Anapestic trimeter cryptic limerick “Betcha a brisket you won’t risk it!” Sidearms, salt licks, slaps, sedans; “Airport out, Blackboard home” Painting the corners you paint yourself into

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 6!π SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

Salt licks, sidearms, slaps, sedans

The list below contains seven single words and two-word terms.

What, besides containing an “s,” do these seven words and terms share in common?

“Slap”

“Sedan” 

“Eco-risk”

“Salt Licks”

“Pens ‘Eyre’ ” 

“Rare sidearms” 

“Caiaphas’ plan”

Appetizer Menu

“We’re in Crossword Blog Heaven!” Appetizer

Anapestic trimeter cryptic limerick

Here is a bit of verse to help honor, praise and celebrate Patrick J. Berry’s (cranberry’s) “three-cubedth” Cryptic Crossword Puzzle on Puzzleria!

Cryptic crosswords, by nature elliptic,

Omit letters (that’s why they’re called “cryptic!”)

      The best “fill-in utensil?” 

      Not a pen, but a pencil...

Although preferably one that’s not styptic!

In our midst is a true luminary...

No one shines more than Patrick J. Berry,

      A superb cryptic setter,

     No one’s brain does it better...

Before solving though, pray a “Hail Mary!”

Yeast doth leaven bread, Patrick doth leaven

Solvers’ spirits, who’ll enter “Blog Heaven”  

      When they check Puzzleria!

      Overjoyed when they see a

“Patrick-Cryptic”... this makes 27!

Here are links to Patrick’s previous 26 Cryptic Crosswords on Puzzleria!:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11  

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

For those who may be new to cryptic crossword puzzles, Patrick has compiled a few basic cryptic crossword puzzle instructions to help you reach the “pot o’ gold at the end of the cryptic rainbow.”

Here are his instructions:

Regarding the Across and Down clues and their format...

The number in parentheses at the end of each clue tells how many letters are in the answer.

Clue for 18 Down

Multiple numbers in parentheses indicate how letters are distributed in multiple-word answers. For example, (6) simply indicates a six-letter answer like “jalopy,” (5,3) indicates a five-and-three-letter answer like “cargo van,” and (5-5) indicates a five-and-five-letter hyphenated answer like “Rolls-Royce.”

(For further insight about how to decipher these numbered cryptic clues, see Patrick’s “Cryptic Crossword Tutorial” in this link to his November 17, 2017 cryptic crossword.

The Tutorial appears below the grid that contains the answers in that edition of Puzzleria!)

We guarantee you are going to enjoy Patrick’s masterful wordplay. As are all his Cryptic Crosswords,  #27 is plenty-heavenly, yet devilishly delicious.

ACROSS

7. Quite an ugly old thing?(7)

8. Difficult, taking some time to get finished(7)

10. Murphy—possibly Pat, too(6)

11. Genius seen in it after rewrite?(8)   

12. Repetition in the chorus(4)

13. Happy to be included in caper, though one’s likely to leave the country?(6,4)

14. Gymnast is so nimble moving about, full of energy(6,5)

19. Michael Jackson album would make imperfect Pink Floyd album?(3,3,4)

22. Open with something from Steely Dan, right?(4)

23. Acing it somehow, getting top grade? That’s huge!(8)

24. Agreement there must be sex in marriage?(6)

25. Get us excited with extremely risque body language(7)

26. Moves—half of them in playing chess(7)

DOWN

1. Popular opinion? Check(7)

2. Got air in funny-looking tubes?(8)

3. Split with lover, having to leave(3,3)

4. Was a performer, having her debut in short musical taking place in China(8)

5. Chicken, no egg roll(6)

6. Opposed to cryptic giants concealing answer?(7)

9. Movie bash coming up in Charleston, for
example(11)

15. Obvious—on run, criminal would be upset(8)

16. Watched former lover, poor maiden(8)

17. Cop, if force must be corrupt?(7)

18. Dog going mad? Yes, without love(7)

20. Warm, childlike in personality? Close!(6)

21. Start to have a meal outside(6)

MENU

As Boring As Watching Paint Dry Slice:

Painting the corners you paint yourself into

It is never good when people who are in the process of attempting a bit of do-it-yourself home improvement paint themselves into corners.

But for those who are wearing the right gloves, painting the corners can be very good indeed. 

What kind of gloves are these? 

Riffing Off Shortz And Cohen Slices:

“Betcha a brisket you won’t risk it!”

Will Shortz’s July 17th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Adam Cohen of Brooklyn, New York, reads:

Name a food item in seven letters. Move the first letter to the fifth position and you’ll get two words that are synonyms. What are they?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Cohen Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a puzzle-maker and a word that likely would appear on his driver’s license. 

Change an “H” to a “C.” 

Rearrange these combined 17 letters to name four food items: two seen on a breakfast plate, kinds of flakes seen in a breakfast bowl, and a kind of cheese one might put in an omelet.

Who is this puzzle-maker and a word likely on his license? 

What are the four food items? 

ENTREE #2

Name a food item in seven letters. 

Remove the middle three letters to form a second food item. Anagram the final four letters of this seven-letter food item to name a beverage that goes well with the second food item, but not-so-well with the first food item.

What are these two food items and beverage?

ENTREE #3

Name a food item in seven letters. Rearrange these letters to form a synonym of “slogan” – a slogan such as “_____, Betcha Can’t Eat Just One,” “___, It’s Finger Lickin’ Good!” or “There’s always room for ______,” for three examples.

