Pouring “t” into Proper Porcelain; Three coins... and a’countin’; Patrick Berry’s Celebrity “Webitry” Auld Lang Lullabyin’; Frequent contractions lead to new life;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
Frequent contractions lead to new life

Name a food that reputedly promotes longevity of life, in eight letters. 
Divide the word in two and place a frequently used contraction (without the apostrophe) between these two parts to form a phrase associated with the beginning of life. 
What is this phrase?

Appetizer Menu

“All Righty, Then!”  Appetizer:
Patrick Berry’s Celebrity “Webitry”

Can you unravel the labyrinthine  “web of celebrity,” below, spun by master puzzle-weaver Patrick J. Berry?
The creator of a decades-old children’s “edutainment” franchise shares a last name with an award-winning actress.
The first name of this creator’s long-time “righthand man” (let’s call him “Righty”) is the middle name of a well-known children’s author. Righty’s last name is the last word in the title of a celebrated book by this author.
Righty, who is also a director and actor, provided the voice for a wise and powerful figure in a successful movie franchise. 
The aforementioned award-winning actress stars in a current television series. (The title of her series is a word in the title of the movie in which Righty’s “wise figure” first appeared.) The first name of her character is the first word of a two-word creature portrayed by Righty. The last name of the actress’s character, when pronounced out loud, is the second word of a two-word creature in the book by the aforementioned children’s author. This creature was portrayed in a movie version of the book by an actor who shares a first name with another of Righty’s portrayals. Righty also portrayed a creature whose first name begins with Righty’s first name’s initial plus his entire last name.

1. Who is “Righty”? 
2. Who are the actress and the children’s “edutainment” franchise creator who share a last name?
3. Who is the children’s author, and what is that author’s celebrated book? 
4. What are the  actress’s TV series and her character’s name? 
5. In what movie did Righty’s “wise figure” first appear?
6. Who is the creature in a movie version of the author’s celebrated book, and who is the actor who portrayed that creature? 
7. What are the names of the figure and three other creatures that Righty portrayed?

MENU

Have A Spot Of Alphabet Soup Slice:
Pouring “t” into Proper Porcelain

Name a proper noun closely associated with a certain profession. 
Alphabetize the letters of this noun and change the capital letter of the noun to lowercase. 
Add a “t” somewhere within this result to name members of this profession. 
Who are these professionals?
Hint: Placing the “t” within the result disrupted the perfect alphabetical order of that result. The alphabetical order would have remained intact had the “t” been added at the end.

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Three coins... and a’countin’

Will Shortz’s December 23rd  NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
It’s a straightforward puzzle. Think of a place you can find coins, in two words. Put the second word first, and you’ll get a compound word describing most holiday cards. What words are these?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:


ENTREE #1:

Think of a place you can find coins, in two words of four and five letters, as depicted by the image here. 
Put the second word first, and you’ll get a compound word describing many holiday cards. 
What words are these? 

ENTREE #2:
Think of a place you can find coins, in two words. 
Double the first letter of the first word.
Put the second word first and place a space between the doubled letters. 
You’ll get a part of a piece of game equipment that caused the game to be banned in Canada and the United States.
What words are these?

ENTREE #3:
Think of a place you can find coins, in two words. 
Rearrange the letters in the words to describe, in two words, certain Senators during 1968. 
What is this place where can you find coins? 
What is the description of the Senators? 

ENTREE #4:
Think of a place you can find a flippable coin, in two words. 
Remove an apostrophe from the first word and put the second word first. 
You’ll get the names of handbooks, in two words. This handbook has been called “the oracle of all things do-it-yourself.” 
What place is this? 
What are these handbooks titled?

ENTREE #5:
Think of a place you might find coins, in two words. Rearrange the ten combined letters in these two words and you’ll get a synonym of “receive” and the past tense of another synonym of “receive.” 
What place is this? What are these synonyms?

ENTREE #6: 
Think of a place you can find coins, in two words. 
Switch the first two letters of the first word with the first two letters of the second word. You’ll get two adjectives, each which describes the apparel pictured in the image here. 
What is this place coins are found? 
What are these two adjectives?

ENTREE #7:
Think of a place you can find coins. It consists of a 12-letter possessive noun and a 10-letter noun.
Remove COINS from this place... (You may not want to do this, but you might be in a situation where you need to buy something.) Also remove the letters in a 4-letter word for what you need to know so that you know how many coins to remove to buy what you need to buy. 
Now, add a coin-shaped letter (plus the letter preceding it in the alphabet) to the 13 letters that remain. 
Rearrange these 15 letters and you’ll get a two-word phrase, in 10 and 5 letters, describing an activity many people around the world were engaged in during New Year’s Eve 19 years ago. 
What is this place you can find coins? 
In what activity were many people engaged 19 years ago?

ENTREE #8:
Think of a container where you can sometimes find coins, in two words of six and four letters. This container is sometimes placed on a downtown sidewalk. 
The primary function of this container is transporting an object with strings attached. Rearrange the combined letters of the words of the container to name, in two words of four and six letters, what the container becomes when its owner closes and totes it after an extremely profitable day – indeed, a day so profitable that the container is so packed with cash that there is no longer any room in the container to put the object with strings attached! 
What is this container, and what does it sometimes become?

ENTREE #9:
Think of a place you can find coins, in three words. 
Rearrange the 13 combined letters of the three words to form a two-word term for male mail carriers who, like the fictional Cliff Clavin, sometimes engage in silly or foolish behavior. 
The two-word phrase consists of a a 6-letter noun used as a modifier and a 7-letter noun. 
What is this place coins can be found? 
What is the two-word term for these silly mail carriers?

Dessert Menu

Iambic Tetrameter Dessert:
Auld Lang Lullabyin’

“Now hush, my darlings, drift to sleep...
Make murmurs, coos, but not _ ____.”


Solve for the missing words (of one and four letters) in the above lullaby couplet that parents might sing to their young’uns. 
Move each of the five letters the same number of places ahead in the alphabet* to form five new letters. 

Capitalize all five and rearrange them to form something soon-to-be timely. 

What is it?

* For example, B moved five places ahead in the alphabet becomes G.

Every Friday 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.