New York Times, Saturday, September 6, 2014

CHICK-FIL-A was all over the news at the time I made this puzzle back in early 2013, and it felt culturally relevant enough to deserve a place in the Times crossword. I also hear it's delicious.

There's nothing like the freedom of the first corner in a themeless, where black squares can be deployed in all the optimal spots for your seed entries, creating a kind of custom-made skeleton filled with all the juicy words you can manage. As a (bad) chess player, it reminds me of the beginning of a chess game, when the possibilities are endless and it's on you to create something beautiful, memorable in the space in front of you. I started this grid in the top-left, and although I don't think that corner is perfect by any means (lookin' at you, YEH), I'm proud of it, in large part because the initial crafting phase promotes a deep sense of ownership. It makes it personal.

Something I'm learning as time goes on: 70-word grids are awesome. They seem to strike a balance between having enough spots for long entries, and being fill-able enough that mortals can work with them without needing to make too many compromises along the way. PINKY SWEAR and ROAD RUNNER probably would've been chopped in half in a 72-worder, and that would be sad.

As always, a huge thanks to Will (and Joel?) for his (their?) help with the clues. The PINKY SWEAR clue in particular is a stunner. I also love the clue for PUTS ASIDE. I originally submitted just [Shelves] — the genius [Tables or shelves] is exponentially cooler.

I hope you enjoy the solve!

Wow, what a workout today! At the 20 minute mark (where I usually finish), I had filled in maybe half the grid. James uses an unusual pattern today, giving us two large L-bends and two big 6x5 open sections, and each of the quadrants was tough to break into.

Why was it so difficult, I wondered? Part of it was that certain entries, while nice, are difficult to clue in a fun or clever way. Take CELERY SEED for example. Either you know what this is or you don't (the latter camp for me), and with a vague clue, it took nearly every cross to figure it out. Same goes for RADIO EDIT, which gets a similar definitional clue.

Even the great entries (both snazzy and allow for a clever clue) get beautiful but extremely difficult clues. PINKY SWEAR is such a fantastic entry, and [Use a two-digit confirmation code?] made it shine even further. So tough, though! I thought about security codes on a smartphone, perhaps some sort of binary code reference, etc. And it didn't help that there was a trap laid at ["Ish"]. S is such a prevalent letter that I plunked in SORTA, and let it sit there for way too long.

Turning those big L-corners is a construction nightmare. James does well to integrate really lively long fill in both of them. CROAKED and STAINED are more neutral entries, but there rest of the entries stand out, especially HANGOVER and SQUIRT GUN for me. So tricky to get all the crossings to work, though. In the SE we see ORI and A RAP, pretty darn good. But the NW gives us a dreaded KON? / ?EH crossing. All it takes is one weird crossing to give solvers fits. Not knowing KONY 2012, I debated between MEH, YEH, and NEH, which all seemed reasonable given the ambiguous ["Uh-huh"]. KONM looked too weird, so I narrowed it to KONY and KONN. I chose poorly.

Aside from that, I enjoyed the workout. Some wicked hard clues for great entries — the clues for PUREES and PUTS ASIDE and ROAD RUNNER were pure gold. That last one was my favorite — "Beep beep" indeed!