Socialist May Initially Condume Beef Say Crossword Clue

June 15, 2022 Post a Comment

Portmanteau for a dumpster-diving anti-consumerist eater / FRI 12-17-21 / Popular Korean rice dish / Ancient land that includes parts of modern Iraq and Turkey / Mammal with four toes on the front feet and three on the back / Sophia Loren title role of 1953 / Fifth-century invaders

Constructor: Evans Clinchy

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: none

Word of the Day: BIBIMBAP(1A: Popular Korean rice dish) —

Bibimbap ( BEE-bim-bap, from Korean비빔밥 [pi.bim.p͈ap̚], literally "mixed rice"), sometimes romanized asbi bim bap orbi bim bop, is a Korean rice dish. The term "bibim" means mixing rice (burned rice at the bottom of the dish and cooked rice), while the "bap" noun refers to rice.Bibimbap is served as a bowl of warm white rice topped withnamul (sautéed and seasoned vegetables) or kimchi (traditional fermented vegetables) andgochujang (chili pepper paste), soy sauce, ordoenjang (a fermented soybean paste). A raw or fried egg and sliced meat (usually beef) are common additions. The hot dish is stirred together thoroughly just before eating.

In South Korea, Jeonju, Jinju, and Tongyeong are especially famous for their versions of bibimbap. In 2011, the dish was listed at number 40 on theWorld's 50 most delicious foods readers' poll compiled by CNN Travel.

• • •

***HELLO, READERS AND FELLOW SOLVERS IN SYNDICATION (if you're solving in January, that's' you)*** . Happy Newish Year! 2022! I hope you are holding up during these cold, dark days. It's early January, which means it's time for my annual week-long pitch for financial contributions to the blog. Every year I ask regular readers to consider what the blog is worth to them on an annual basis and give accordingly.

2021 was an important year for me, as my blog (this blog, the one you are reading right now) turned 15 years old! [noisemaker sounds!!!!]. That's a lot of years old. For a blog, anyway. 15 is also a pretty important crossword-related anniversary—maybe the only important crossword-related anniversary. The standard US crossword grid is 15x15, and now Rex Parker is also 15! Rex Parker, spanning the grid to give you the constant variety of crossword commentary: the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat (dum dum dum DUM!) The human drama of ... OK now I'm just channeling Jim McKay from the '70s-era introduction to "Wide World of Sports," but I do hope this blog has provided some insight, some entertainment, some commiseration, some solace, some sense of regularity during what are obviously pretty tumultuous and often lonely times. I hope it has enhanced your solving pleasure, giving you something to look forward to even (especially?) when the puzzle lets you down, and someone to celebrate with when the puzzle is wonderful. If it's also given you someone to shout at in disagreement, that's OK too.

A lot of labor goes into producing this blog every day (Every. Day.) and the hours are, let's say, less than ideal (I'm either solving and writing at night, after 10pm, or in the morning, before 6am). Most days, I really do love the writing, but it is work, and once a year (right now!) I acknowledge that fact. As I've said before, I have no interest in "monetizing" the blog beyond a simple, direct contribution request once a year. No ads, no gimmicks. Just here for you, every day, rain or shine, whether you like it or, perhaps, on occasion, not :) It's just me and my laptop and some free blogging software and, you know, a lot of rage, but hopefully there's illumination and levity along the way. I do genuinely love this gig, and whether you're an everyday reader or a Sunday-only reader or a flat-out hatereader, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know.

How much should you give? Whatever you think the blog is worth to you on a yearly basis. Whatever that amount is is fantastic. Some people refuse to pay for what they can get for free. Others just don't have money to spare. All are welcome to read the blog—the site will always be open and free. But if you are able to express your appreciation monetarily, here are two options. First, a Paypal button (which you can also find in the blog sidebar):

Second, a mailing address (checks should be made out to "Rex Parker"):

Rex Parker c/o Michael Sharp
54 Matthews St
Binghamton, NY 13905

I'll throw my Venmo handle in here too, just in case that's your preferred way of moving money around; it's @MichaelDavidSharp (the last four digits of my phone are 4878, in case Venmo asks you, which I guess it does sometimes, when it's not trying to push crypto on you, what the hell?!)

All Paypal contributions will be gratefully acknowledged by email. All snail mail contributions will be gratefully acknowledged with hand-written postcards. I. Love. Snail Mail. I love seeing your gorgeous handwriting and then sending you my awful handwriting. It's all so wonderful. Last year's thank-you postcards featured various portraits of my cat, Alfie, designed by artist Ella Egan, a.k.a. my daughter. They were such a hit that I asked Ella to design this year's thank-you postcard as well, this time featuring both my cats. And this is the result. Behold this year's thank-you card: "Alfie and Olive: Exploring the Grid":

We went back and forth on whether she should add more black squares to make the grid look more plausibly fillable (that's a Lot of white space), but in the end we decided not to crowd the jumping (or hanging?) Olive with more black squares, and instead just to leave the card as is, with the idea that the cats are exploring a grid that is ... under construction. Anyway, this card is personally meaningful to me, and also, I believe, objectively lovely. I can't wait to share it with snail-mailers (and oh, what the hell, if you are a PayPal / Venmo donor and you want one too, just say so in the message). Please note: I don't keep a "mailing list" and don't share my contributor info with anyone. And if you give by snail mail and (for some reason) don't want a thank-you card, just indicate "NO CARD." Again, as ever, I'm so grateful for your readership and support. Now on to today's puzzle...

