Thursday, April 30, 2026

BEQ 10:13 (Eric) [3.33 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) rate it
NYT 9:45 (ZDL) [2.88 avg; 16 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:19 (Eric) [2.75 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 13:34 (Emily) [3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
WSJ 7:58 (Jim Q) [2.50 avg; 2 ratings] rate it

This week’s Fireball puzzle is a contest. We’ll post the review after the deadline for entries.

Aidan Deshong’s Universal Crossword “As American as Apple Pie” — Eric’s Review

Aidan Deshong’s Universal Crossword “As American as Apple Pie” — 4/30/26 (Click to Enlarge)

Kind of an odd menu here, most of which I’ve never actually consumed:

• 17A [Sushi orders with crab and avocado] CALIFORNIA ROLLS I haven’t eaten much sushi, but this one appeals as I like both of the main ingredients.
• 29A [Thick slice of grilled bread] TEXAS TOAST I learned about those tasty treats in my first job, at a barbecue restaurant in Dallas. One of the perks was a sandwich and fries everyday. Really good brisket and some of the best sausage I’ve ever had. Best of all, I had a teenager’s metabolism.
• 37A [Colorful rum cocktail] BLUE HAWAII So was the drink named for the Elvis movie or the other way around?
• 49A [Dish of ice cream, cake and meringue] BAKED ALASKA I hadn’t yet gotten the revealer when I reached this one. My first guess — BOSTON CREAM PIE — didn’t fit the space, didn’t fit the clue and violated the “rule” about putting the answer in the clue. Other than that, it’s a great answer and my little brother’s favorite dessert.
• 59A [Banquet for a foreign visitor … where it would be apt to serve 17-, 29-, 37- and 49-Across?] STATE DINNER Very timely, with King Charles and Queen Camilla visiting Washington this week.

For once, I more or less grasped the theme immediately and tried to get theme answers with as few crosses as possible. (Hence my error on BAKED ALASKA.) I assume most solvers will have heard of these dishes, even if like me they’ve never eaten them.

It’s also a fairly tight theme set. My googling turns up only HAWAIIAN PIZZA (which does’t really work because of the adjectival form), MISSISSIPPI MUD PIE, KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN, and NEW YORK CHEESECAKE (probably named after the city anyway).

Other stuff:

• 10A  [Purple fruit] PLUM I came close to putting the crossword regular ACAI here, only to have it show up at 2D.
• 22A [“___ Shrugged”] ATLAS In high school, my sister passed along Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead to me. Nothing in that novel made me interested in reading Rand’s “magnum opus” (the author’s words, not mine). I’m not sure I could read it now with an open mind, knowing what little I know about Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism.
• 54A [Trailblazing astronaut Collins] EILEEN The first woman to pilot the space shuttle.
• 62A [Number of U.S. presidents who never married] ONE That would be James Buchanan, who served from 1857—1861. Was he our first gay president? Historians apparently don’t know for certain.
• 5D [“Te ___” (Spanish for “I love you”)] TE AMO Is not that phrase common enough in 2026 that even Americans whose Spanish is more limited than mine could have guessed the answer without the parenthetical? Or am I overestimating the extent of the Spanish language in American culture because I spent most of my adult life in Texas? In any case, if you love someone, let them know. Often.
• 26D [Ready to leave home?] AT BAT Cute clue.
• 27D [Travis who’s engaged to Taylor Swift] KELCE I don’t follow sports or celebrities and misremembered the Kansas City Chiefs tight end’s surname as KELSO. Oops.
• 43D [Latin labor leader Huerta] DOLORES Cofounder of the United Farm Workers.
• 57D [Largest boarding school in England] ETON That’s a clue for this crossword staple that I don’t remember seeing before.

Lance Enfinger and John Kugelman’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Time: 9m45s

Difficulty: Breezy (<8m)  |  Easy-ish (8-9m30s)  |  Working on it (9m30s-11m)  |  Rough going (11+m)

Lance Enfinger and John Kugelman’s New York Times crossword, 4/30/26, 0430

Today’s theme: OSCAR BAIT (Film angling for awards … or what’s depicted three times in this puzzle?)

