleria! And it’s a numerical challenge for a change. It reads:

Take the digits 2, 3, 4, and 5. Arrange them in some way using standard arithmetic operations to make 2,025. Can you do it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Young Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Take a pseudonym that a puzzle-maker uses. Remove the Latin word for the pronoun “I”. Remove also the three letters of the largest professional sports league in the world.

The sum of the four Roman numerals that remain, in Arabic numerals, is a year from the Second Millennium. 

Rearranging the digits 2, 3, 4, and 5 in some way using standard arithmetic operations will yield this Second-Millennium year.

What are this pseudonym, Latin word and world's largest professional sports league?

What is the sum of the four Roman numerals, in Arabic numerals?

Hint: The largest professional sports league in the world might have also been the name of a Swedish pop supergroup had either Björn or Benny never been born.   

Note: Entrees #2 through  #7 were created by our friend Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time is featured regularly on Puzzleria!”

ENTREE #2

Think of a seven-letter mathematical term.

Change an E to an A. 

Rearrange to spell two pests you might encounter in your backyard. 

What are the mathematical term and the two pests?

ENTREE #3

Think of a six-letter unit of measurement (with which many scientists are familiar.) Rearrange to name (1) a professional sports franchise, or (2) a plural word for shenanigans, or (3) a verb meaning to erode that can also serve as a noun meaning a dust-up. What are the unit of measurement, the sports franchise, the synonyms for shenanigans and the verb and noun?

ENTREE #4

Think of a six-letter mathematical term. Add two C’s, one E and one N. Rearrange to spell a word for a kind of internal guide. What are these two words?

ENTREE #5

Think of a nine-letter mathematical term.  Remove the first two letters. Add a C and rearrange slightly to spell a term for a kind of projection. What are these two terms?

ENTREE #6

Think of an eleven-letter mathematical term.   Remove the first letter. 

Rearrange the remaining letters to spell a place to work and a part of an eating utensil. 

What are the mathematical term, the place to work, and the part of an eating utensil?

ENTREE #7

Two mathematical terms are anagrams of one another. 

One refers to a procedure for solving a problem. The other term refers to a method of making mathematical calculations easier to
perform. (This method was developed by a mathematician whose last name anagrams to a word meaning pillage or plunder.) 

What are the two mathematical terms, the last name of the mathematician, and the word meaning pillage or plunder?

ENTREE #8

Consider the transcription of Will Shortz’s reading of this week’s NPR Puzzle Challenge:

This week’s challenge (is) a numerical challenge for a change. Take the digits 2, 3, 4, and 5. Arrange them in some way using standard arithmetic operations to make 2,025. Can you do it?

A letter of the alphabet, spelled backwards,
appears in a word in that transcription’s text. (This letter can be spelled with either two or three letters; in this instance it is spelled with three.) Remove those three letters and the space they leave. The result is a second word in the transcription’s text.

What are these two words?

ENTREE #9

You can arrange the digits 2, 3, 4, and 5 in some way using standard arithmetic operations to make 2,025. 

What is the most recent year, and what is the next year, that can be expressed using those four digits in this same way?

ENTREE #10

Name (in two words and 11 letters) a  geographic landform that ranks in the Top-Ten-Tallest on earth, with “tallness” defined by “topographic prominence.” 

Spell, in UPPERCASE, all but the 7th letter of this landform. 

Transpose the 3rd and 5th letters. 

Transpose the 7th and 9th letters.

Remove five consecutive letters that spell a part of a radio.

The result is the surname of German topologist who is associated with “surfaces” and “one-sidedness” – a topologist who might argue that this song has got it all wrong!... That a hill or a valley on the Earth’s surface is like the exterior surface of a waffle cone (think of it as being just one continuous convex surface with no “sides!”), or that a valley is like the continuous concave interior surface of a waffle cone (also with but a single “side!”). In other words, both are merely “bumps” or “divots” that are parts of the Earth’s imperfect surface.

What is the name of this Top-Ten-Tallest landform?

Who is the German topologist who is associated with “surfaces” and “one-sidedness?”

ENTREE #11

Name a North American landform, in two words of 5 and 11 letters, that is named inappropriately, considering its harsh climatic conditions – including blizzards and sub-zero temperatures.

