In sickness and health, for bitter or Bierce? Catfish, moose, baboons, bucks, fawns and jackals; Common(wealth) criminals; Nothing (almost) comes before “family”; A mother only a mugshot could love;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (1110 + 98) SERVED

Welcome to our May11th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! 
Happy Mothers Day! 
The image pictured here is my late mother Helen keeping Noosie, her kitten, company.
To start us off this Mothers Day weekend, here is a maternal sestet:

MOTHER

Like the moth to the flame

There is no other name

That can draw us. Her mission?

Our human condition.

Furthermore, not another
Compares to our mother!

Our featured puzzle this week is another excellent comic-themed conundrum composed by Patrick J. Berry (screen name: cranberry) of Jasper, Alabama. 
This typically entertaining puzzle served up by Patrick is a puzzle-solver’s feast that involves the entertainment industry. 
You will find Patrick’s poser under our Appetizer Menu. It is titled “Comedy Actory Appetizer: In sickness and health, for bitter or Bierce?” 
Thank you, Patrick.

Also on our menus this week are:
ONE Summing of Surnames Appetizer;
ONE Family Values Dessert;
ONE M-O-T-H-E-R Mongoose Dessert; and
SIX Crimea Up-the-river Riff-Off Slices.

So on this day in May, celebrate with us your mother, or fond memories of your mother. 
And, have a motherlode of fun on Puzzleria!... your mother’s favorite puzzle blog.

Appetizer Menu

Comedy Actory Appetizer:
In sickness and health, for bitter or Bierce?



Think of a well-known actor/comedian, first and last names. 
His first name, when uncapitalized, is a common English word. Remove the first letter and another word remains – a synonym of “unhealthy.” This synonym, when paired with the uncapitalized form of the actor’s first name, forms a two-word phrase meaning “bitterness.” 
Change one letter in the uncapitalized first name, and you’ll get an antonym of “unhealthy”. Change a different letter in the name, and you’ll get a synonym of an adjective that sounds phonetically like the actor’s last name. 
Who is this actor?
What is the synonym of “unhealthy”?
What is two-word phrase meaning “bitterness”?
What is the antonym of “unhealthy”?
What is the synonym of an adjective that sounds phonetically like the actor’s last name?
Hint #1: One of the many films starring this actor has a very short title which contains only letters found in his last name. 
Hint #2: On TV, this actor has been known to “play music” using a somewhat unusual instrument, one whose name ends with the same three letters as his last name. 
  

MENU

Summing Surnames Slice: 
Catfish, moose, baboons, bucks, fawns and jackals

Solve the 30 clues below. Most answers (all which appear to the right of the equal signs) are common lowercase words found in standard dictionaries.
Example:
0. Actor Adam + Actor Burt = word that precedes “Ho!”
(Answer: West + Ward = westward)
1. Oscar collector Edith + an “Athletic” Catfish = bean-baller, or helmet-to-helmet spear-tackler
2. Actress/Renaissance woman Ruby + Chief Justice John = platter-spinner
3. Racehorse ___ Lap + actor William = “mortar & pestle place”
4. Meteoric Knicks’ sensation Jeremy + a Billie Jean not immortalized by the King of Pop = Sausage-maker’s task 
5. “Never Let Me Go” singer Johnny + Actress/model Sharon = a phonograph recording disk, perhaps
6. Prince’s “Queen of Percussion” Sheila +  Guitar soloist Robert = Trigger-like, Silvery or like a Champion
7. Author Harper + Moose and Squirrel cartoonist Jay = Downwind
8. Actress Jessica + A-Teamer Mr. + Stars & Stripes sewer Betsy = Ichiro’s neckwear?
9. Nixon “sackee” Archie + Actress Dominique = helmsman
10. Spouse of a stove-namesake, Deborah + Lucy sidekick Vivian = Again go forward
11. Archies “Sugar, Sugar” composer and backup singer Andy + Beatles up-breaker Yoko = literally, “a thing to wear”
12. Author and Baptist minister’s daughter Amy + NFLer-turned-novelist Peter = “uncurvy curve-kisser”
13. Canadian comedian John + news anchor turned U.S. senator Rod = SNL Land Shark’s ruses
14. Former Cardinal cager coach Denny + Minnesota poet Robert = word describing “the way of all cookies”
15. “Effervescent” entertainer Don + Chinese Rocket Yao = A kind of pigeon
16. Martyred gay activist Harvey + a self-martyred “jackal” Sydney = a container displaying missing kids (2 words)
17. Folkie musician Jerry or Jim + Catholic Worker Dorothy = Beatles song title
18. “Man at Work” Colin + “Young Buck” Thon = Likely knockout blow
19. Herbert Pocket’s  fiancée Clara + Mother Jones journalist David = a unit of length equal to a third of an inch
20. Tony Award winner Tommy + British actor Maggie = Boyce or Hart or King or Goffin, for example
21. QB Milt who holds the NFL record for a 20-yard pass completion to himself(!) + Piston Dave who became Detroit’s mayor = an informal jocular euphemism for the urinary, execretory and/or reproductive systems
22. Sycamore and Celtic Larry + John of  “Four thirty-three” fame = the American remake of  “La Cage aux Folles,” with “The...”
23. Comedian Lewis + Laker Lonzo = a synonym of (Songwriter of Monkees’ hits Tommy - e) + (Giant Mel)
24. Grammy-magnet Bruno + a Fawn who followed a “Magnetic North”  = Crenshaw or Dillon
25. Actor Elijah + Golf writer Herbert = “fruit,” “claret,” “pickle,” “hobo” or “baboon?” (if you’re not listening or reading real closely)
26. “Girlfriend” creator Matthew + Untouchable Eliot = “#34 of the Bears” nickname
27. British philosopher and economist John Stuart + Flying machinist Wilbur = Maker of river or wind harnessers
28. Lombardi Award winner and Super Bowl winning Packer A.J. + Irish playwright “Bernard” = epononym named after a detective in a play
29.  Ballplayer Bobby or Robbie + Seymour, Franny, Zooey, Bessie or Buddy = piece of stemware from which pinot noir is sipped
30. Pioneering English entomologist Thomas + Tupperware party pioneer Brownie = the flipside of “pound foolish” (2 words)



Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Common(wealth) criminals

Will Shortz’s May 6th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
Name a certain kind of criminal. Drop the first two letters and the last letter of the word, and you’ll name a country. What is it?
Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:
ONE:
Take the last name of a well-known criminal. Drop the first letter and the last two letters of the name, and you’ll name a country. 
What are the county and the name of the criminal?  
TWO:
Name a certain kind of criminal. Drop the first five letters and the last three letters of the word, and you’ll name a country. What are the country and the kind of criminal?
THREE:
Name an adjective describing criminals who are secretly in cahoots to commit a crime. 
Drop the first five letters and the last letter of the word, and you’ll name a country. What are the country and the adjective?
FOUR:
Add an M to the beginning and a “t” and “e” to the end of the name of a country. 
Remove a vowel from the interior, leaving a space, and you’ll name two substances that criminals may deal in. 
What are the country and the two substances? 
FIVE:
Name a creature with a reputation for behavior that might be considered criminal if judged by human standards. 
Drop the first letter and last two letters of the creature’s name and you’ll name a country. 
What are the creature and the country? 
SIX:
Name an ill-fated schooner from poetry. 
Drop the first three letters and the last letter of the name, and you’ll name a country. 
What are the names of the schooner and country?

Dessert Menu

Domestic Dessert:
Nothing (almost) comes before “family”

Take an adjective that often comes before the word “family.” Lengthen this adjective by adding a prefix with letters that can be rearranged to spell a member of the family. 
This longer adjective often comes before a word that rhymes with a synonym of that family member. 
What is this longer adjective? What are the family member and its synonym?

Mother Mongoose Nursery Rhyme Dessert:
A mother only a mugshot could love

Fill in the six blanks in the lyrics to the following parody of a century-old ode-to-mother song: 
M is for the _____ that she laundered. (5-letter word)
O is for her ____ shrill abuse. (4)
T is for the ____ of bills she squandered. (4)
H is for her ______ of beer and booze. (6)
E is for the ___ she boxed to guide me. (3) 
R is for her seldom _______ wrongs. (7)
Spelled out that’s MOTHER, Oh how she’d deride me!
I’m baffled why she’s so acclaimed in songs.


Hint: The six words use exactly the same 29 letters as the words beginning with M, O, T, H, E and R in the original 1915 song: Million, Old, Tears, Heart, Eyes and Right.

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.

Pain-ankle upside-down chafe; Missing links in the food chain; Various fruits: Apples to Zucchinis; Did Bobby Cox wear bobby sox?