• PATTON hooks a TROUT
• RAIN MAN hooks a SALMON 
• BEN HUR hooks a CHAR

RIELS crossing CRAB LOUIE was the last domino to fall, and it sure fell slowly.  

Cracking: WHAT NERVE

Slacking: RHODE sans Island

Sidetracking: R.I.P. ISLANDAIR, which ceased operations while I was in Honolulu on business

Ryan Mathiason’s Wall Street Journal crossword “Playing With Your Food” — Jim Q’s write-up

THEME: Board games appear in the puzzle’s circled letters in the shape of bowls.

WSJ • 4/30/26 • Thur • “Playing With Your Food” • Ryan Mathiason • solution • 20260430

THEME ANSWERS: (see visual)

• TWISTER
• OTHELLO
• CLUE
• LIFE
• MANCALA
• (revealer) [College football postseason events, and what the sets of circled letters represent] BOWL GAMES

This puzzle had me at hello! Maybe cuz all those “bowls” looked like smiles? But the cluing felt fresh and the fill felt rather lively. This theme type is another one of those that is deceitfully difficult to pull off well, especially five times with a central revealer. So bravo for that!

I had trouble seeing the connection between TWISTER and OTHELLO, but once I got the CLUE there was an aha moment that helped me uncover the oh-so-literal revealer.

As far as the title goes? “Playing With Your Food”… I’m out to lunch (pun intended). I guess it’s because food… goes……. in a bowl…. sometimes? Super weird. I dunno. What am I missing?

OTHER THINGS:

• [Joint that may be rolled] ANKLE. One of many fun clue/answer pairings.
• [Pizza Margherita topping] BASIL. Not PESTO. That’s what I had initially.
• [What I’m showing you] THIS. Can’t tell if this is super vague or super specific. Whatever it is, I like it.
• [Miner concerns] CAVE-INS. Would’ve been fun to clue it as [Major miner concerns]!
• [2010s White House resident] SASHA. Hmmm… I wonder why this clue doesn’t supply an indication that we are looking for the first name only.
• [Bufotoxin source] TOAD. Is that the stuff that makes one high when they lick toads? Also… how does one discover that toad-licking might lead to a decent high? What else has the discoverer of that phenomenon tried that hasn’t worked out as well?
• [Faux pa?] STEPDAD. Great clue.
• [Where a draft may be held] STEIN. The drinking vessel that holds a draft beer, say.
• [One of a dozen in a Monopoly box] HOTEL. Me: I swear there’s a lot more than a dozen! as I confidently entered HOUSE.
• [Mixed drink?] KOOL-AID. Good clue!
• [“It’s not the end of the world”] I’LL LIVE. Nice entry.
• [Piece of Bacon?] ESSAY. lol.
• [Connect four in Connect Four, say] WIN. Little NOD to the theme, perhaps?
• [Driver’s org.] AAA. Anyone else conditioned to enter PGA when they see this clue?

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1883 “Badge File” — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1883 “Badge File” — 4/30/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I wasn’t familiar with the term “badge file,” so once I’d filled in the grid, I looked it up. It refers to a digital file used to create physical ID badges. It turns out that isn’t really relevant. the theme here is just wordplay, with CH sounds replaced by DGE sounds:

• 17A [Increase in appearance on a hit list?] GOOGLE SURGE Google search
• 53A [Jump into a water slide?] LIQUID LUNGE Liquid lunch. This is where I snapped to the theme. Kathleen, one of my first bosses out of law school, liked a drink or two with her lunch. But she claimed she stopped drinking mid-day margaritas when she realized she was returning to the office or going to court with a thin line of salt on the bridge of her nose. Of the three name partners at that firm, Kathleen was the only one I really liked.
• 11D [Hillcrest pals live on?] BUDDY RIDGE Buddy Rich, the legendary jazz drummer. If someone wants to explain “Hillcrest” to me, that’d be nice.
• 28D [Like a red necklace and blue beehive?] ON THE MARGE On the mark. The MARGE reference is to Mrs. Simpson.
• Despite being slow to snap to the theme, I enjoyed this theme — mostly because of LIQUID LUNGE.

