LAT untimed (pannonica) 
[3.38 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
NYT 4:42 (Amy) [3.75 avg; 18 ratings] rate it
Universal 4-something (Jim) 
[2.63 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) rate it
Carolyn Davies Lynch’s New York Times crossword—Amy’s write-up
NY Times crossword solution, 6/27/25 – no. 0627
A breezy Friday puzzle with lots of lively fill. Just what the cruciverbal doctor ordered!
Fave fill: TEAM SPIRIT, “SI SE PUEDE” (that’s “Yes We Can” in Spanish), FANTASY NOVELS (raise your hand if you’re picturing the map of Middle-earth in LOTR), MICROMANAGERS, LITHUANIA (I’ve got Lithuanian heritage), “SUCH IS LIFE,” chicken KATSU, MONGOOSE, SPOON REST, POP-UP STORES (pop-up eateries are much more common in the Windy City, I think), RUNAWAY HITS, RAW DEALS.
Interesting to find the colloquial “SO THERE WE WERE …” part of a breathless anecdote.
Not so keen on ICE IT, ATE AT, TERNS.
Three more things:
- 18A. [One making the first move?], PAWN. In chess, of course.
- 34A. [What had a real boom in development in the early 20th century?], TNT. Not a city that took off, but the demolition of older buildings to make way for the new.
- 25D. [Scientist whose “number” is a dimensionless ratio], MACH. No, you’re a dimensionless ratio.
Four stars from me.
Julia Dreyer’s Universal crossword, “Welcome Home!”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar words and phrases whose beginnings can precede “land” to form other phrases. Further, the next two letters after the “land” word are HO. The revealer is “LAND HO!” (68a, [Cry from a crow’s nest, or a hint to the first 4-7 letters of each starred clue’s answer]).
Universal crossword solution · “Welcome Home!” · Julia Dreyer · Fri., 6.27.25
- 20a. [*Arrogant person’s “perch”] HIGH HORSE. “Highland Ho!”
- 26a. [*Unwelcoming] INHOSPITABLE. “Inland Ho!”
- 46a. [*Minty quaffs] GRASSHOPPERS. “Grassland Ho!”
- 58a. [*Apt place to hit the hay?] FARMHOUSE. “Farmland Ho!”
Cute! Maybe a little goofy, but cute. Truth to tell though, I only sussed out the HO part because the second entry made no sense otherwise. While trying to understand why I was only seeing “inland”, I noticed that each entry shared those two letters. (Also note the theme-adjacent entry at 27d HO HO HO.)
The longest fill entries are a little meh (ACCUSTOMED and DASH LIGHTS) but I like some of the shorter entries much better: HOT DATE, OSTRICH, and BIG SMILE. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of CAVA [Mediterranean fast-casual chain]. Apparently they’re in 27 states, but not mine (WA).
Clues of note:
- 62a. [Small insect … or eavesdrop, to a Brit]. EARWIG. Ooh, I never knew this Britishism. Glad to learn it.
- 64a. [Reaction to “Say cheese!”]. BIG SMILE. My neighbor is a happy-go-lucky type of world traveler. I don’t think he grasps the idea of emojis however. His emails are often peppered with the actual words SMILE or BIG SMILE instead emojis like normal people.
- 4d. [When they turn on, it is time to see a mechanic]. DASH LIGHTS. Not loving this clue. There are all kinds of lights on a dashboard; not all of them mean you need to see a mechanic.
- 9d. [Someone you may say 25-Down to]. HOT DATE. Those words being KISS ME. Seems a bit forward, but who am I to judge?
- 61d. [“Electric Feel” band]. MGMT. Oh hey, I know that song.
Oh, this is a debut puzzle. Congrats to Julia Dreyer! 3.5 stars.
Caroline Hand’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 6/27/25 • Fri • Hand • solution • 20250627
Theme’s pretty simple, and I believe it’s been done before, but it’s executed well here.
- 62aR [Cocktails, and what 18-/39-Across and 24-/54-Across literally are?] MIXED DRINKS. The two-word names have swapped partners. When solving, I glossed the revealer and thus didn’t realize that there were two pairs rather than a more general mixing.
- 18a. [Innie or outie, in Paris?] FRENCH NAVEL.
39a. [Poor internet service?] FUZZY CONNECTION.
