meta: idea: 5 seconds (really!) answer: 1 min
[4.40 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
“Stuffed Cabbage”by Pete Muller, Mack Meller, and Andrew White (Matt G.)
Prompt: The meta for this puzzle is a famous rock-and-roll artist
Answer: Eddie Money, found by 284 solvers
Precisely on Pete and the Gang’s wavelength this month! Saw the title and immediately thought it would be currencies interrupted by one letter, which then spelled something. And that’s exactly what it was! Wild. I’m sure that’s happened before but not very often and not that I can actually remember. And this meta was no pushover, with just 283 right answers with 75 minutes to play.
Our theme entries were:
16-A: [Prepare for a kiss, perhaps] = PUCKER ONE’S LIPS. I had PUCKER YOUR LIPS for a while but I finally realized my mistake.
22-A: [Source of life, according to some] = PRIMORDIAL SOUP. I had PRIMORDIAL OOZE at first but again, soon figured out the right answer. Can I keep my wrong-4-letter-word-in-every-theme-entry streak alive?
34-A: [Product of habitual stress, metaphorically] = FRAYED NERVES. I’m a frayed knot! Streak broken.
47-A: [Praiseful adjective that follows the noun it modifies]. Cool clue. EXTRAORDINAIRE.
55-A: [“Wheel of Fortune” category that might include “Neutral Milk Hotel California” or “Vanilla Ice Spice”] = BEFORE AND AFTER
Now let’s find those interrupted currencies, a.k.a. that “stuffed cabbage”:
PUCKER ONE‘S LIPS = E
PRIMORDIAL SOUP = D
FRAYED NERVES =D
EXTRAORDINAIRE =I
BEFORE AND AFTER =E
That’s a Danish KRONE, an Omani RIAL, a Japanese YEN, a Kuwaiti DINAR, and a South African RAND, and their interrupting letters spell EDDIE. But which musical Eddie could it be? Vedder or Van Halen? Cantor or Kendricks? Fisher or Floyd? No — it’s of course the great Eddie Mahoney, whom we know by his stage name Eddie Money. He passed in 2019, which I somehow didn’t hear about. Belated RIP to an ’80s great.
Fun one, and with just 283 answers with 40 minutes left to go, this’ll be breaking a few streaks. But not mine! I’m 7-for-7, baby. But the boasting ends there because I always miss the Muller Meta that immediately follows a boastful post. See you back here in early August. 4.32 stars.
Puzzle: Muller; Rating: 4.5 stars
Blogged it, now rating it
Thanks Matt!
284 correct this month…
Starting to get some mega-meta solvers too!
“I Wanna Go Back” has one of the highest quality-of-song-to-quality-of video ratios in recorded history. Total production cost: $75
My initial attempt to solve the meta went nowhere. I don’t use “cabbage” as slang for cash, so the title didn’t immediately suggest currencies. (But it’s the perfect title for this puzzle.)
So I put the puzzle aside for a few minutes. When I came back, KRONE and YEN jumped right out at me.
I wonder how easy this was for solvers too young to remember Eddie Money.
Fun one for old guys like me, though.
Agreed on cabbage as uncommon slang for me. It’s certainly within reason, though I personally would have had a better chance at solving if the title was Lettuce Wraps instead!
When I first saw the puzzle title, I guessed it was going to be something to do with cash somehow stuffed into the long entries (I have never used the slang term “cabbage,” but I knew what it meant).
After staring at it a while, I saw “K_RONE” and “DINA_R,” etc., and then figured out “Eddie.” But Eddie who? So I went through all the clues, figuring the last name would somehow be spelled out there, and Aha! – there are countries using these currencies!
1A “Damascus’s country . . .” [dinar]
45D “Danish city . . .” [krone]
58D “. . . Japanese restaurant” [yen]
But no South Africa or a “rial” country (and also the extraneous toilet museum and Swiss river clues) — dead end.
So I went back to the drawing board (i.e. Google) and “rock and roll artist eddie” turned up (duh) “Money.”
I wonder if those country clues were hints, red herrings, or coincidences.
I’m a little surprised that the number of correct solvers was almost half that of the previous month and close to the number for May, which was much harder IMO (and the relative “sweat” ratings seem to reflect my impression). I think that it may be one of those puzzles where you either get it fairly quickly or you never get it.
I also didn’t know Eddie Money passed away. He had some great songs. My prediction for Pete’s cover is either I Wanna Go Back or Take Me Home Tonight. I really like Think I’m in Love but I don’t know if that song would do well in Pete’s style.
Oof. Never used ‘cabbage’ as slang for money before, and I was thoroughly rabbit holed by BEFORE AND AFTER as a possible explanatory entry, given the other four long clues were clued as two BEFOREs (“prepare”/before a kiss, “source”/before life) and two AFTERs (“product”/after stress, “follows”/after noun). Never managed to escape that red herring, looking for pre-s and post-s, or the pre-/post- items in other entries (like the Paul Anka “kiss” clue), trying to form more before-and-after clues