LAT untimed (pannonica) 
[4.00 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
NYT 8:49 (Amy) 
[3.41 avg; 22 ratings] rate it
Universal 6:20 (Jim P) [3.25 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) 
[3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
Zachary David Levy’s New York Times crossword — Amy’s recap
NY Times crossword solution, 3/27/26 – no. 0327
Oof! This puzzle played like a tougher Saturday NYT rather than a Friday. Almost double the solving time I was expecting. Am I just off tonight, or did this puzzle challenge you more than usual, too?
Where I struggled was the northwest corner, and to a lesser degree the southeast. It all looks fine now, but the clues weren’t summoning those answers. JUST FOR SHOW is a terrific entry, but the clue, [Decorative, so to speak], evoked a simple adjective and my mind just needed more crossings in place. For the also-great BRAIN FREEZE, going medical with [Affliction also known as “cold neuralgia”] should have been easy for me but I drew a blank (was thinking of Raynaud syndrome and chilblains).
Fave fill, along with the two already mentioned: “DON’T RUB IT IN,” NEARSIGHTED (the clue nudged me away from medical terms: [Totally missing the big picture]), JIBJAB (haven’t heard from it in eons but those little clips where your face would be superimposed on, say, an elf? they were fun), GIRLBOSS, ATALANTA, K-DRAMAS, “THAT-A-WAY,” SAMMICH.
Did not know: 53D. [George’s computer friend on “The Jetsons”], RUDI. Zero recollection.
Least fave fill: TOOT AT.
Nice-looking grid here. Four stars from me. Expecting tomorrow’s puzzle to be quite a bit easier!
Alan Siegel’s Universal crossword, “Double Deletion”—Jim P’s review
Theme answers are familiar(ish) phrases that each feature at least one WAY or one HOW except they’re clued as if those letters were not part of the answers. The revealer is NO WAY, NO HOW (65a, [“Ain’t gonna happen,” or a hint to making sense of the starred clues]).
Universal crossword solution · “Double Deletion” · Alan Siegel · Fri., 3.27.26
- 18a. [*”Long Island Medium” star Caputo] THERE’S A
WAY. Theresa. - 23a. [*Includes in a Gmail convo] C
HOWCHOWS. CCs. - 38a. [*Exam for an aspiring DA]
HOWLS AT. LSAT. - 42a. [*Belt one out] S
WAYING. Sing. - 57a. [*Drunk ___ skunk] A
WAYS AWAY. As a.
This was tough to see during the solve, mainly because some answers had WAY and some had HOW and some answers had two words to delete while some only had one. But hitting on the revealer provided the much-needed aha moment. My favorite bit was finding “Theresa” in THERE’S A WAY (even though that really isn’t a very strong standalone phrase). Realizing your theme answer is simply “as a” or “LSAT” isn’t all that satisfying, but sorting everything out was a good challenge overall.
The long fill is quite nice though with KAWASAKI, DEEP WEB, and “YOU AGAIN?” as the highlights along with CITY WALL, BOWSHOT, and WAGED WAR providing an interesting somewhat-medieval militaristic subtheme.
Clues of note:
- 48a. [World’s largest toy company by piece count]. LEGO. I don’t doubt it, but is somebody actually counting this?
- 38d. [Film villain spelled by the letter before each letter of IBM (!)]. HAL. Did I know that? I’m not sure if I knew that. Did you know that? Surely that was intentional, right?
- 61d. [LA nabe with an arts district]. NOHO. I’m going to guess North Hollywood? Yep, that’s right.
3.5 stars
Yijing Chen’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up
LAT • 3/27/26 • Fri • Chen • solution • 20260327
Interesting conceit for a theme.
- 17a. [Marine animal with a cylindrical body, once processed?] SEA PICKLE (sea cucumber).
- 23a. [Dearly beloved, once processed?] CIDER OF ONE’S EYE (apple of …).
- 36a. [Dolls that come with adoption papers, once processed?] KIMCHI PATCH KIDS (Cabbage Patch …).
- 46a. [Dust Bowl-era Steinbeck novel, once processed?] THE WINE OF WRATH (The Grapes …). Was expecting raisins. Also, the answer is unfortunately evocative of mean drunks.
- 56a. [Earth’s galaxy, once processed?] CHEESY WAY (Milky Way).
Overall I like it, but I feel 17-across is a little too recondite to be the first themer encountered. Were I editing here, I’d try very hard to swap it with 56-across—and for all I know, that may have been attempted.
- 1d [Little bit] A TAD, not ATOM.
- 3d [Condiment that adds strong, rich flavor, informally] UMAMI BOMB. I’ve certainly heard of umami and of flavor bombs, but this pairing is possibly new to me.
- 8d [MiLB level] AAA. Ah, I see that ‘MiLB’ indicates Minor League Baseball.
