A puzzle Rated R for vulgaRity; “Throw it into reverse for a spell” No-time-for-rhyme time; Rodeoactive fallou... um, falloff! Rations for rumination;

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED










Schpuzzle Of The Week:
Rodeoactive fallou... um, falloff!

Name a tool used by rodeo cowboys, a place rodeo spectators sit, and what cowboys do with the tool. 
The name of a writer who lived during the “cowboy era” rhymes with those three words.
Who is this writer and what are the three words?

Appetizer Menu

Conundrums You Cannot Beat Appetizer:
Rations for rumination 

🥁1. Name a common food containing a doubled letter. Append a copy of the doubled letters to get a show business term for flair.

🥁2. Name a former baseball player, first and last names. Move a couple of vowels to get three words that describe what a chef might say who prepares the food item from this week’s Conundrum #1.

🥁3. Name a hate group recently in the news in two words. Drop four letters to name a type of sandwich.

🥁4. Think of a five-letter word that describes the way some fruit might be prepared. Shift each letter ten places later in the alphabet. The result will be a type of fruit.

🥁5. Think of a Greek letter and a location in the United States. Placed one after the other, they sound like a type of lettuce.


Where People Often Go Appetizer:
A puzzle Rated R for vulgaRity

Name a food in eight letters. Replace a consecutive consonant and vowel in the word with a different consonant and vowel to form a place where people often go.
Now take a particular variety of that food, also in eight letters. Replace the fourth letter with a duplicate of its fifth letter. Divide the result in half and switch the halves. Move a vowel in the food variety between the two halves (but move just a duplicate of the vowel; keep the original where it is). 
The result, in slang, is what people might do in the place they often go, in three words.
What are the food and the place people often go?
What is the variety of the food?
What might people do in the place they often go?
Hint: The vowel from the food variety that you placed between the two halves does not appear in the eight-letter food but does appear in the place where people often go. 

MENU

Riffing Off Shortz And Matthews Slices:
No-time-for-rhyme time

Will Shortz’s December 2nd  NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by James Matthews of Little Rock, Arkansas, reads:
This puzzle involves rhymes. Think of a common 7-letter word. Drop its second letter, and you’ll get a 6-letter word that does not rhyme with the first. Alternatively, you can drop the third letter from the 7-letter word to get a 6-letter word that doesn’t rhyme with either of the first two. Further, you can drop both the second and third letters from the 7-letter word to get a 5-letter word that doesn't rhyme with any of the others. What words are these?
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Matthews Slices read:
ENTREE #1:
This puzzle involves no rhymes at all. 
Solve the following six clues. All answers end with the same four letters in the same order. None of the answers rhyme. All answers, except #2, are words of one-syllable:
1. Word heard whilst glancing askance, perhaps?
2. Minor malfunction or temporary setback
3. Word describing luck or a cookie
4. “Bread,” or pre-baked bread
5. What keeps the cradle from falling
6. Word preceding “the ringer,” “the roof,” “the tulips” or “the grapevine.”

ENTREE #2:
This puzzle involves pronunciation. 
Think of the last name of a puzzle-maker. Pronounce a 2-letter consonant-blend in the name as one would pronounce that same  pair of adjacent consonants in a 7-letter word that rankles motorists after the winter thaw, or in a 10-letter word for a tower with a beacon. 
The result, spoken aloud, sounds like the first and last name of a two-time mixed martial arts welterweight (but, alas, not light heavyweight!) champion who is in the Ultimate Fighting Championship Hall of Fame.
Who are this puzzle-maker and mixed martial arts champion? What are the seven-letter and ten-letter words?

