New York Times, Wednesday, September 16, 2020

The working title for this one was "Fast Food Critic." I'd noticed that several fairly recent slang expressions for disappointing items can be applied to fast food. I thought it would be cool to balance Weak Sauce and Nothing Burger with older expressions like No Great Shakes and (in my original submission) Hot Potato. This last one didn't quite work with the rest, but Andy Kravis suggested a revealer of HAPPY MEAL. Then the clueing angle of a fast-food critic's negative comments really came together. I think it's great how Will and his team are always willing to work with constructors to improve a semi-okay theme into one that has some zing.

Regulars at the L.A. Times Crossword Corner, where my puzzles appear quite frequently, have noted that I must be a foodie. Food-related themes pop up often in my grids. It's true that I love both eating and cooking. Back in the 70s, I worked my way through college as a frat house cook. Now that I'm retired, I have much time for both cooking and making crossword puzzles.

I love the way this theme plays out, three great "negative food" themers, followed by a HAPPY MEAL revealer that flips everything on its head with a positive spin. Kudos to Andy Kravis for the brilliant way of tying things up!

While the theme made me smile, the solving experience didn't quite measure up. The biggest reason was that each of the themers is clued so opaquely that it's almost like uncovering a quote puzzle, relying on every crossing Down answer. That's often a frustrating experience.

Another issue was that the grid was chock full of tough entries, like ED KOCH from decades ago and Julie KAVNER, who would be tough if you've never seen "The Simpsons." Then add in Scooter LIBBY, tricky TACET, inelegant PLASM, and a bunch of AMS, CIE, ISR, OREL, PSA … it's probably a passable result for a Wednesday since mid-week solvers can usually handle trickier things, but no doubt, I had to put up a fight to figure it all out.

Since this is a fairly simple theme, I'd have much preferred to slate it to run on a Monday, with more obvious clues — NOTHING BURGER clued to McDonald's, for example — and a newb-friendly grid.

I did enjoy some clever clues, thankfully. SALOON as a place where shots are served (or fired); that's amusing! It took me a while to understand why ASIA might be "polo grounds," but once I figured out the capitalized P was important — as in Marco Polo — it delighted.

SYLLABLE was the highlight, referring to the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" — so much fun to see that spelled out, especially considering crossword clues usually are kept brief. This kind of accessible amusement would also have been great on a Monday.