PLAYING WITH FOOD

Alex Eaton-Salners is an in-house attorney for Western Digital, a technology company headquartered in San Jose, Calif. He's been interested in puzzles and language since he was a child. He keeps a list of crossword theme ideas on his phone, so he can add to them wherever he goes. As a constructor, Alex says he likes to "subvert (responsibly) as many different crossword conventions as possible."

Although today's gimmick is similar to my Sunday from last August entitled Bird Play, the idea here predates that puzzle by a couple years. It was originally conceived in 2016, though in a slightly different form.

Themer choices were pretty limiting. BANANA SPLIT had just a couple of alternatives: BANK OF GHANA and BANK OF GUYANA. CHOPPED LIVER was my choice for "chopped" in the original version of the puzzle, though it didn't have any good options at the lengths I needed in this re-imagining. I was really happy to find MASHED POTATO in FOOT PATROLS. It would have been easier to settle for a shorter anagram string, but I think uncovering a 6+ letter sequence makes for a more enjoyable solving experience.

Of course, when picking viable theme entries, I was also constrained by crossword symmetry. I'm super happy that I achieved ordering consistency between the upper and lower sets of themers. Doing so required cross-pairing the lengths. So, for example, the 12-letter BANK OF GUYANA pairs with MASHED POTATO while the 11-letter FOOT PATROLS pairs with BANANA SPLIT.

Favorite clues cut in the editorial process: [It might picture a pitcher] (BASEBALL CARD), [Possible side effect of drugs?] (R-RATING), [Do one thing after another?] (MIMIC), [Junk collector?] (PIRATE), and [Cat nap trap?] (LAP).

For the record, my favorite theme answers to eat, in order, are BANANA SPLIT, MASHED POTATO, CHOPPED SALAD, and STUFFED OLIVE.

PLAYING WITH FOOD, this is a puzzle for my kids! Tess likes to powder her nose with marshmallows, while Jake smears things everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. It's better if you don't ask for details.

Four plays on PLAYING WITH FOOD today, like letters demonstrating a literal BANANA SPLIT = BAN / ANA bookending a phrase. Although I'd seen all of them before in various incarnations, STUFFED OLIVE was neat. There's something about the circle looking like an olive that pleased me. I wish all of them had such a delightful visual effect.

I bet the overall punch of the puzzle would have been stronger if Alex hadn't used pairs of themers; instead, using the referenced food inside the clue, i.e. BANK OF GUYANA = [Financial institution investing in banana splits?] I know, it doesn't quite make sense, but I bet there's some fun way to tie them together.

Cutting the themers from pairs to singles would free up valuable real estate to introduce a greater variety of foodplay. Maybe a SPARE RIB (extra R I B inside an entry), SLICED HAM (letters H A M slashed out), UPSIDE DOWN CAKE (entry containing E K A C), etc.? Having seven wildly different literal takes on food would have been more fun.

It would also have freed up room for more interesting fill. I did like DRUM ROLL, EASY WINS, GOD OF WAR, but I wanted so much more. Plus, the collection of oddballs like FUDDLE, RINSO, ENGRAINS detracted from the solving experience.

I appreciate that Alex chose a narrow field for his wordplay examples — it's much better to limit it to food, rather than have any kind of SPLIT, any kind of STUFFED ___, etc. I'd have loved a richer, meatier solving experience, though.