Take the11-letter word in its name. Six interior letters can be rearranged to spell an object in a holy Advent tradition. The five remaining letters can be rearranged to spell an adjective that periodically describes a handful of other
objects in this Advent tradition.

Those 11 letters can also be anagrammed to spell the missing words in the following:

“A.M. _______, the ____ of the man responsible for the publication of Charles Lindbergh’s autobiographical account of his non-stop transatlantic solo flight from New York to Paris, one of the most successful non-fiction titles of all time.”

What are this the Advent object and adjective describing related Advent objects?

What are the missing words in the quotation? Who is the “responsible man” in the quotation?

Dessert Menu

Verbal Evaluation Dessert:

Alphanumeric Synonymity

Replace the last two letters of a five-letter verb with the letter whose alphanumeric value  (A=1, B=2, C=3, etc.) is the sum of the alphanumeric values of those last two letters. 

The result is a synonym of the verb. 

What are these two verbs?

Hint: The graphic at the right may also prove to be helpful. 

Every Thursday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.

“A puzzlist walks & runs into a bar” Who pinned the y on the donkey? Dirty urchins and rabble-rousers; Peanuts, Plains and Pisces; “Significance of six synonyms” Bobby’s “Just in Time” for “Auld Lang Syne!”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Significance of six synonyms”

Find synonyms of “each,” “duster,” “tilt,” “diamonds,” “topper” and “debt.” 

All are three-letter synonyms, except for the four-letter synonym of “tilt.”

With what longer word are these six synonyms associated? 

Hint: The order in which the six words appear is significant, as is the order of their corresponding synonyms.

Appetizer Menu

 maiN Puzzle couRse Appetizer:

“A puzzlist walks and runs into a bar”

(Note: This week’s “Puzzle Fun” Appetizer comes to you courtesy of Bobby Jacobs, who created “The Puzzle Challenge” on National Public Radio’s current Weekend Edition Sunday program.)

Take the name of a famous puzzlist. 

Rearrange the letters of this name to form two new words: 

~ 🏃a verb meaning “to run” and 

~ 👣 a verb meaning “to walk.” 

What are these verbs?

Who is this puzzlist?

MENU

“Foxy fishy” Hors d’Oeuvre

“Who pinned the y on the donkey?”

If you tack a “y” onto the end of certain game animals, you can form an adjective like, for example, “goosey” or “foxy” or “fishy.” 

Change the first letter of such an animal to the letter two places earlier in the alphabet. 

If you tack a “y” onto the end the result is not an adjective but a popular game. 

What is this animal. 

What is the game?

Centenarian Slice:

Peanuts, Plains and Pisces

Consider the fishing venue and pieces of fishing equipment possibly employed by the master angler pictured here:

🐟 a “moveable potential feast of just-waitin’-to-be-caught fish” that is an anagram of a synonym of “expert” (six letters);

🐠 a container with a screwable cap within which an angler might keep worms squirming
in dirt or other bait (1 letter, 3 letters); and either:

🐟 Either someplace to keep caught fish (5 letters),
or

🐠 a piece of fishing equipment, preceded by a letter of the alphabet that is a homophone of a place where, according to an idiom, “there are plenty of fish.” (1 letter, 4 letters) 

Rearrange these 15 letters to spell the formal name of the master angler in the images pictured here.

What is the name of this master angler? What are the “moveable potential feast of just-waitin’-to-be-caught fish” and the synonym of “expert”?

What are the container with a screwable cap within which an angler might keep worms squirming in dirt or other bait?

Where are the “someplace to keep caught fish,” the piece of fishing equipment, and the place where “there are plenty of fish?”

Hint: The “something with a screwable cap” (1, 3), sans the space, is an adjective that means “slightly open.” 

Riffing Off Shortz And Jacobs Entrees:

Bobby’s Just in Time for Auld Lang Syne!

Will Shortz’s December 29th Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Bobby Jacobs of Richmond, Virginia, reads:

Think of a famous singer – first and last names. Use all of the first name, plus the first three letters and the last letter of the last  name. The result, reading left to right, will spell a phrase meaning “punctual.” What singer is this?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Jacobs Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

At the end of the meal, the restaurant wait-staff-person clears the table: a kernel-less ear
(7 letters) and half-eaten piece of toast slathered with a raspberry condiment (3 letters) upon a plate (4 letters).

