Today's puzzle put up little resistance. Although I didn't break the five minute barrier (5:20), except for three of the four theme answers, it was a read-the-clue-enter-the-answer experience for this solver. Which of the theme answers did I know right off the clue, you ask? The delicious GRAPEFRUITSPOON ("Eating utensil with a serrated edge"), but that one examplar was not enough for me to guess the theme. For that I needed the revealer, which spells out the situation pretty literally: KEEPITBETWEENUS, indicating that the letters IT appear between the letters US, as in JESUITSCHOOL and QUITSTALLING. With themes like this one, I am an ADMIRER of fact that people notice these kinds of patterns or features in multiple nouns or phrases and are then able to work them into a puzzle grid. Neat.
As expected in a Monday puzzle, we encounter some standard crossword fare, but AMID ONTO, TOON, ALAS, ALES, TORO, and PTAS, we also have some fun C/APs including "Hilo 'hello'" for ALOHA, "Flippant freshness" for SASS, and my favorite of the day, "Elton's john?" for LOO, which made me LOL.
Fill-wise, I thought CENSURE and its near anagram (minus the N) SECURE were nice. There was also some fun with your rarer letters Q and J in AQUA and FAJITA.
That's it for today, but I'll be with you DURANT the week. Until tomorrow, dear Readers.
~Frannie.
Hi Franny! Interesting grid-work. I would've been tempted to put some more breathing room between the two 12-letter theme entries, but the constructor did just fine with his placement. Some nice Down entries like MOON ROOF, MINT LEAF, and THE GAP. (Surprised by the partial-ish cluing of the latter...why not the retailer, I wonder? OTOH, it reminded me of the new Orange Line subway cars here, except the signs say "Watch" rather than "Mind.") Very nice puzzle.
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