ENTREE #3:
Noah built an ark and loaded it up with two-by-two critters. 
As the rains began pelting the roof of his maritime menagerie, Noah and his family began boarding: his wives – Naamah, Nemzar, Set, Barthenos, Haikel and Emzara (not exactly a two-by-two equivalency there!) – and Noah’s sons Ham, Shem, Japeth and their wives. 
During the course of the “Minoah’s” three-hour-plus tour, Ham tossed a couple of ducks overboard. Their quacking had been getting on his nerves. 
After the waters subsided and the ark had settled on Mount Ararat, the crew of the “Minoah” disembarked. 
As Ham descended the gangplank he heard a familiar but annoying cacophony nearby. It was Ham’s wet jetsam waddling down Ararat’s lush slopes.
Rearrange the letters of three consecutive words in the text of this puzzle to form the first and last names of a puzzle-maker. 
Who is it? 
What are the three consecutive words?

Dessert Menu

Casual Clothes Dessert:
“Throw it into reverse for a spell”

Reverse the spelling of an automobile brand, then remove all the interior letters. 
Pronouncing the result aloud sounds like an informal name for a casual article of apparel. 
What is the automobile brand? 
What is the casual article of apparel?
Hint: A poet once versified about the formal name of this article of apparel. 

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.

Wowed by Powdermilk Biscuits! Apply a formula, find an appliance; “Malchus? Vincent? Can you hear me?” Character development; Seven heavenly puzzles?... Mathew’s define comedy!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED

Schpuzzle Of The Week:
Character development

Place the first name of a young sitcom character in front of the one-word name of a male literary character. 
Remove an “o” and divide the result into two equal parts to name a female literary character, in two words.
Who are these three characters?
Hint: The first name of the young sitcom character is gender-neutral.

Appetizer Menu

Try Beating These Conundrums Appetizer:
Seven heavenly puzzles?... Mathew’s define comedy!

🥁1. Think of a contemporary comedienne, first and last names, in five and five letters. Drop four letters, add an A, and rearrange to name a fictional location featured in a recent movie.

🥁2. Take the name of a television comedy series that aired in the mid-2000s, in three words. Add a stroke to one letter and rearrange to get a two-word economics phrase that is one indicator for quality of life.

🥁3. Think of a common downside to the summer, in seven letters. Drop the first letter and shift the remaining letters nine places earlier in the alphabet to get a common unisex first name shared by a well known comedian/actor.

🥁4. Think of a comedian currently on television, first and last names, whose last name appears in the first name (in order, but not consecutively). Remove all instances of these shared letters and rearrange to name the capital of a country.

🥁5. Name a comic strip in three words. Put together, these words contain the name of a foreign language in five letters.

🥁6. Think of the last name of a stand-up comedian that contains “ND”. Change the “ND” to “MB” to get a word meaning “aimless”.

🥁7. Name a television personality and a comic strip character that share the same first name and whose last names are colors. 

Plug In Values And Solve Appetizer:
Apply a formula, find an appliance

To solve for a particular linear distance you can use a formula with variables that include: 
“frequency,” 
“target cross-section,”
“wavelength,”
“transmit power,” 
and “antenna gain.” 

Take the alliterative two-word term for what it is you are finding when you plug in your variable values into this formula. This term sounds like the name of a forerunner of an appliance – one that is a fixture in most modern kitchens. 
What are you finding when you use this formula, and what is the forerunner of the modern appliance?

MENU

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Wowed by Powdermilk Biscuits!

Will Shortz’s November 25th  NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
Think of a well-known food brand. 
Add the letters W-O-W. Then rearrange the result to name another well-known food brand. 
What is it?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz slices read:
ENTREE #1:
Think of a description of a common food staple, in two words each beginning with the same two letters. 
Subtract the letters W-O-W and replace one of the remaining vowels with a different vowel. 
Rearrange the result to form an adjective describing the choice a buyer of this food supposedly makes. 
What is the two-word description of the staple? What adjective describes the buyer’s choice?

ENTREE #2:
Think of a somewhat well-known food brand in three words. The third word is a creature containing both a W and an O. 
Rearrange the letters in these words to form three other words: 3. The third word is another creature containing both a W and an O.
2. The second word is commonly associated with this creature. 
1. The first word is an adjective indicating that this particular creature is unsophisticated and socially awkward. 
What is the food brand? 
What is the socially awkward creature?