(French connection, fuzzy navel) - 24a. [Result of applying bright yellow polish?] LEMON NAIL.
54a. [Feature of an old iron roller coaster?] RUSTY DROP. yikes!
(lemon drop, rusty nail)
Cheers!
- 1d [Dish named for the pan it’s cooked in] PAELLA. etymology: Catalan, literally, pot, pan, from Middle French paelle, from Latin patella small pan — more at PATELLA
- 8d [Pampering, for short] TLC. 17a [Brief “Blah, blah, blah”] ETC.
- 13d [Set] GEL. 1a [Set] PUT.
- 26d [Interest-ing offers?] LOANS. >groan< okay
- 50d [Emergency room procedure] TRIAGE. I think I would have gotten this more quickly if protocol had been used rather than procedure, even though procedure may be the more accurate word.
- 48a [Recitations made by students before entering Oxford’s Bodleian Library] OATHS. Did not know this. 63d [Rite answer?] I DO.
- 53a [Picker-upper] TONIC. Notably not clued as a cocktail mixer.
- 70a [Alpha preceder] GEN. Sneaky.
I won’t list them here, but I’d estimate that a good quarter to a third of the clues were laconically open-ended enough to make this puzzle just a little bit tougher, or at least that more crossings and a tad more thought was required for their answers. So, well done.
Amy,
OK. I’ll bite. What’s wrong with TERNS? They’re some of my favorite shore birds.
Haha, I also had that thought. I guess it’s crosswordese.
Courant et couru.
TERNS are often cited as an example of crosswordese, but why are wrens and gulls acceptable, while terns are not? We must stop hating terns.
I never heard terns called crosswordese before, so I guess that explains Amy’s comment. It’s certainly not a word restricted to crosswords in my world. I love watching these elegant versions of gulls dancing in the sky over the beach. Almost as much fun as the twenty or thirty hummingbirds zipping and chasing each other around my feeder all day. I’m going through 50 pounds of sugar a month now. Elaine and I finish our wine after dinner on the deck and take in the show around our heads.
I’m jealous of your hummingbirds, Martin.
When we moved here in August, we saw quite a few hummingbirds at our feeder. But since we put it up again this season (and added another feeder out front), we have only seen a few hummingbirds.
On the other hand, we did see the yearling black bear that tried to get into the seed feeder.
I just bottled 18 quarts of sugar water, which will last a week or so. These guys are exhausting. Careful what you wish for. We’ve got bobcats (very cute) and mountain lions (much less so), but no bears.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
my wife and i were recently in alaska and saw some arctic terns, who, she will gladly tell you, have the longest migration of any animal, basically going from the arctic circle down to (roughly) antarctica. wild.
we also saw a nesting pair with a chick, and believe you me, when i say it was VERY adorable.
all this to say TERNS as an answer sat just fine with me.
WSJ Contest by Matt Gaffney:
The puzzle basically yells at you about how to solve the meta, so it should be easy.
The fill, though, is a slog. For example, “Mocha setting” for 56D!? What? The grid has enough gibberish as it is, and you still want to make cute clues like “Mocha setting”?
2.5 stars.
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 1.5 stars
The fill is packed with geography, counting universities and state nicknames as well. Dreadful.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Really enjoyed it, even though I was sleepy while solving…
That middle stack is lovely, and my favorite was: SO THERE WE WERE. Someone is painting a picture! I love story telling.
Agreed; great Friday. I really liked the cluing for FANTASY NOVELS; I’ve told my son that if a book has a map in the front, it’s going to be fantasy. I wonder if that started with The Hobbit, or if it’s much older?
I was even good with the Spanish, though I don’t speak it; all gettable from the crossings. Made for a fun and a bit quick Friday.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
I found this puzzle extremely easy. Finished it under 14 minutes, which is 4 minutes faster than last Wed or Thu.
I’m not really a fan of SISEPUEDE, nine squares of Espanyol. That said, apparently the slogan is famous enough to warrant its own wikipedia article, so I guess it is acceptable.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
I thought the crossing of KATSU and SI SE PUEDE was extremely unfair. I had RISE PUEDE, which seemed like a legitimate union motto, albeit not Hispanic.
Katsu is Japanese fractured English for “cutlet.” It’s a shortening of katsuretsu, pronounced “kats-ret.” Maybe next time it will be easier.
I love the way the Japanese take English words and make them sound perfectly Japanese.
