New York Times, Monday, April 26, 2021

LORI: I'm very excited to have my first puzzle published with one of my favorite sons as a collaborator. The puzzles have always been a family affair. My father-in-law would solve the puzzle in pen as we watched in awe. My husband Alan, who I refer to as the big guns, as he can crack even the toughest of puzzles, continued the tradition. He and I would solve them together with our sons always eager to help. And now of course, named for my father-in-law and taking it up a notch, Eric is a master puzzle solver and true cruciverbalist.

The genesis for the puzzle came during a family vacation, including my other favorite son Marc. In transit to pass the time, we were brainstorming ideas for puzzles; and as someone who is preoccupied with food, this theme occurred to me.

I'm a retired hardware engineer and former chip designer. The love of puzzles and problem solving led me to study engineering, with a brief stop in art school on the way. I'm a voracious reader, volunteer, activist, and cooking enthusiast.

I was happy to be able to include JANE AUSTEN, one of my favorite authors, but was disappointed to lose the reference to Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (Producer Ron MOORE) in the clues, another favorite. Our original submission had OPI at 61-Down, clued [Kinky in Helsinki nail polish brand], which would have been an Easter egg for my dear friend and puzzler extraordinaire, Judy, but the editing team changed it to make the puzzle more Monday friendly.

It was a lot of fun to produce this with Eric. He led me through the entire process of building and clueing it. The silver lining of the pandemic was the time with my guys and taking a hobby to the next level.

I hope that you enjoy solving it.

ERIC: With theme answers of length 9, 10, 10, and 11, we were quite constrained in designing the grid. This led to some subpar fill towards the bottom of the grid. On the bright side, the top of the grid was mostly unconstrained, which let us easily add all the letters needed for a pangram.

It was fun to work on this puzzle with my mom, and I hope you enjoy solving!

Such a regal theme, WHITE CASTLE, DAIRY QUEEN, and BURGER KING all members of a FOOD COURT! I'm kicking myself, having never noticed this connection. I haven't had such a strong feeling of being outWITTed in ages. (Wish I'd Thought of That)

Neat gridwork, too. You don't even have to squint that hard to see castle shapes in the grid. Imagine the top of a rook (castle) in chess — don't the top five rows evoke that? I can also imagine a main gate in the south, with crenels above FOOD COURT.

There is a bit of a moat, with ANGE mucking around with ADIN, TENN, RKO. I had a long moment of hesitation before giving this the POW! because there are so many trouble spots that could turn away newer solvers.

Pinching DAIRY QUEEN and BURGER KING inward one column might have helped (then placing black squares at the Y of YALE and E of URGE). Filling cleanly around two adjacent long downs can be such a bear.

However, I did enjoy the bonuses of JANE AUSTEN and ROSE GARDEN. They didn't offset all the hitches I experienced through the short fill, but they did make up for some of it.

All in all, a fantastic theme — so fun, elegantly wrapped up with a perfect revealer.