Rearrange those 14 letters to spell the surname of a puzzle-maker and his hometown.

Now take the home state and hometown of a puzzle-maker. Rearrange the combined letters to spell:

* the first name of a sitarist,

* a biblical figure who was a “Cush-son,” and

* a “Book of Changes.”

What are the surname of the puzzle-maker and his hometown?

What are the hometown and home state if the puzzle-maker, the sitarist, biblical figure and “Book of Changes?”

Note: Entrees #2 through #7 are the handiwork of Nodd, creator of “Nodd ready for prime time” on Puzzleria!

ENTREE 2

Think of three famous musicians. 

Their three last names bear a “heavenly”
connection with one another. 

Who are these three  musicians?

ENTREE 3

Think of two well-known musicians who have the same last name. 

Their first names name a mammal and an aquatic creature. 

Who are the musicians?

What are the mammal and the aquatic creature?

ENTREE 4

Think of two famous musicians. 

The first one is known for folk music, while the second works in a wide variety of genres. 

The last name of the first musician is the first name of the second one. 

Who are these musicians?

ENTREE 5

Take the first and last names of a famous pop-rock singer. 

Use four letters from their first name and four
letters from their last name to spell the last name of an even more famous musician. 

Who are these two musicians? 

ENTREE 6

Think of a famous rock musician of the past -- first and last names. 

Together, the names spell a two-word phrase describing a person who is an avid home cook around this time of year.  

(Hint: The rock musician had the same first name as another famous musician of the past, who appeared in numerous films.) 

What is the two-word descriptive phrase, and who are the two musicians?

ENTREE 7

Think of two well-known musicians with the same first name.

Their first names anagram to a well-known
clothing brand. 

Who are the musicians, and what is the clothing brand?

Note: Entree #8 is the handiwork of Plantsmith, creator of “Garden of Puzzley Delights” on Puzzleria!

ENTREE #8

Take a popular singer’s name, first and last. 

Place an apostrophe and “s” at the end of the first name, followed by a synonym of “forever,” followed by the last name.

The result, read from left to right, sounds like a tribute to the singer’s punctuality.

Who is this singer?

What is the synonym of “forever?”

What is the tribute to the singer’s punctuality?

ENTREE #9

Think of a writer, first and last names, whose essays and commentaries on global issues have appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic and on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air.” 

Remove three consecutive letters from the first name and one letter from the surname that, together, spell a pet food brand. Remove the space. The result is a synonym of self-control or self-discipline.

What writer is this?

What is the pet food brand?

ENTREE #10

Think of a current member of the Michigan House of Representatives – first and last names. He is probably not a cigarette-smoker. For the purposes of this puzzle, however, let ’spretend that he is. 

A concerned colleague may ask him, “Do you think your smoking is a compulsion?” 

The representative’s reply may consist of eight of the nine letters in his name, in order – in words of two, one and five letters.

Who is this representative? 

What is his reply?

ENTREE #11

Take the 12 letters in the first and last names of an English explorer, writer, photographer and naturalist who was also the first woman to be elected as a “fellow” of the Royal Geographical Society. 

Divide these dozen letters, in order, into words of two, one, four, one and four letters to form what appears to be a peculiar question – one that contains two nouns that make noise. 

One reply to that question might be, “Well, no, but they sure sound an awful lot alike sometimes .”

Who is this explorer?

What is the peculiar question?

ENTREE #12

Think of a Dutch professional footballer (soccer player) who plays forward on the Dutch Club Utrecht. 

During an intermission in a match versus Sparta Rotterdam, this forward  “carbo-loads” –  replenishing his glycogen stores by
snacking on a Hostess product. 

His teammate, American midfielder Taylor Booth, asks him, “Is that a Ding Dong?” 

The Dutch forward’s response consists of, in order, seven of the eight letters in his name, in three words of 2, 1 and 4 letters.

Who is this footballer?

What is his reply to Taylor Booth? 

Dessert Menu

Multisyllabic Dessert:

Dirty urchins and rabble-rousers

Take a multisyllabic word for certain dirty urchins. 