Like English from French (e.g. côtelette).
Wasn’t ‘Si, se puede’ a slogan among Hispanic supporters of Obama? I seem to remember learning it around that time.
‘Katsu’ I know only from previous crosswords. It baffled me the first time it came up. (I am a non-foodie, as I think I have mentioned before).
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
I also finished today’s puzzle with a faster time than either Wednesday or Thursday. I was about 40% lower than my Friday average. I thought it was a very nice grid, with a lot of good entries.
I wouldn’t want every Friday to be this straightforward, but it was a nice break after a tougher Wednesday and Thursday.
NYT was nicely constructed but very easy for a Friday. I’m not a fan of using fancy-schmancy words (hypocoristic, syzygy) to gin up the difficulty of the clues.
I don’t think of MICROMANAGERS as being ‘bossy bosses’ — in my experience they’re just as likely to be passive-aggressive and whiny.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
A very ambitious and entertaining Tuesday-level puzzle, but a Friday PR for me, and by quite a bit.
I did not know the hyphenated R&B star, but did not need to, as that was one of several answers that filled themselves in from crosses. It’s a rare Friday when you get a bunch of short fill from the long crosses, rather than the other way around, but that was certainly the case for me today.
I give the constructor 4.5 stars for an elegant piece of work, and the NYTXW editorial staff a 1.5 for faulty placement in the calendar, for a final score of 3.0. I do prefer my Friday puzzles significantly more challenging than this one, lovely as it was.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
NYT really has to walk back this whole “the crosswords get harder as you go through the week” thing. There are really just categories – regular themes M-W, tricky themes or rebuses on Thursday, themeless Fri-Sat, and then any or all of these on Sunday. Unless they want to break out of those categories, the crosswords are never going to be progressively harder.
Anyway. The grid was fine. You can get a very nice chicken KATSU and Japanese chips at Sandoitchi in downtown Dallas, and then sit at a window where a giant eyeball in the park across the street stares you down. My kind of dining experience.
The main way of controlling difficulty in a crossword is by the clues. The NYT XW submission guideline has this wonderful example:
“For the answer STRAP:
Monday clue: “Subway rider’s handhold”
Wednesday clue: “Part of a bike helmet”
Saturday clue: “What might keep a watch on you” ”
The NYT on average changes half of the clues of a submission. All major outlets do this to maintain the difficulty gradient. If Will Shortz can’t do this, he should step down and pass the torch to Joel.
Puzzle: Universal; Rating: 1.5 stars
I must be dense, but even with Julia’s explanation of Universal crossword, “Welcome Home!”, I still don’t get it. Starting with, what does land or ho have to do with “Welcome Home!”? Not to mention what does highland, inland, grassland, or farmland have to do with “Welcome Home!”? And further frustrated by first 4-7 letters of each starred clue’s answer. By that hint, we’re looking at highhor, inhospi, grassho, and farmhou. At very least it would have been better to say a hint to the first word of the starred clues answers.
I solved the whole puzzle easily, but not due to any help from the title or the hint.
Oh … grumble grumble grumble …
(PS: I agree with Julia’s comments re ‘dashlights’ and ‘hotdate’).
PPS: I should have been saying Jim’s explanation, and Jim’s comments. Just realized Julia was the one who created this puzzle, and the explanation above was Jim’s. (Sorry about that Jim). Silly me.
Oh, no problem. Let me see if I can clarify a couple things. Well, first off, I think I’m as much in the dark as you when it comes to the title. Sometimes a puzzle defies the use of a title, but obviously one is still needed since all Universal puzzles have titles. So I just glossed over it in this case, since it doesn’t really seem to have anything to do with the theme mechanic. But trying to guess, I’d say a sailor spotting land in the distance might be returning home at the end of a voyage, and “home” starts with HO just like the second halves of all the theme answers. It’s a weak explanation but that’s all I’ve got.
Your second question is easier to answer. The “first 4-7 letters of each starred clue’s answer” means you need to look for a number of letters in each answer, and that number will be between four and seven. In INHOSPITABLE only the first four letters are used (giving us the wacky phrase “Inland Ho!”). In GRASSHOPPERS, we need seven. And in FARMHOUSE and HIGH HORSE, we need six.
I grant you it’s an oddly complicated theme and I didn’t do the best job explaining it. Hope this helps.