ENTREE #3:
Think of a reasonably well-known snack food brand. 
Bet’cha can’t eat just one. But also bet’cha can rearrange the letters in just one to spell strength and conditioning exercises that people ought to be doing who, alas, can’t eat just one... thousand(!) of these snack food morsels. 
What brand is it? 
What are the exercises?

ENTREE #4:
Name two kinds of one-word kitchen appliances: those used to crush cooked yams and others used to tenderize meats. 
Add the letters W-O-W. 
Rearrange the result to name morsels of  food – consisting of a somewhat redundant adjective and noun – that might be placed atop the yams. 
What are these appliances? 
What might be placed atop the yams?

Dessert Menu

Message In A Bott..., No, ...In A Can Dessert
“Malchus, Vincent, can you hear me?”

Take a word for “canned messages” voters may hear during the run-up to elections, in nine letters. 
Rearrange its letters to describe, in three words of 1, 3 and 5 letters, what may happen if an ear falls to the floor. 
What are these canned messages called?
What may happen if an ear falls to the floor?

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.

A wedding of romance languages; Home for the Hollandaise? Numbers lying doormant; Synonym flavored candies; ShortZ but not SweeT

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 8!/21 SERVED



Schpuzzle Of The Week:
A wedding of romance languages

Selena from Barcelona and Marcel from Marseille marry and build a bistro in Bayonne. 
An English adjective pertaining to marriage, when you spell it backward, describes and explains – in  a two-word phrase, the first in French and the second in English – the clever French/Spanish name Selena and Marcel chose for their bistro: “Café Olé.” 
What is this English adjective that pertains to marriage? 
What is the two-word phrase that describes and explains their bistro’s two-word French/Spanish name? 

Appetizer Menu

Tough To Beat Conundrums Appetizer:
Home for the Hollandaise?

🥁1. Think of a five letter word. Shift each letter seven places later in the alphabet to get a synonym. The words are often used to describe feelings around the holiday season.

🥁2. Think of a religious holiday. Drop the last letter to name a hotel chain.

🥁3. Name a fictional holiday character in seven letters. Rearrange to name what many retailers engage in just prior to this holiday.

🥁4. Name a spice in eight letters, in which the last three letters are a type of relative and the first four letters are something one might give to this relative on a special occasion.

🥁5. Name a fictional location featured in a recent movie in seven letters. 
Change one letter and rearrange to name a holiday culturally related to the fictional location.

Not Ready For Prime Time On-Air-Challenge Appetizer:
ShortZ but not SweeT

Every Sunday morning on his NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle segment, puzzlemaster Will Shortz plays an original “on-air challenge” with a lucky listener chosen at random from a pool of NPR Puzzle aficionados who have correctly answered the previous Sunday’s “end-of-the-segment” challenge. 
The puzzle below is Puzzleria!s attempt to emulate this weekly NPR ritual. You might call it a “pseudo-on-air challenge,” or “on-blogosphair challenge.”
So, here is is. Enjoy!
Every answer is a word, name or phrase that begins with the letter S and ends with the letter Z. 
Example: Puzzlemaster Will --> SHORTZ
1. A nose, especially a prominent one
2. A canal
3. Hulu or Netflix competitor
4. Russian spacecraft
5. A red wine
6. Peanuts producer Charles
7. Corny sentimentality 
8. Non-standard word preceding “who?” or “me!” in a cartoon bubble
9. Medal-winning Mark eclipsed by Olympian Michael Phelps
10. To spray in quick short bursts
11. Common Spanish surname that rhymes with an English word for “large cattle farms”
12. Poet Delmore
13. Malcolm X’s activist wife Betty
14. Plum brandy
NOTE: The following answers contain two words:
15. Defensive tactic that may lead to a sack or bad pass
16. Short, quick physics or chemistry exam
17. Two-time Swiss Olympic host
18. California city that means “Holy Cross”
19. Kind of kids in a Steely Dan title
20. Title of a classical music piece often heard at ice shows
21. Title and surname of a recent Beto beater

