Sam Acker author page
1 puzzle by Sam Acker
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 4 answer words debuted by Sam Acker.
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JELLIED EEL … that does seem like REVENGE! I wonder if it'd be any more appetizing served hot.
It's rare to have vertical grid-spanners as fill, and I can't remember the last time a theme revealer was presented like REVENGE IS A DISH / BEST SERVED COLD. I appreciate the novelty.
I didn't understand what REVENGE had to do with anything, though. If we're simply talking about things that are served cold, there are hundreds of options to choose from, which makes the selections feel arbitrary.
That huge flexibility is important if you want to intersect the dishes into the revealer — and Sam did a wonderful job of interlocking everything together — but I wanted something more out of the theme than meshed theme answers.
(Note that some people adore themer interlock; Will Shortz tends in that direction.)
How delicious would it have been if this featured all cold dishes … dished up in famous murders! Doesn't it seem like Poirot would have investigated many murders-by-aspic? Surely an evildoer deviled Lupin with deviled eggs?
*five-hour timesuck of Jeff falling down Agatha Christie and Maurice Leblanc rabbit holes*
Neat debut, with memorable grid design. I even liked the wriggly eel of black squares in the center of the grid, made possible by the off-size 14x15 dimensions.