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (1110 + 98) SERVED 

Welcome to our May 4th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! This edition of P! marks our fourth anniversary!
To properly observe our anniversary we are running this week a rather lengthy puzzle that master puzzle chef LegoLambda has been baking up for a few years or so. 
It is the first puzzle under this week’s MENU... a Serendipitously Inverted Digital Display Slice, titled “Pain-ankle upside-down chafe.” 
Lego composed the puzzle as a tribute to the infamous yet ingenious “upside-down digital clock” puzzle (created by Sam Williamson of Charlevoix, Michigan) that appeared on Will Shortz’s NPR Weekend Edition Puzzle segment from February 2, 2014. 
That puzzle read: 
“Where in most homes will you see the words SHE and HIS, and what word will you see right after HIS?”
Master puzzle-solver “Al” posted the correct answer “SIS” over on Blaine’s puzzle blog. 
Al was only one of 15 people that week who submitted this correct intended answer to NPR. (3:45 viewed upside-down on a digital clock spells ShE; 5:14 spells hIS; 5:15 spells SIS.)
Lego’s puzzle this week is not as ingenious as Sam Williamson’s, but it does possess a certain charm.
Also on our menus this week are:
ONE “Pulling-your-food-chain” Appetizer;
ONE “Alpha-Beta-Carotene” Dessert; and
TEN  Hall of Fame Slices.


So, celebrate this fourth day in May with us. May our Fourth be with you... just as our First, Second and Third were. 
And, as Will Shortz the Puzzlemaster himself has said, keep on having a lot of fun on Puzzleria!   

Appetizer Menu

Fangs Wings Claws Paws Appetizer:
Missing links in the food chain

Name two body parts associated with certain non-human creatures. 
Pool their letters, then rearrange them to form a word sometimes used to describe the food obtained from these creatures. 
Replace the the third and fourth letters of this adjective with different letters to name how the food is often obtained. 
What are the body parts? 
What word is sometimes used to describe the food obtained from these creatures? 
How is the food often obtained?

MENU

Serendipitously Inverted Digital Display Slice: 
Pain-ankle upside-down chafe

The parents of a baby girl born in 1958 named her after a fictional character who is now an octogenarian, a character whose “birth” was inspired by Nellie Bly. 
In 1982, this young woman was a down-to-earth working gal living in southern California. She had lately been experiencing a bit of lower back pain, so decided to spend some of her hard-earned cash on those gravity inversion boots that were all the rage after they were popularized by Richard Gere’s character in “American Gigolo.” 
She resolved to spend an hour daily shod in those gravity boots suspended upside-down in a doorway at her apartment. 
The young woman set up a 60-minute LED digital countdown timer within eyeshot, so she would know when to come back down to earth. 
On her first day of inversion, she maneuvered herself into position and was about ready to begin the timer with a remote control when she realized she had forgotten to invert the timer display so it would be easily readable from her topsy-turvy perspective. 
But because it would have taken her a bit of time and effort to disengage herself from the boots, the woman instead made a mental note to invert the timer in time for tomorrow’s inversion, and proceeded to click the timer on with her remote.

The seconds began ticking down: 60:00, 59:59, 59:58, 59:57... but upside-down, of course, not upside-up.

(Note: The young woman ignored the hundredths-of-seconds movement on the display because they were an unreadable virtual blur.
Also, on her display the “6” appeared as an inverted “9” – both consistin of six, not five, LED segments. Also on the display, the “7” consists of three, not four, segments.
On the display inn the “60-minute LED digital countdown timer” link provided above, the “6” consists of only five segments and the “7” consists of four segments.)

Before even a minute had elapsed, however, the young woman’s skin began to chafe a bit beneath the ankle supports. But she soldiered on bravely. 
A few minutes later, she happened to glance at the timer and, for a second, a plural common noun appeared, then vanished after a second – but she did take note of it. 
Within the next 30 seconds a second plural common noun flashed, just for a second. Again she took note. Both nouns, serendipitously, were products that might salve the effects of ankle chafing. 
Twenty seconds later, again within the span of one second, her subconscious recognized two proper nouns simultaneously on the display, one of four and the other of five letters. 
With the previous two common nouns, her subconscious had ignored the puntuation on the timer’s display, but this time her subconscious somehow took the punctuation into account, spelling it out mentally, thereby creating additional letters that helped to form the two proper nouns which, again serendipitously, were the names of two competing chain stores in her neighborhood where she could purchase the products that might salve the effects of ankle chafing.
A little less than six minutes later, this time again ignoring the display’s punctuation, the woman saw her own first name flash on the display.
When her hour was up, she uprighted herself, rubbed her ankles a bit, and recollected the first four words she saw. She promptly hopped into her sporty red 1970 Subaru R2 Super S and drove to one of the stores named by the proper nouns she saw on the inverted timer. 
There, she purchased a salving product named by one of the first two common nouns. She then drove to the competing store and purchased the other salving product there.
What are the two salving products and the two competing stores? What is the young woman’s first name?
Addendum: As she drove to the two chain stores, the young woman recalled two other words she had noticed during her inversion: 
1.) at about 7 minutes before the halfway point there appeared something she suspected was developing (as a result of the chafing) in something she wore, and
2.) at about 5 minutes before the halfway point, there appeared what it was that she wore.
So, she bought more replacement pairs of what she wore. 
What developed in what she wore, and what was it that she wore? 