The generic term for the product promoted by one of those three slogans is the “seven-letter food item” that can be rearranged to form the synonym of “slogan.”

What are this food item and synonym?

What is the brand name of this food item?

ENTREE #4

Name a food item in seven letters. Move the first letter to the fourth position, insert a space, and you’ll get two words. 

The second word is the surname of one of the greatest NCAA basketball players of all-time, who later also helped lead his team to an NBA championship.

The first word is what the player did on the hardcourt and – after retiring from hoops – what he also did, both for state representative and for mayor of a major metropolis. 

What is this food item?

Who is the basketball player and what did he do, both on the court and politically?

ENTREE #5

Name a word related to food in seven letters. Replace its first letter with a letter with which it was paired in the news during the waning days of the previous century.   

Move this new first letter to the fifth position and add a space to get two words that are synonyms. What are they?

ENTREE #6

Name a food item in seven letters. Replace the last letter with a copy of the third letter. Move the first letter of this result to the fifth position and you’ll get a synonym of “engrave” and letters that sound like a synonym of “engrave.”

What are the food item and two synonyms?

ENTREE #7

Name a food item in seven letters. Remove the first letter to form a word that means a lot. Rearrange the final five letters to form a
homophone of a word that means a lot.

What is this food item? 

What are the two words that mean a lot?

ENTREE #8

Name a food item in seven letters that is not associated with dessert (except, perhaps, as an ingredient in a cookie). 

Change one letter to a “d” and rearranage the result to form two words that often follow the word “pie.”

What is this food item?

What two words often follow the word “pie”? 

ENTREE #9

Name a seasoning in seven letters. Remove three consecutive interior letters, leaving a brand of cookie. Restore those letters to their rightful place, thereby restoring the original seven-letter word.

Remove the seventh letter of the word. Interchange the middle two letters of the result, then move them to the end to spell a six-letter fruit.

What are this seasoning, cookie brand and fruit?

ENTREE #10

Name a seasoning in seven letters. Interchange its third and fourth letters.

Anagram the first three letters of this result to spell an ancient Greek symbol of good luck and fending off evil.

Anagram the last four letters to spell an ancient Greek symbol of wisdom, peace and harmony.

What is this seasoning?

What are the ancient Greek mythological symbols of good luck and of wisdom, peace and harmony?

ENTREE #11

Name a root vegetable in seven letters. Interchange its two vowels. 

The last four letters of this result spell an onomatopoeic word; so do the first three letters if you spell them backward.

What is this vegetable? 

What are the two onomatopoeic words?

ENTREE #12

Name a two-word food item in six letters. Remove the space to form a word for “a clinker-built open double-ended boat used for fishing in Maine.” 

Interchange the middle two letters. Change the new fourth letter to a different vowel. 

Rotate the new third letter, in lowercase, 180-degrees around its y-axis. The result is the name of a fictional 19th-century Nantucket whaling ship.

What are the food item and the Maine fishing
boat?

What is the name of the fictional 19th-century Nantucket whaling ship?

ENTREE #13

Name a food item in seven letters. Rearrange them to form either:

1. a. a mischievous child, and b. a petty gangster, hoodlum, or ruffian... or

2. a. a mammal of the weasel family with partially webbed feet, and b. a young dog.

What is this food item?

What are the four words you can form?

ENTREE #14

Name a food item in seven letters. Anagram
the first three letters to spell the second half of the title character in a popular latter-19th-Century historical novel. 

The four remaining letters spell the first
name of a superhero surnamed “Wire.”

What is this food item?

Who are the title character and superhero?

ENTREE #15

Name a food item in seven letters. 

Move the first letter to the fifth position and you’ll get a general term for parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, et cetera, and what you must do to a dinner table prior to dining. 

What is this food item?

What are the general term and what you must do to the table prior to dining? 

ENTREE #16

Name a food item in seven letters. 

Move the first letter to the last position and you’ll get two words: 

1. a domain name, and

2. the first word in the title of an album by The Lovin' Spoonful.

What is the food item?

What are the domain name and first word in the album title?

ENTREE #17

Name a food item in seven letters. 

Anagram its letters to form a two-word description of what one who has left this item too long in the microwave is guilty of. 

What are this food item and two-word description?

ENTREE #18

Name a food item meat-lovers hanker for, in seven letters. Interchange its first two vowels.

Spell the first three letters of this result backward and anagram the last four letters to name a two-word term for a road trip that would be a meat-lover’s dream.

What is this food item?

What would be a meat lovers dream?

ENTREE #19

Name a food item in seven letters. Move the sixth letter to the first position, then move the last letter to the fifth position. 

Divide the result into two parts. 

Spell each part backward to form a two-word phrase that describes Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr or Gordie Howe. 

What are this food item and two-word description?

ENTREE #20

Name food items in eight letters. Remove three consecutive letters and rearrange them to form a verb. 

The remaining five letters, in order, spell another food item, one that an arachnophobic nursery tale girl was once snacking on. 

The verb describes what she did on her tuffet at the time of her lip-smacking snacking.

What are these two food items?

What did she do on her tuffet?

Dessert Menu

Boarding Pass/Fail Dessert:

“Airport out, Blackboard home”

Name lists that contain numbers, lists that you see at airports. 

Insert an “s” into this word, then add a space someplace.

The result will be lists containing numbers that you see in classrooms. 

What are these two lists?

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 JoeCs!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.