Switch its first and fifth letters. Capitalize four consecutive letters of the result. 

Insert an “a” someplace and a space someplace else. 

The result is a word that describes some 21st-century mob participants intent on overturning. 

Who are these urchins and mob participants?

Hint 1: The word for the mob participants is a tad more multisyllabic than the word for the urchins.

Hint 2: The urchins, historically, were associated with Thanksgiving and Halloween.

Every Thursday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.

Cinematic Hamlet, Brain food, Roll-calling names, Smart talk, Random House at Poetry Corner; Firs, refrains and a phrase; Christmas carol and gay apparel; “Often is heard/seldom is heard” “Grape-upon-grape-upon-grape-(but-not-drupe!)...” is a “group”? "First Noel" and "Film Noir"

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Firs, refrains and a phrase

Take a part of fir trees that is often used as a Christmas decoration. 

Take also the last two words in the refrain of a  Christmas song. In those two words, replace the two letters of an indecisively hesitant “er” (E and R) with the the two letters of a delightfully joyful “ah!” (A and H).

Rearrange the twelve letters in these three words to spell a phrase you see and hear this time of year.

What is the part of fir trees? What are the last two words in the refrain of a Christmas song? 

What is this phrase?

Appetizer Menu

Noddingly Prime Time Appetizer:

Cinematic Hamlet, Roll-calling names, Brain food, Smart talk, Random House at Poetry Corner 

Hamlet goes to the movies

1. ✍🎥Think of a two-word phrase to describe Hamlet’s girlfriend. Rearrange its letters to get a different two-word phrase to describe Hamlet’s father. 

To this second phrase, add the last name of an American actor who won an Oscar for his role in a war movie.  

You’ll have a three-word phrase that sounds like the name of a popular 1990s movie. 

What are the two phrases, who is the actor, and what is the movie?

Political name-calling

2.  A.😮😮Think of two female former members of Congress. 

The first one  served in the 1970s and represented a district in New York. 

The second one served in the 2010s and 2020s and represented a district in Florida. The second member was also a Cabinet member. 

The first names of these Congress members
together spell something deadly. 

Who are these Congress members, and what is the deadly thing?

B. Combine the last names of a former Cabinet member and a person associated with the Cabinet member’s boss to name a disease. Who are the persons, and what is the disease?

C. Take the first initial and last name of a nationally-known political journalist who was at one time associated with a presidential administration.  Change the initial to the preceding letter of the alphabet and say the result aloud.  Phonetically, you will name a popular sport.  Who is the journalist, and what is the sport?

D. The last name of a well-known presidential advisor sounds like a phrase describing something American combatants did in the 19th Century. Who is the consultant, and what did the combatants do?

E. Take a word for a certain politician. Rearrange its letters to spell an action that might end their political career. What are the politician and the action that might end their career?

Food for thought

3. 📖Think of a famous 20th Century actress. 

Rearrange her first name to get the first two words of a book title from the 1980s. (The book asserted that certain people should avoid a certain food.) 

Rearrange her last name to get two words that describe a category of food those seeking to lose weight should avoid.

Who is the actress, what is the book title, and what should weight-loss seekers avoid? 

Academically speaking

4. 🏫Guess the names of the following U.S. colleges and universities from the hints provided. (Some answers are phonetic. Others are heteronyms. Ignore any punctuation.)

1. Dairy item. 

2. Kind of highway.

3. Climb sacred tree. 

4. Apply something hot to something frozen.

5. King Solomon.

6. Inhabitant of an African country. 

7. Large residence + former GM car model.

8. Money unit + bell sound.

9. (Woolly? Hirsuit? Hairy?) Ruffians.

10. Completely ticked off.

Poetry Corner, with Anna Graham

5. 🖆Using the same six letters, insert three words to complete the following verse.

First ______ of May. I open ______ once more,

As I have done on countless days before.

But all too soon, the unrelenting grind,

Weighs heavy, and a ______ claims my mind. 

MENU

A 1940s Hors d’Oeuvre

First Noel and Film Noir

Rearrange the letters of a 1940s film noir character to spell an adjective and the first word of a prayer. The adjective and prayer are
both associated with the Christmas season. 

