Strictly slicker city stumpers;(S)Audi Arabia? (U)Kraine? Frankensteinian fusion-confusion; “A chilled Strawberry Hill will complement that rib eye” Summer’s waning hazy mazy 90° days; The Rite “Stuffix”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
(S)Audi Arabia? (U)Kraine? 

Remove the first letter from the name of a country. 
Divide the result into two parts. 
Both parts are abbreviations that are associated with a second country. 
Spell out the shorter of the two abbreviations. 
The result is the name of a relatively large vehicle.
What is the name of the vehicle? 
What are the names of both countries? 

Appetizer Menu

Munchable Municipal Appetizer:
Strictly slicker city stumpers

You’re a what? 
❓1. The official  demonym for an inhabitant of a US state shares only one letter with the state’s name. Name the state and its demonym.

WXYZ
❓2. Name a small Midwest city in two words. The last letters of the two words are consecutive letters found late in the alphabet.
Hint: the state in which the city is located contains a letter that immediately precedes the two consecutive letters.

Transplanted
❓3. Name a mid-sized US city, not a state capital, in a Midwestern state. Change one vowel, keeping all letters in the same order, to obtain a suburb of another city of similar population (to the Midwest city) in a Pacific Coast state. 
The suburb is much smaller than the Midwest and main Pacific state cities, but it is almost as old as the mid-sized Pacific state city. What is the suburb of the Northwestern city?

City of God
❓4. Name a major US city. Remove one letter and rearrange to obtain a religious leader.

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Non-Veggie Slice:
“A chilled Strawberry Hill will complement that rib eye”

Take the name of a person who was very recently in the news. 
Replace a bit of punctuation with a different bit, remove an “o” and an “s” and replace a capital letter with a two-consonant blend to form two entrees one might find on a non-vegetarian restaurant menu.
Who is this person?

Body Parts Slice:
Frankensteinian fusion-confusion

Interchange the third and fifth letters of a body part. 
Fuse to the beginning of this result the first letter of nearby body parts that are often confused with this body part. 
After doing so you will have formed the name of a country. 
What is this country?


Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices:
Summer’s waning hazy mazy 90° days

Will Shortz’s September 8th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Joseph Young of St. Cloud , Minnesota, reads: 
Name a popular TV personality. Write the name in all capital letters. Rotate the last letter 90° and move it forward one spot – that is, move it in front of the preceding letter. The result will name a famous movie. What is it?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Young Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
Name a brand name associated with video streaming. Write the name in all capital letters. 
Rotate the last letter 90° clockwise and move it forward one spot – that is, move it in front of the preceding letter. 
The result will name a kind of concert one might stream using this brand. 
What are the brand and the type of concert?
ENTREE #2:
Name the one-word title of a book first published in 1905 that is likely on the bookshelf of many aspiring missionaries. 
According to the book’s foreword, the author attempts to address the “conversion of souls” scientifically. 
The book, for instance, includes chapters on gauging potential converts’ “physiognomy to determine receptivity” to the missionary’s message. 
Rotate the third letter of this book title 90° counterclockwise to form a word for redundant phrases and terms like “frozen ice,” “over-exaggerate,” “close proximity,” “new innovation” and “hot water heater.”
What are this book title and this word for redundancies?
Hint: The three initials of the book’s author spell out, in order, a one-word interrogative sentence.
ENTREE #3:
Name a popular TV personality who refers to himself in the third person. 
Describe in one adjective an anonymous Valentine this personality received, according to a book title. Write the word in all capital letters. 
Rotate two consecutive letters 90° to form another adjective that describes a Valentine, according to a song. 
What are these adjectives?
ENTREE #4:
Write a synonym of  “euphonious” all in capital letters. 
Rotate the second letter 90° clockwise and the fourth letter 90° counterclockwise, then remove the first and final letters to reveal something that helps you solve a conundrum.
Now write a short form of a synonym of “conundrum” all in caps. Rotate the third letter 90° counterclockwise to form a type of wordplay such conundrums sometimes employ.
What may help you solve a conundrum? 
What are the short synonym of “conundrum” and the type of wordplay such conundrums sometimes employ?
ENTREE #5:
Take the two-word nickname (three, if you include the word “the”) given to an NASA deputy administrator. He was “the person responsible for taking us to the moon,” according to a Washington Star columnist who later appeared on President Richard Nixon’s “enemies list.” 
On November 16, 1963, this NASA administrator gave President John F. Kennedy and Wernher von Braun (the former Nazi who became a chief architect of the American space program) a tour of Cape Canaveral in Florida. Six days later, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
The first word in the two-word nickname contains only three different letters. They appear consecutively in the alphabet. Take the letter that immediately precedes them in the alphabet. Set that letter aside for now. 
Now write the second word of the two-word nickname in all capital letters. Rotate its first and second letters 90° counterclockwise. Take the letter you set aside and place it in front of this result to form the adjectival form of the first word. 
What is the nickname of this NASA administrator?
ENTREE #6:
Find three relatively short words:
1. The title of a Steely Dan song,
2. A word that appears in the lyrics of “Cuddle up a Little Closer,” “My Blue Heaven” and “Love Is Just Around the Corner,” and 
3. Samuel, before he became Mark. 
Write all three words in all-capital letters. 
In one of the words, rotate the first and third letters 90° counterclockwise. Rearrange the combined letters of this altered word and the other two words to form the first and last names of a puzzle-maker. Who is it?

Dessert Menu

Celebratory Time Passages Dessert:
The Rite “Stuffix”

Name a rite of passage. 
Replace a common two-letter suffix found near the beginning of this word with a duplicate of a common three-letter suffix found at the end of the word. 
The result is an informal name for an informal celebration of the rite. 
What are this rite and celebration?
Hint: During the celebration, a particular part of a fowl may be served as an hors d’oeuvre, and you may occasionally hear an an onomatopoeic sound calling the revelers to attention.

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.