Carolyn W. Stewart author page

Shapes of cheese today, a WEDGE, CUBE, BLOCK, WHEEL, and … SLAB? What, no Kraft American "cheese" SLICEs? As a somewhat lactose-intolerant fella who indulges in cheese (much to my wife's chagrin), it was neat to see some cheese-specific shapes. A WHEEL of cheese is so iconic, the big red disk of Edam. And who hasn't had a WEDGE of brie in their fridge?

I did some searching for "slab of cheese" but didn't turn up much. Why not include the much more common SLICE instead, I wondered. CW uses interlock (theme answers highlighted below), but this does create inflexibility:

• Once you place SAY CHEESE — great revealer, BTW — some sort of cheese shape must cross that answer at the second E.
• WHEEL works great for that purpose.
• There aren't that many ?????? WHEEL options, and some other cheese shape must cross the fifth letter of that themer. Tough!

Looking at all the constraints, it's pretty cool that CW got the SAND WEDGE / RUBIKS CUBE / MENTAL BLOCK intersections to work out. I might have favored a non-interlocking layout in exchange for upgrading SLAB, but that's personal taste.

Given all the crossing themers, CW does a great job with the fill. Those areas in the middle of three themers — SEASIDE / WHISK / LPS and WHOS WHO / OASIS / PIE — are treacherously constrained. Neat to see very few gluey entries throughout the entire grid. DTS and NEWSY feel a little old-fashioned to me, but that's about it that I noticed.

CW's diagonal lines of black squares sort of segments the grid into three pieces — the NW corner, a diagonal swath from the SW to the NE, and the SE corner — which makes it easier to fill, as you can tackle one chunk at a time. That's not ideal for solvers though, potentially requiring them to jump around the grid instead of flowing through it like water. But considering how devoid the grid is of ugly entries, I think it's a fine trade-off.

Nice way to start out a week, an easy-breezy theme: phrases with REC smack dab in the middle. C.W. chose some nice themers, SPARE CASH and CREATURE COMFORT being my favorites. I always like hearing constructors' stories of how they came up with the idea, and C.W. doesn't disappoint. I imagine her listening to her sister until REC CENTER gets mentioned, followed by a lot of "uh huh" and "you don't say" while madly thinking of theme entries. And if you're wondering, no, I NEVER ignore people when I have a crossword theme idea... huh? Oh, sorry. I was listening to you. Really.

Good consistency, as each REC always breaks RE/C. I suppose it would be hard to find R/EC breaks anyway. A quick search over at onelook.com gives a heck of a lot of options for the RE/C split, many more than the R/EC. And when you add the constraint that REC be right in the middle of the phrase, the only entry I could find was BARTER ECONOMY. Being a finance and econ junkie, I love that phrase, but I can see how other (read: normal) people would start swearing up a blue streak.

One small issue did give me a slight pause. One was that I was expecting some sort of S* C* initials puzzle because of SCORECARD and SPARE CASH, and then SCARECROW only reinforced the idea (I mentally added an S to make it SCREATURE COMFORT — my brain does weird things). So it would have been nice to have one of those swapped out for a phrase not starting with an S. Maybe work in PRESSURE CHAMBER and/or VIGENERE CIPHERS? What, you don't like VIGENERE CIPHERS? I am a dork, ao euh av!

Now who's sorry they don't know their Vigenere ciphers. (insert smug look here)

Lovely NE corner up there, C.W. working in SOUS CHEF, KAHUNA, AZALEA, and HYDRA all in one region. Totally makes the SSS worth it for me.

A final note on our crossword friend, ORTS. I remember the first time I ran into ORTS in a puzzle. I said "I gotta know what an ORT is to do a crossword?" and didn't do another one for a while. So I try to keep that in mind with every construction I do, often scrapping an entire grid if I'm forced to use an ORT or ADIT or ANOA. Opinions will vary of course, some people enjoying learning esoterica for its own sake, some reflecting fondly on the Maleska days. To each their own, but I'd so much rather have a couple of five-letter partials and plurals than a single ORT.

Anyway, an enjoyable diversion.