A homophone of the Yule-related adjective is
the second word in the prayer. 

What are the character’s name, adjective and first two words of the prayer?

Just Another “Phrase-This-Time-Of-Year” Challenge! Slice:

“Often is heard / seldom is heard”

Take the third and second words of a phrase often heard this time of year, followed by a kind of payment. 

The result, spoken aloud, sounds like something seldom heard (no, never heard!) at any time of the year. 

What are this phrase, this payment and this thing never heard?

Riffing Off Shortz And Ezekiel Entrees:

“Grape-upon-grape-upon-grape-(but-not-drupe!)...” is a “group”?

Will Shortz’s December 22nd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle Challenge, created by Dan Ezekiel of Ann Arbor, Michigan, reads:

Think of a two-word brand name for a food item that is marketed as upscale. Remove the last two letters of the first word and the first letter of the second word. Read the result from

left to right and you’ll get a one-word brand name associated with the budget-conscious. What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Ezekiel Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Take the first names of two NFL quarterbacks:
 ~ a Green Bay Packer (in four letters) who died in 2019, and 

~ a current Minnesota Viking (in more than four letters) who was drafted into the NFL in 2019.

Rearrange these combined 10 letters to spell the first and last names of a puzzle-maker.

Who are these NFL quarterbacks?

Who is the puzzle-maker?

Note: Entrees #2 through #7 were created by Nodd, whose “Nodd ready for prime time” is this week’s featured Appetizer on this week’s Menu.

ENTREE #2

Think of an eight-letter brand name that is associated with upscale dining. 

Rearrange its letters to spell a two-word
description of guys who probably aren’t particularly interested in upscale dining.

What are the brand name and the two-word description? 

Hint: The two-word description starts with a five-letter food item typically associated with the U.S. Southwest.  

ENTREE #3

Think of a seven-letter descriptive word that is associated with upscale dining. 

Rearrange its letters to spell a two-word description of what you may get if you overindulge in upscale dining. 

What are the descriptive word and the two-word description? 

ENTREE #4

Think of a two-word, twelve-letter food item that is considered by many to be a great delicacy. 

Rearrange to spell a five-letter fruit and a seven-letter word for the quality of something, especially a person’s ability. 

What are the food item, the fruit, and the seven-letter word?

ENTREE #5 

Think of a nine-letter seafood item that many prize but others vehemently reject. 

Rearrange to spell a six-letter brand of upscale
liquor and a three-letter brand name for a beverage that was introduced by a major bottling company in 1998. The 1998 beverage was marketed as a lower-calorie alternative to the company’s signature product. 

What are the seafood item and the two beverages?

ENTREE #6

Think of an eight-letter word for a person who enjoys eating and drinking but is not particularly associated with upscale dining. 

Remove the third, fourth, and eighth letters and rearrange to spell a fruit that is much-prized for its delicate texture and flavor. (Or alternatively, rearrange all eight letters to spell a different fruit, one that is produced by some flowering plant species, and a generic word for a person.) 

What are the eight-letter word, the two fruits, and the generic word?

ENTREE #7

Think of an upscale European dessert, in eleven letters. Rearrange to spell a verb thatdescribes  what an executive chef  at an upscale restaurant does during mealtimes. What are the dessert and the verb?

Note: Entrees #8 and #9 are a couple of clever contributions from a very valued and intensely talented friend of Puzzleria! 

ENTREE 8

Think of a two-word brand name for a food item that is somewhat obscure. 

Remove the last two letters of the first word
and the first letter of the second word. 

Read the result from left to right and you’ll get a one-word brand name associated with the budget-conscious. 

What are these two brands?

Hint #1: You might slather the obscure-brand product onto the  budget-conscious product.

Hint #2: Consecutive letters of the brand name can be rearranged to spell a container for the product.

ENTREE #9

The following is a riff of last week’s Evergreen Dessert: “Name that Tannenbaum title!”

Subject: If the World Served up the Dessert...

1.  It would just be another term...

2.  The Detroit NFLers would be mere charged particles...

3. “The Conductor” of a certain (uncertain?)
puzzle blog would merely be a mere psychological concept...

4. “The glossy patina of the Holiday Ham, as we behold it” would be a...

