Friday, May 9, 2025, Willa Angel Chen Miller and Erik Agard

A decent Friday puzzle today with some interesting clues. At the very center is CHILE (Roughly 62% of its claimed territory is in Antarctica) - Who knew?! And "Cooking byproduct sometimes called 'liquid gold'" (PASTAWATER) - Why? Should I be saving and bottling it? I looked a tiny bit online about this, and some suggest you mix it with butter, pork fat, or oil to make sort of a pan sauce for whatever you just cooked in it. They assume that salt has been added to the water for cooking, which is something that I never do. Pro tip - it's unnecessary. 

Doesn't OFFTHEGRID (Impossible to contact by ordinary means) sound so appealing? I want to go to there. Well, there or the SEASHORE. I suppose they could be combined... 

There's slight repetition in the symmetrical "ITOO, sing America" and "How could INOT?" And the reminder of FREETRADE (Unfettered flow of goods) is too soon, too painful. Will the TEENY-handed tyrant turn the Dollar to PLAYMONEY? Sorry... too political... 

I'll end by calling out the cutest clue "Seeking comment?" (READYORNOT). :)

- Horace