MENU

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Numbers lying doormant

Will Shortz’s November 18th  NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle reads:
In my trip to Europe two weeks ago I visited a friend in Amsterdam, Peter Ritmeester, who literally has a puzzle on his doormat. 
Before you walk into his apartment, there’s an original puzzle for you to solve. 
I was able to do it. 
See if you can. 
What number comes next in this series: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 23, 28?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz slices read:
ENTREE #1:
In my trip to Europe 30 years ago I visited a friend in Switzerland, who literally (and numerically) had a puzzle on her doormat. Before you walked into her apartment, there was an original puzzle for you to solve. 
I was able to do it. See if you can. What number comes next in this series: 1, 4, 13, 15, 15, 18?

ENTREE #2:
In a trip to California 30 years ago I visited a friend stationed at Fort Ord, a United States Army post on Monterey Bay, who literally (and numerically) had a puzzle on his doormat. Before you walked into his barracks, there was an original puzzle for you to solve. I was able to do it. See if you can. 
What number comes next in this series: 6, 5, 9, 18?
   
ENTREE #3:
In my trip to Mexico two years ago I visited a friend in Chihuahua, a  “purse-dog aficionado” who literally has a puzzle (and a pooch named Pepe) on his doormat. 
Before you walk into his casa, there’s an original puzzle for you to solve (and a pooch for you to pet). 
I was able to do both – solve the puzzle and pet the pooch. 
See if you can solve the puzzle (and at least pretend to pet the pet pooch Pepe). 
What number comes next in this series: 16, 5, 18, 18?

ENTREE #4:
During my trip to London two weeks ago I visited Sherlock, a deerstalker, case-cracker and puzzle-solver, and his flatmate, John. I buzzed their bell but there was no response, so I lifted the corner of their doormat and found the key to the door. The doormat, curiously, had a series of fifteen blue numbers printed upon it.
Besides the key to the door, also under the mat was a scrap of paper on which was scribbled a one-word key to unlocking the significance of the “doormatted” blue numerical sequence – a word that Sherlock was wont to employ whilst discussing murder cases with John. 
Using this key as a clue, I was able to solve the puzzle. See if you can deduce the clue and solve the puzzle too: 
What number comes next in this series: 10, 13, 18, 20, 21, 25, 27, 31, 42, 49, 57, 60, 91, 101, 109?
What is the one-word key scribbled on the scrap of paper under the doormat?
Hint: Were I not a citizen of the good old United States I may not have been able to crack this Merrie Olde English case. 

ENTREE #5:
a decade from now the Summer Olympics will be hosted by Los Angeles. In a trip I made to Los Angeles two weeks ago I visited Stijn, a friend of mine from Amsterdam, who has been hired by the Los Angeles Olympic Committee as a consultant in the creation of bicycling event venues for the 2028 Olympic Games.
At Stijn’s urging, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has allowed Los Angeles to build an open-air velodrome with a banked two-kilometer-long oval asphalt track that is, in effect, a circular suburban residential “loop” thoroughfare in Pasadena’s Los Angeles County. 
The track is roughly the length of a Kentucky Derby lap at Churchill Downs. Spectators at this venue will sit not outside of the oval course but on the infield in specially designed seats that swivel 360 degrees and come equipped with binoculars so that bicyclists can be tracked at every instant as they pedal their merry way around the perimeter of the asphalt oval. Indeed, Stijn has proposed that the track be named “Perimeter Street.” 
A trial-run race at the new venue (after a false start by a too-eager cylist necessitated a timer-reset and restart) went off without a hitch or glitch, much to Stijn’s delight.
Rearrange the letters in “timer-reset” to form the last name of a puzzle-making friend of Stijn back in Amsterdam, a friend who apparently also knows Will Shortz. 
Rearrange the letters in “Perimeter Street” to form the full name of Stijn’s friend. 
Who is Stijn’s (and Will Shortz’s) friend?

Dessert Menu

Candy Shoppe Lollipop Gumdrop Dessert:
Synonym flavored candies

Name a popular generic candy in two words. 
Rearrange the combined letters to form two synonyms containing five total syllables.
What is this candy?

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.