Other stuff:

• 1A [Patagonia rival] J. CREW There are things that I would buy from Patagonia that I would never look for in a J. Crew catalog. REI seems more of a “Patagonia rival.”
• 6A [Cement head?] SOFT C I’ve seen that sort of clue dozens of times and I almost never figure it out until I have some letters in place from the crosses. In this case, it took five such letters.
• 11A [“The Ultimate Driving Machine” sloganeer] BMW A pure gimme, as we drove one for over 20 years. After about 10 years, it developed a nasty habit of having the glass in the power windows drop suddenly down into the door. Our service advisor at the dealership told us that “BMW makes the ultimate driving machine, not the ultimate power window.” Thanks, Scott.
• 29A [Chopping vegetables, say] MEAL PREP I tried to get PREPPING to work. I really wish I were faster with a knife when it comes to those kinds of tasks.
• 33A [Cheddar alternative] COLBY Not J. CREW.
• 37A [“Hey, that’s an ___!”] IDEA That clue didn’t suggest anything to me, making that middle section on the east side more difficult than it should have been.
• 39A [“Shop till you drop” places] MALLS The nearest real shopping mall to where I live is over 200 miles from here. I’m good with that.
• 40A [Like comfy clothing, say] BAGGY Not LOOSE.
• 43A [Golf setbacks] BOGEYS Not EAGLES. Not BOGIES.
• 46A [1983 classic that begins “They told him, ‘Don’t you ever come around here'”] BEAT IT Michael Jackson, of course. Timely what with the whitewashed biopic out now.
• 6D [R&B singer whose career started in Dru Hill] SISQO Maybe Brendan’s sick of “The Thong Song”?
• 27D [Kinda drunk] TIPSY If only I could stop there when I have more than one drink.
• 29D [MDMA] MOLLY I’ve heard that slang name for methylenedioxymethamphetamine, but when I was solving, ECSTASY was the only name I thought of.
• 30A [Melancholy piece] ELEGY Not ÉTUDE, which I knew was wrong even as I tried it.
• 39A [“I Write the Songs” singer] Barry MANILOW I’m not a fan, though all I know are his hits. I will just note that he did not make the New York Times’ list of “The 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters” and Stephin Merritt did. (Sorry to post a song about gay bashing; I’m glad the worst assaults I’ve experienced have been verbal.) (And if you want to suggest some other songwriters who should’ve made the list, please do so in the comments. I haven’t thought about it all that hard, but I’ve got half a dozen names they overlooked.
• 40D [Redemption center containers] BOTTLES I got stuck on the bins or whatever in a recycling center. It’s been a long time since I’ve lived somewhere where you have to pay a bottle deposit.
• 55D [ABS checker] UMP I haven’t seen any baseball this season; to me, “ABS” is anti-lock braking system (a good thing), not the Automated Ball-Strike System (maybe a good thing)?

Dena R. Verkuil’s USA Today Crossword, “First Date” — Emily’s write-up

Such a sweet theme.

USA Today, April 30, 2026, “First Date” by Dena R. Verkuil

Theme: the first word of each themer is a synonym for “date”

Themers:

• 17a. [Medieval entertainer], COURTJESTER
• 39a. [“Do you catch my drift?”], SEEWHATIMSAYING
• 59a. [List of dishes that might be distributed as a flyer], TAKEOUTMENU

A wide variety in today’s themer set with COURTJESTER, SEEWHATIMSAYING, and TAKEOUTMENU. The first was an insta-fill for me but for the other two I needed a few crossings. h/t to Sally for helping spot this theme, though the title hint should have gotten me there. A fun theme for sure!

Favorite fill: INSET, NECTAR, and ENOKI

Stumpers: ISLETS (misdirected by cluing), SPEEDIEST (needed crossings), and DIA (new to me)

A tricky solve for me today! The SE quadrant stumped me with many of its cluings and crossings so it took a while for me to break into that section of the puzzle. Overall the fill isn’t too tough, so it may ahve just been a perfect storm of factors for me personally today. Did anyone else find it tricky or not?

3.5 stars

~Emily