Riffing Off Shortz And Hamel Slices:
Did Bobby Cox wear bobby sox?

Will Shortz’s April 29th NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, composed by Ray Hamel of Madison, Wisconsin, reads:
Name a famous player in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Take a letter out of the last name and move it into the first name. The result will name something you might see at a concert. What is it?

Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz and Hamel Slices read:
ONE:
Name a famous player in the  Baseball Hall of Fame. Remove the space between first and last names, then remove all but the first, last, fourth-last and third-last letters from the last name. Move the fourth-last letter to the end, followed by the last two letters of the city where the hall of famer played during his entire career. 
Divide the result into two equal parts to name someone you will likely someday see in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – a performer whose former spouse is already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 
Who are these two rock-and-rollers and one baseball player?
TWO:
Name a famous player in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Insert within the last name the first letter of the nickname of the team with which he played his entire career. The result is a kind of dramatic production. 
Insert within the first name the second letter of the nickname. The result is the name of a character (disguised as a conman named Applegate) who appears in such a production from the 1950s. Rearrange the letters of this character’s name to name the title character of another such dramatic production, in particular a production performed about seven years ago at mall in New Jersey. 
Who is the hall of famer? What are the titles of the two dramatic productions: the one from the 1950s and the more recent one?
THREE:
Name a famous player in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Move the first letter of the first name to the end of the first name. Take the first letter from the last name and move it to the beginning of the first name. 
The result will be two words: what the player did with his helmet after reaching base safely following a milestone career hit, and where on the diamond that he did it.
Who is the player? What did the player do after reaching base safely? Where was he on the diamond when he did it?
FOUR:
Name a famous player in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Place duplicates of the first two letters of the last name at the beginning of the first name and remove the last letter of the first name. Remove the first letter from the last name. The result is two words:
1. a word contained in an anagramatic nickname of the lead singer in a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band, and 
2. an instrument integral to the band’s sound played by a bandmate whose initials both appear in the ballplayer’s surname. 
Who is the ballplayer. Who is the lead singer and what is his anagramatic nickname? Who is the bandmate and what is his instrument?
Hint: The lead singer and ballplayer have identical first-and-last-name initials.
Answer:
FIVE:
Name a famous player in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Move a letter from the last name to the end of the first name, then remove the first letter from the first name. The second part of this result will name a concession you can now enjoy at many major league ballparks. The first part of the result will name a chain store where vendors might by implemets to slice this enjoyable concession. 
What is the ballplayer? What is the concession and where can one buy an implement for slicing it?
SIX:
Name a famous player in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Take a letter out of the last name and move it to the end of the first name. The result will describe a professional who restores large antiquarian bound volumes.
Who is this ballplayer? What is the description of the professional?
SEVEN:
Name a famous performer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Remove the first and second letters from the the last name, and replace the fourth letter with an “l” to form a word for a vinyl rock and roll artifact that has a label with a hole in the middle.
Consider the performer’s full name. Delete the final four letters and remove the word “lymph” from the the result. Rearrange the letters that remain to spell a proper noun that you might see on one of those labels with a hole in the middle.
Take the last, third and first letters of the last name, then take the second letter of the first name and the third letter of the last name to form two abbreviations that you might see on the label with a hole in the middle.
Who is this performer? What are proper noun and the two abbreviations?
EIGHT:
Name a famous performer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Take the first letter out of the last name and move it to the beginning of the first name. The result will be a first name of a star in 1926 silent movie (the 3-word title of which is hinted at in the image pictured here) and the last name of her co-star. 
The first name of the star is also a VW model; the last name of the co-star is also a midwestern university town.
Who is the rock and roll performer? Who are the star and co-star of the silent movie, and what is the title of the movie?
NINE:
Name a famous performer in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Remove the first letter from the last name. The second part of this result is the name of a rental company. The first part is one factor (in addition to hours) that determines how much the rental company charges during a transaction.
Who is the performer? What is the name of the company? What determines how much the rental company charges?
TEN:
Name a famous group in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in two words. Interchange the fourth letter of the first word with the last letter of the second word. Rearrage the letters in the first part of this result. The final result is a two-word caption for the image pictured here.
What is the name of the group? What is the caption?

