“Such fine turkey-day tableware!” “Let’s go...” Raises, Rises, Roses? Battleground, Toss-up, Purple...? Dangerous game, Heavy actor; Gomer in Monty, Python ate Pyle!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Such fine turkey-day tableware!”

All interior letters of two complementary tableware items are identical. These identical letters, however, are not-so-much in the same order. The first-and-final letters of these two tableware items are four different letters that appear within within a consecutive five-letter string in the alphabet – like E-F-G-H-I, for example. 

What are these two tableware items?

Note: Although the identical interior letters “are not-so-much in the same order,” the fourth letter in each tableware item is the same letter.

Appetizer Menu

“Breaking Up The Blank” Appetizer:

“Let’s go... !!”

Take the sentence:

“Let’s go ________.” 

Fill in the blank with a very common eight-letter word.  

Now insert two spaces into your word to break it into three very common words. 

Both the original and new “Let’s go...”

sentences should make sense – the first in three words, the second in five words.  

What eight-letter word should fill in the original blank?

What is your five-word sentence?

BONUS PUZZLE: 

Find two words of 11 and 12 letters that each satisfy the same conditions as the eight-letter word in the puzzle above. These 11-letter and 12-letter words are are near-synonyms of one another.

MENU

“Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum” Hors d’Oeuvre:

Raises, Rises, Roses?

Name some kind of plant, a compound word, that might be growing in your garden, like Jack’s beanstalk, for example. 

This plant may not rise as high as Jack’s “stairway to heaven,” but neither is it exactly a “slouch.” Remove the initial letter of each of the two parts of this compound word. According to Merriam-Webster, the result is a not a word. But if it were, it would be a synonym of “raise.” 

What are this compound plant and non-word?

Hint: The first syllable of the compound word is associated with a homophone of “raise.” 

Finding The Finest Definer Slice:

Battleground, Toss-up, Purple...? 

Take a two-word term (at least in 2024) for Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin.

Remove the first and sixth letters.

The result is one of two architectural projections extending east and west from the main part of a modern art museum in Europe, followed by the name of that museum.

Or, if you instead remove the fourth and seventh letters from the original two-word term, the result is a healthy prolonged quaff of a beverage and what such quaffs do to one’s thirst.

What is this two-word term for Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin (at least in 2024)?

What are the architectural projections and name of the museum?

What is the quaff and what it does to one’s thirst?

Riffing Off Shortz And VanMechelen Slices:

Gomer in Monty? Python ate Pyle!

Will Shortz’s November 24th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Greg VanMechelen of Berkeley, California, reads: 

Name a state capital. Inside it in consecutive letters is the first name of a popular TV character of the past. Remove that name. The remaining letters, in order, will spell the first name of a popular TV game show host of the past.  What is the capital and what are the names?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And VanMechelen Slices read:

ENTREE #1

Name a talented puzzle-maker. Remove the first three and last two letters that, in order:

~ spell the surname a singer whose first name is an anagram of “a note that follows sol,” or... 

~ spell a homophone of the surname of an actor whose first name is an anagram of “someone who usually avoids the company of others.” 

From the ten letters that remain, remove two consecutive and four consecutive letters that, in order, spell the first name of a poet whose surname is the first name of an actress whose last name begins with the last four letters of a Hawaiian greeting or farewell. The remaining four letters, if you move the second one to the end, spell a hyphenated word for Melvin Purvis and J. Edgar Hoover.

Who is this puzzle maker?

What are the surnames of the guys named Al and Lorne?

What is the first name of the poet?

What is the hyphenated word for Melvin Purvis and J. Edgar Hoover?

Note: Entrees # 2 through #7, Entree #8, and Entree #9 were composed, respectively (and respectfully), by riffmasters Nodd, Plantsmith, and a Great Friend of Puzzleria! (whose puzzles will be the featured Appetizers on the next edition of P!) 

ENTREE #2

Name a state capital. Consecutive letters in the name spell the first name of a popular TV character of the past.  Consecutive letters in
the name of another city in the state, a name with historical significance, spell the first name of the TV character’s counterpart on the show. What are the cities and who are the characters? 

ENTREE #3

Name a state capital. The first half of the name spells the last name of the main character in a TV series based on a 1973 movie. 

The second half spells the last name of another character in the series. What is the capital, who are the characters, and what is the series? 

ENTREE #4

Name a state capital. Add to it the third letter in the name of the state. 

Rearrange the letters to spell the first and last names of a star track and field athlete of the 1970s and 1980s, five letters in each.  

What is the capital, and who is the athlete?

ENTREE #5

Name a state capital that is also the last name of a popular TV character of the past. 

The letters can be rearranged to spell something the character might have said. 

What is the capital, who is the character, and what might the character have said?

ENTREE #6

Name a state capital. 

Consecutive letters in the name spell the first name of a popular TV character of the past. 

The rest of the letters can be arranged to spell something negative. What is the capital, and what is the TV series? What is the negative thing?

ENTREE #7

Name a state capital. 

Remove from it three letters that are consecutive in the alphabet. 

The remaining letters, in order, spell the last name of a popular TV actress of the past. 

What is the capital, and who is the actress?

ENTREE #8

Remove from the name of a state capitol the name of a past comic book character. Then drop first letter of what remains to get a word for “delicious.” What are this state capital, comic book character and word for “delicious”?

Hint: the word for “delicious” is associated with the state that contains the capitol.  

ENTREE #9

Name a state capital.  

Remove from the name five letters which can be arranged to mean “an impasse.”  

The remaining letters in order, left to right,
when said aloud, sound like the name of a popular TV character of the past.  

What is the state capital?  What can mean “an impasse?”  

Who is the TV character?  

ENTREE #10

Insert an “i” smack-dab in the middle of a world capital city. 

The first two plus last two letters in this altered word spell the name of a holy man who is also often described by using an adjective beginning with a “v”. 

The interior letters flanked by those four letters
can be rearranged to spell a holy object. 

What is this capital city? 

Who is this holy man? 

What is the holy object? 

ENTREE #11

“If you fill out an application to ___ a personal __ card, you will need to divulge the color of your hair.”

Name a hair color that may or may not be yours. Divide it into two parts. Between those
parts place the letters that belong in the second blank followed by the letters that belong in the first blank. The result is a world capital city.

What are the hair color, the words in the blanks and the capital city?

ENTREE #12

The  final five letters of a British colony spell a center of worship or ritual. The remaining letters of this colony can be arranged to spell a place where prisoners reside. What is this British colony? What are the center of worship and place where prisoners reside?

Dessert Menu

“Death By Chocolate?” Dessert:

Dangerous game, Heavy actor

Name a decades-old board game that sounds kind of dangerous. It is a compound word. Divide it into those two words.

Move the last two letters of the second word to the beginning of the first word, then double the new last letter of the second word. 

The result is an adjective and proper noun. 

The proper noun is the surname of an accomplished past actor.  

The adjective describes this past actor, especially during the latter years of his career. 

What is this game? 

What are the adjective and proper noun?

Hint:

This actor often played “the heavy.”

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.