New York Times, Tuesday, January 25, 2022

When the pandemic hit and quarantine ensured togetherness, Ellen began looking for a distraction. Peering over Ray's shoulder while he was doing the crossword, the spark of a new passion began to glow. While our styles proved dramatically different — creative flair and equally creative orthography vs. read-the-clues-in-order and zero knowledge of pop culture — it became apparent we made a good team. Our friends at Boswords provided us with hours of fun practice, solving cooperatively, and inevitably the idea struck: couldn't we construct one of these?

We studied the six-part guide How to Make a Crossword Puzzle in the NYT. We brainstormed theme ideas and created a spreadsheet of half-baked concepts. Ray inundated Jeff Chen with theme suggestions, but his polite back-and-forth didn't result in any great theme concepts. Undaunted, we downloaded some construction software and simply began putting together puzzles. We had fun trying to be inventive with our clues but we will never compare to Brad Wilber, and we used friends to beta test our puzzles (thank you David Markus).

After six very nicely worded encouraging rejection emails from the NYT, they wrote to say they accepted this puzzle, saying that it made them smile. For that comment, we smile as well and hope you have the same reaction. Here's to teamwork and 27 years of marriage, a love of games, puns, and each other.

Charles Nelson Reilly of the Match Game demands his respect, Ray and Ellen!

We've seen a lot of "combine two elements of a set for kooky results," including some featuring games — one even using SORRY OTHELLO — so my long memory made it difficult to enjoy any humor in today's. I wondered if it'd have been more interesting to aim for all real-sounding phrases. I can see the Department of Justice using the phrase MONOPOLY RISK, for example.

Where Ray and Ellen shined: their cluing, I can't remember another early-week debut with such a memorable mix of clues that entertain, pique curiosity, and shine in their wordplay:

• I had no idea all those folds in a chef's toque represented the multitude of ways to cook an EGG. Excellent way to make a boring ol' short entry sizzle.
• "Kiss-fist" and "shaking L"? That's the way to spark interest in learning! I might even take an ASL class now.
• It's so rare that we get a stumping wordplay clue on a Tuesday. Sure, a punny [Make oneself heard in a herd] for a cow's LOWing. But [In which head shots can be taken]? Perhaps a studio? Photo shoot? The answer is ... SOCCER? Ah, as in a header! Brilliant.

Not a standout theme. However, the solid gridwork — nothing flashy, but minimal gloopy short entries — and uncommonly strong cluing made for a fun debut.