5.  The Georgia/Washington Puzzler would deal in clothing and not vegetation...

6.  The leggy moll in the film noir wouldn’t have to be completely alluring... 

ENTREE #10

Think of a two-word American clothing brand name. The first letter of the first word and the second half of the second word spell one of three creatures feared by a trio of fictional characters. 

The 2nd and 6th letters and the 4th and 5th letters of the brand spell two words the characters exclaim as they ponder an encounter with these creatures. 

The 9th, 7th, 8th and 3rd letters of the brand spell a medium that featured the three creatures in the late 1930s.

What is the brand? What is one of the creatures that the three characters fear?

What do the characters exclaim?

What is the medium that featured the three creatures?

ENTREE #11

Think of a two-word regional hamburger restaurant chain with its greatest presence in the Midwest and New York metro area.

Remove four consecutive interior letters and the space they leave, leaving what certain diminutive woodworkers do.

Remove four consecutive interior letters that overlap with the first four, and the space they leave, leaving what these woodworkers might do while doing the first thing.

What is this hamburger chain?

What to things might woodworkers do?

ENTREE #12

Take the multiple-word historical name of a fast food chain. The first three and last three letters of this name spell the name of a 20-year old math-and-logic puzzle. 

The 4th-through-7th letters spell a word preceded by a homophone of “fryer.” 

The 14th-through-17th letters spell a synonym of “hip.”

What is this historical fast food chain name?

What is the math-and-logic puzzle?

What is the word preceded by a homophone of “fryer”?

What is the synonym of “hip”?

Hint: The hip bone's connected to the thigh bone...

ENTREE #13

Think of a two-syllable American footwear and clothing brand. 

Its first three letters and last letter spell a verb for what its footwear begins to do after months of constant use.

The letters that remain spell the first name of an athlete who appeared in TV spots advertising a competitor of this brand.

What is this clothing brand? What is the verb? Who is the athlete?

ENTREE #14

Think of an ice cream company with nine letters in its name. The 1st, 5nd, 6th, 7th and 8th letters, in order, spell one of the ingredients (a non-plural word) in some of its flavors. The 1st, 2nd, 6th, 7th and 8th letters, in order, spell that same non-plural ingredient.

What are this company and ingredient?

Hint #1: The unused  2nd, 3rd and 4th letters, in order, can be rotated 13 places in the alphabet to spell the word “raw.” The unused  3rd, 4th and 5th letters, in order, can be rotated 11 places ahead in the alphabet to spell the word “yup.”

Hint #2: The name of the ice cream company includes one of those “special characters” you see on an upper row of typewriter keys.

ENTREE #15

A soft drink brand was originally marketed as, and is still commonly referred to, in two words of six and four letters. 

The 1st, 2nd, 8th, 9th and 10th letters of this brand, in order, spell either:

* a five-letter word that is the first half of an 11-letter compound word for Prunus virginiana, or

* the same five-letter word for what you might do if food you swallow goes down the trachea instead of your esophagus.

The remaining 3rd-through-7th letters can be rearranged to spell:

* a five-letter variant spelling of “one who wails,” or 

* the surname of an actor who portrayed a character named “Ducky.”

What is this brand? What are the two five-letter words? 

ENTREE #16

Think of a two-word 17-letter brand name for a famous piece of sports equipment with a place on the U.S map in its name. 

Remove 11 consecutive interior letters. The remaining letters, in order, spell the profession of a worker who harvests the raw material to manufacture this sports equipment.

What is this brand name? 

Who harvests its raw material?

Hint: The 11 letters you removed can be rearranged to spell the missing words in the following brands:

“The ___ Kiss”

“____lemon”

“____ Strauss”

Dessert Menu

Canton-Cooperstown Dessert:

Christmas carol and gay apparel 

Name a two-syllable, compound-word, American company associated with holiday gifts, greeting cards, Christmas-themed
ornaments and gift wrap. 

Switch the beginning letters of the two syllables.

The result is:

~ an urban shopping area featuring a variety of retail stores that teem with shoppers during the holiday season, and

~ the first word in the lyrics and title of a nearly-three-centuries-old Christmas carol.

What is this American company?

What are the shopping area and the word in the Christmas carol? 

Every Thursday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup,Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Friday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.