Dessert Menu

Alpha-Beta-Carotene Dessert:
Various fruits: Apples to Zucchinis

 Name a 2-syllable verb for something you might do to a fruit beginning with an A, a fruit beginning with a B, a fruit beginning with a C, and various other fruits. 
Dehyphenate the verb to name a synonym for “various.” 
What are this verb and synonym?



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.

Lightfish, calamari, ichtion! Reporters posting, chestnuts roasting; You have a bone to pick; “Nothin’ goin’ on here”

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (1110 + 98) SERVED

Welcome to our April 27th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!
Our featured puzzle this week comes from ViolinTeddy, a regular contributor to and astute commenter on our Puzzleria! web site. (She is known especially for her tactful yet necessary “ViolinTedditing” whenever LegoLambda commits an error in [m]any of his puzzles!)
ViolinTeddy’s crafty puzzle this week combines osteopathy and geography or, if your will, “bones and zones.” You will find it under our Appetizer Menu titled “You have a bone to pick.”

Also on our menus this week are:
ONE Slothful Slice;
ONE “Roasting Chestnuts? Open Fire!” Dessert; and
SIX Fishy, Filmy Riffing-Off-Shortz Slices.

Think Good, It’s Fish Friday. Float your boat and begin baiting, bagging and de-boning our nine “befuddlefish” this week.
And, have fun at sunset pan-frying the mystifying fillets over the campfire.   

Appetizer Menu

My Bony Lies Over The Ocean In “Osteoralia” Appetizer:
You have a bone to pick

Name a country and a bone in the human body. (The bone itself sounds a little like the name, or partial name, of a country.) 
Rearrange the combined letters of the country and bone to form the name of another country.
What are these two countries and one bone? 

MENU

Slug Sloth Slouch Slice: 
“Nothin’ goin’ on here”

Name a not-very-common word for “a period or state of inactivity or stagnation.” 
Move the last three letters of this word to the beginning and replace a letter that appears thrice in the term with an “e.” 
The result is a more common word that also might be defined as “a period or state of inactivity.”
What are these two six-letter words?

Riffing Off Shortz And Ezekiel Slices:
Lightfish, calamari, ichtion! 

Will Shortz’s April 22nd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, composed by Dan Ezekiel of Ann Arbor, Michigan, reads:
Take the name of a famous film director. Drop the first letter of this person’s first name and you’ll name a fish. Read the last name backward and you’ll  name another fish. What film director is it?
Puzzleria!’s Riffing Off Shortz and Ezekiel Slices read:
ONE:
Write the name of a famous film director. Below the name, rewrite the last five letters of  the director’s surname backward, substituting a “d” for an “n.” To the right of this, write the first, third, fourth, second, ninth, tenth and eighth letters of his full name, in that order. These 12 letters, given appropriate spacing, name a major world city. 
What is the city? Who is the director?
TWO: 
Take the name of a famous film director. Drop the last two letters of this person’s first name and you’ll name a garment. 
Replace the first letter of the person’s surname with an “e.” Spell the last three letters of this result  forward followed by the first three letters of spelled backward to form another garment. What film director is it? What are the two garments?
Hint: the garments are worn on the same part of the body.
THREE:
Take the name of a famous film director. 
Drop the first letter of this person’s first name and rearrange the remaining letters and you’ll spell a structure used for storage.  
Drop the last letter of this person’s last name and replace the second letter with the fifth letter, and you’ll name where you are likely to find the structure. 
What film director is it? What is this structure and where are you likely to find it?  
FOUR:
Take the name of a famous film director. Interchange two letters in this person’s first name and you’ll name a body part. Remove the first two letters and the final letter from the surname to name another body part.
What film director is it? What are the body parts?

FIVE:
Take the name of a famous film director. Rearrange the letters of this person’s last name and you’ll name the movie genre of one of the most successful movies this director directed. 
Who is this film director? What are the movie genre and, for extra credit, the movie?
SIX:
Take the name of a famous film director. Drop the first letter of this person’s first name and you’ll name a country. 
A piece of athletic equipment appears at the end of this director’s last name. Replace it with a letter that rhymes with the piece of athletic equipment  and you’ll  name another country. 
Who is this film director? What are the two countries?

Dessert Menu

News Is Stranger Than Fiction Dessert:
Reporters posting, chestnuts roasting

Give the full name of a journalist and author from the past, as it appeared in bylines and on dust jackets. 
Replace with a well-known mantra three consecutive letters in the author’s name that can be rearranged to spell “nut.” 
Replace with a dotted letter three consecutive letters in the author’s name that can be rearranged to spell “hot.”
Remove one space and one mark of punctuation. 
The result is the name of a fictional character.
Who are this journalist and this fictional character?

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.