Wednesday, July 22, 2026, Rebecca Goldstein

It's summer, and a traveling carnival could be coming to your town. Or, you might be vacationing in a seaside locale with an amusement park. If either of those things is true, you could find yourself going there on a HOTDATE (Organic chemistry experiment?) (excellent clue), and maybe you'll TRYYOURLUCK at the RINGTOSS. Well, I'd say you'd be better off doing this puzzle instead, because it looks like those circled letters are heading straight for the rebus bottle. And a big PLUSHTOY is just hanging there waiting for you at 11-Down. Hah! It's a fun little Wednesday theme. 

So, I was going to put up a photo of LOX (Deli supply), because I like it, but then while looking for a photo, I came across a page that told the difference between LOX and smoked salmon, and since it was something I didn't know before, I thought I'd share it with you. LOX is brined, never smoked, and smoked salmon is either brined or cured in some other way, and then smoked. So LOX ends up being a little saltier and a little less tough than smoked salmon. I mean, sure, now that I've said that it all seems obvious, but, well, I didn't know it.

In other news, UPC (Seller's bottom lines, for short?) got another cute clue. "Get in bad with?" was a fun one for ABET. And we always enjoy paired clues, as seen at 9-Down and 33-Across today, with "You are correct about that" cluing both TRUE and ITIS. My favorite clue today might be the non-QMC "They're typical" (NORMS). Sometimes those straightforward ones can be very satisfying.

And hey, did I mention that I was in Italy recently? While there, I drank quite a bit of APEROL.

Hope you enjoyed this puzzle. I'll see you again tomorrow for the start of the Turn!

- Horace