• • •

"Am I ... MONSTER ?"

This felt like a Saturday. It wasn't terribly hard—maybe a little harder than usual for a Friday—but it just had that more plodding, leaden feel that I tend to associate with Saturdays (vis-a-vis Fridays). The grid shape was highly segmented, with largish blocks of white squares, so that feeling of flow that I love to experience in a Zingy Friday puzzle just didn't happen. You toil in one room, you move to the next, etc. The middle of the grid was by far the nicest part because you've got those longer answers streaking Across the grid, 1 2 3, and there's an alliterative quality to them, with all those "H"s (HOT ... HITS ... HOLY SMOKES !). But most of the rest of it felt workmanlike. Solid but not particularly splashy. Definitely felt like an older puzzle. Even the colloquialisms feel slightly quaint. FREEGAN is the one answer that really places this grid in somewhat recent times. Otherwise, it's a little heavy on trivia, with a cultural center of gravity that's more AGEE than ICE-T (who himself is now old, but at least alive). Whole puzzle kinda feels like VISIGOTHS invading ASSYRIA —that is, like something that might've happened a long time ago.

This one started out very promising with a delicious order of BIBIMBAP and BOBA , but nothing that exciting came along afterward. It's a little disappointing to see long answers wasted on stuff like ITTY-BITTY and (especially) ESTATE TAX —that is a long and boring way to go for an "X." And ITTY-BITTY is not only cloying baby talk made out of crosswordese parts (I'm looking at you, ITTY), but it's also a giant kealoa*, in that you don't know if it's ITSY-BITSY (better) or ITTY-BITTY until you get two very specific crosses. So yeah the longer Downs could've packed more punch. Fill-wise, again, it's fine. Your overcommon short stuff appears only rare, and in unremarkable places. It was unfortunate that I *finished* on the worst answer of the puzzle ( APRS , plural, yuck), but these things happen. Would've been cooler to end on GALAXIES , say, but your path is your path and it is what it is.

The only real difficulty I had was more frustration than difficulty. I came out of that NW area really itching to round that corner with some momentum. Screeching tires and everything. But instead my tires screeched because I had to come to an abrupt stop. You'd think getting the front ends of those long Acrosses would give me some rocket propulsion, but no. I end up staring at a THAT, which could be followed by anything, and a HOLY, which, surprisingly, could be followed by a lot of things. I wrote HOLY TOLEDO in there at one point, I think. COW, MOL(E)Y, MOSES ... there are probably more HOLY exclamations. Anyway, the point is, momentum stalled, buzz killed. I got going again pretty quickly, but no zoom zoom today. Thankfully, both the THAT and the HOLY answers ended up being strong. I was just itching to streak hotly, but despite the advertised HOT STREAKS , that did not happen. More chug chug than zoom zoom. Dutifully, I finished the crossword.

Some more stuff:

16A: Offline activity? (IMPROV) — hmm, as I understand it, in IMPROV , you don't have lines at all, so ... you're not really "off" lines, unless you're using "off" like in the sense of dietary restrictions, like "I'm off caffeine this month" or something like that. I liked this clue about as much as I like (most) IMPROV .

1A: Popular Korean rice dish (BIBIMBAP) — sorry, forgot to mention above that one of today's revelations was that in my mind I was spelling this popular Korean rice dish as three words, and also I was misspelling it BOP, like it was some kind of music or dance: "Do the BI BIM BOP!" (seriously, do it, it's delicious)
5D: Northern New Jersey county (MORRIS) — why would you deliberately make your clue this boring? What do I know from NJ counties? I had MONROE in here for a bit. "Family Circus" creator BIL Keane saved me, what a guy.
26D: Fast finish? (MEAL) — when you are done fasting, you eat ... maybe you eat a MEAL
46D: Some smears (LIBEL) — argh, fake plural! One of my many mortal enemies! Plural-looking in the clue, singular in the answer. By a logic which you can probably figure out if you think about it for a little (hint: bagels are involved), I (begrudgingly, angrily) had LOXES in here for a while.
30A: Tears (HOT STREAKS) — I assume they mean "tears" in the sense of being "on a tear," not in the sense of HOT STREAKS that run down your face when you cry.
40A: Pleasantly flavorful (SAPID) — who keeps inviting this word to the party!? You never (never) hear anyone use it in the wild, but every month or so (it seems), SAPID just struts into the room like "hey guys, how we doin'?" and you're like "ugh, SEE ME , did you invite this dude?" and SEE ME 's like "wasn't me, man ..." and then SAPID gestures toward his date and goes "You all know IRES , right?" and you valiantly suppress an eyeroll while muttering "yeah, hey, how's it going?" and then you go stand alone by the food table eating GENOA salami wondering why you didn't just stay home and read POE .