Alison Ohringer author page
2 puzzles by Alison Ohringer
with Constructor comments
See the 17 answer words debuted by Alison Ohringer.
| R | O | T | H | M | O | S | S | Y | J | A | W | S | |||
| A | C | R | E | A | N | I | M | E | S | A | V | O | W | ||
| S | T | A | L | E | C | E | R | E | A | L | M | A | K | E | |
| C | A | D | E | T | S | A | R | I | A | T | E | A | |||
| A | G | E | N | T | B | U | R | N | T | T | O | A | S | T | |
| L | O | O | A | E | O | N | S | O | R | T | S | ||||
| N | F | L | L | A | M | B | P | E | P | ||||||
| F | I | X | B | R | E | A | K | F | A | S | T | ||||
| B | R | A | T | G | I | F | Y | U | P | ||||||
| A | P | N | E | A | E | T | T | U | N | A | P | ||||
| M | E | A | L | Y | A | P | P | L | E | S | L | A | T | E | |
| I | R | E | S | L | U | R | H | E | I | F | E | R | |||
| G | U | N | N | S | P | O | I | L | E | D | M | I | L | K | |
| A | S | A | P | O | I | N | K | E | R | I | S | L | E | ||
| S | E | E | R | L | E | E | D | S | T | H | A | D |
ALISON AND ERIK: This puzzle blossomed from an email exchange riffing on a previous NYT puzzle that had HOT OATMEAL as a theme answer ("What's the alternative? Cold oatmeal?!"). The realization that LUKEWARM OATMEAL (15) is the perfect length to span a weekday grid sent us down a rabbit hole of, with increasing semi-seriousness, suggesting suboptimal foods for theme answers. When we thought of the phrase FIX BREAKFAST and its dual meaning, we knew we had something legit.
We had a lot of fun creating this puzzle (and a fair amount of horror upon realizing that some common breakfast foods do not Google well — please just take our word for it), and we hope you have just as much fun solving it.
| C | A | S | A | W | E | N | T | F | L | O | R | A | T | R | I | O | D | E | |||
| A | C | E | R | E | A | C | H | R | I | P | U | P | S | E | A | L | U | P | |||
| P | A | R | T | Y | T | R | A | Y | A | M | I | S | S | A | N | G | L | E | E | ||
| N | I | E | C | E | L | A | M | A | Z | E | H | E | A | R | T | R | A | T | E | ||
| N | E | A | T | E | L | I | J | A | H | I | S | E | E | ||||||||
| I | R | A | N | G | A | T | E | T | E | U | T | O | N | S | D | E | A | L | S | ||
| T | A | S | T | E | T | E | S | T | R | I | T | U | A | L | S | P | O | I | |||
| A | D | L | E | R | A | T | O | M | C | A | R | M | E | N | M | C | R | A | E | ||
| L | I | A | R | I | R | O | N | O | R | E | S | O | A | R | I | N | G | ||||
| Y | O | M | G | R | A | N | I | T | A | U | S | B | P | U | L | S | E | ||||
| L | O | S | T | I | N | T | H | E | S | H | U | F | F | L | E | ||||||
| Y | E | A | S | T | A | G | O | N | O | T | T | R | U | E | B | A | H | ||||
| A | T | T | A | I | N | S | S | E | N | E | G | A | L | B | A | D | U | ||||
| C | H | A | T | T | Y | C | A | T | H | Y | E | T | O | N | A | B | N | E | R | ||
| H | E | R | S | A | M | H | I | L | L | L | O | C | A | L | C | A | L | L | |||
| T | R | I | E | D | L | I | E | F | L | A | T | D | E | P | L | A | N | E | S | ||
| M | A | G | I | N | I | A | C | I | N | P | A | R | A | ||||||||
| G | A | M | E | R | R | A | G | E | B | O | X | O | U | T | Y | A | R | D | S | ||
| A | P | A | R | N | A | O | R | A | L | S | B | R | A | S | S | B | A | R | S | ||
| G | O | R | G | E | S | T | V | S | E | T | E | G | G | O | I | M | I | N | |||
| S | P | E | E | D | S | H | E | S | S | E | L | E | S | T | C | A | P | S |
ALISON: I am a grad student at UC Berkeley in global health and infectious disease. I went to Emory University as an undergraduate and then got my Master of Public Health degree from Berkeley in 2017. I started "solving" the NYT crossword with my grandma when I was a kid (with erasable pens) and got more and more into solving them during grad school (with normal pens, mostly). On a whim, I started making puzzles a few months ago with a friend after we saw that Rex Parker (Michael Sharp) had offered his help to any aspiring constructors. Rex referred me to the Facebook group called the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Directory, and I sent my first-ever puzzle to a handful of "test-solvers," including Erik. The feedback I got from the dozen or so people who replied was all genuinely kind, supportive, and helpful. I'm so grateful for everyone's help and encouragement—especially from Erik, who became my de facto crossword mentor, and then co-constructor. We began collaborating on a few puzzles and submitted "Ghosted" in the middle of April.
ERIK: Ever notice how in the phrase "green energy," ENERGY is GREEN mixed up with a bonus letter? We set out to find out if there were any other phrases with this property; a computer-aided search turned up a large handful of possibilities, ranging from the erudite (ALFRED ADLER, ANDRE DERAIN) to the colloquial (FAST FACTS, RIDE-OR-DIE). Alison noticed that, using only phrases that dropped the letter in the second word, we could spell out PHANTO, which we found to be (most of) an apt description of the disappearing letters. The toughest part was trying to find phrases for the M and the S, since nothing in our wordlists would work and we had to search manually. How did people do this stuff before computers? Thanks to Alison for sharing her debut byline with me, and to the NYT team for having us.