- 21d [April 15 org.] IRS. Normally I’m happy to pay federal taxes, but not under the current circumstances. 10a [Public health org.] CDC; much like my comment the other day about the now-perverted EPA, I have similar feelings about the status-quo cluing here.
- 29d [Actor Barinholtz] IKE. New to me.
- 45d [Number of prongs on a bident] TWO. Easily inferable.
- 22a [Put together] BUILT. I reasonably had BUILD here and when the grid was completely filled in, needed to hunt up the faulty square and only figured it out via the crossing 12-down [Largest Greek island] CRETE.
- 28a [Check a final time?] MATE. Nice.
- 53a [ __ tube] BOOB.
- 54a [Fix unlawfully] RIG. My first thought was about the right-to-repair movement.
- 66a [Was a prelude (to)] LED UP. Prelude itself is an anagram of er, led up.
I agree with you, Amy. I thought this was quite difficult (although ultimately my time wasn’t all that much slower than my average).
The clueing just seemed more obscure than usual for a Friday. The Northeast corner gave me particular problems. But in the end, I found it an enjoyable, challenging solve.
I found some of the cluing ABITODD. “Land consisting predominantly of sedges” for FEN — sedge is a marsh plant, to be sure, but it’s one of many, and in any case doesn’t constitute land. YES for “no no” – I have no clue what that’s about. STABLE, as applied to chemical elements, typically means not radioactive, so applying it to noble gases is misleading, IMO.
Pretty nice puzzle overall, though, and it didn’t take me too much longer than a typical Friday.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
For YES – “no no”. What if the clue was “Not a no”.
Puzzle was slightly more difficult than expected Friday. IMO it’s related to the cluing. But I like the puzzle.
Thanks. I was trying to imagine that in some slangy circumstances saying ‘no no’ might mean you agree. In the same way that saying ‘yeah yeah’ sarcastically means STFU…
I got a chuckle from your STABLE nit. Whenever a noble gas is clued as “inert,” someone complains that that there are many compounds, like sulfur hexafluoride, that refute that description. They usually suggest calling them “stable” to indicate their low reactivities.
True enough! When I was taking chemistry in grammar school, the noble gases really were inert, I think — it was only later that some compounds were synthesized.
“Stable” could also apply to gold, though, because it isn’t very reactive. I guess there isn’t a perfect word.
i would describe both noble gases and twinkies as “stable”, requiring exceptional outside forces to disturb their steady states.
Excuse the brain fart. I meant xenon hexafluoride.
NYT: Actually felt normal for a Friday for me.
NW last to fall, but SANYO came to mind and then it went.
I’ve heard of Sammie’s, but SAMMICH is kinda new to me.
I have a RIPE mango ready for my PARER.
Happy Friday!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
The NYT also felt tough for me, but when I got the music, I was 21 seconds under my Friday average. I mostly got lucky in guessing on a couple unknown squares, like the IGA / ATALANTA crossing and MAC / ARTUR crossing.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
NYT: didn’t care for lots of random-seeming entries… JIBJAB, KDRAMAS, THISONE, HAMOMELETTES, SAMMICH, TOOTAT, ARGUEDACASE. Also, MAC?? No idea how that relates to something that runs in Tahoe (I assumed ELK at first). Lucky CERES seemed vaguely familiar, otherwise it would be a run-the-alphabet situation.
Re MAC: It’s a computing reference. The most recent Apple operating system version is named Tahoe. This follows Apple’s recent pattern of naming macOS versions after places in California.
Wow. That’s terrible. Thanks for explaining.
NYT took me about double my usual Friday time, so, yeah, relatively tough but doable for me.
At least I did finish it, although most of ZDL’s favorites were entirely new to me, starting with JIBJIB in the NW. I had to Google for BAG FORTE to make sense of that one and still haven’t deciphered Hit 22.
Blackjack.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
This one was Saturday difficulty for me, for all the reasons Amy listed. So… I liked it a lot :) . I’d forgotten JibJab… it was fun when it was new.
One question: I don’t understand 19a: Computer runs = Jobs. Yes Steve Jobs ran a computer company but that doesn’t parse the same…?
Back in the day computer programs were referred to as jobs. We’re talking 50 years ago
We still very much refer to them as “jobs” on a supercomputer in 2026.
Unix-based systems have a job scheduler (originally cron), so even your cell phone runs jobs.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Finally, a tough-for-me puzzle that other people also thought was tough!
I thought it was all fair, though.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2.5 stars
Puzzle def played more like a Saturday for me. SAMMICH should probably be clued with “in toddler speak” or something similar IMO. Kitchen gizmo being PARER was a little annoying as well, as it is just a knife. Shout-out to “Firs and beeches, but not furs and beaches”, that was a fun clue.
Sammich isn’t baby talk (it would be tough for tots to pronounce). It’s slang and usually refers to a killer sando.