Maria in The Sound of Music explains the musical notes to the kids.
Cute theme. My grandson is three. Believe me I know all the words (and tune) to the ALPHABET song.
The southwest was my most difficult area. S AND P, HAILE, and DILEMMA hung me up. Maybe because DILEMMA isn’t what came to my mind on whether to eat now or later.
ADEPTS and OKRAS made me blink. Crossword-ese I guess.
Despite my problems, I did enjoy the puzzle.
...next time won’t you sing with me?
:-)
5
It must have wrenched the author's sol to acknowledge that English is a so-so language, and that he had to crop the sol of solmization. Near solace: the movies' Sol Solomon is a sole letter short for the grid.
3
A great Wednesday with a perfect level of difficulty and an interesting and novel theme that gets the mind playing on a whole new level. You scaled things up for us, Mr. E-S!
And I take note. Or notes, as the case may be.
1
DEB AMLEN - ALERT! MEA CULPA!
I inadvertently seem to have deleted most of a long thread of replies to a post started by myself, 11 hours ago (including 2 by you). Is it possible to reinstate them?
NICE CUPPA,
I don't know if you did it or if Deb can "restore" it, but this link should take you to the thread with 15 replies:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/crosswords/daily-puzzle-2018-10-10.ht...
Hi CUPPA, Sorry, we can put 'em through, but once they're gone, they're gone. It's not a high crime, though.
Thanks, Barry.
Hi NICE CUPPA,
Sorry, we can put 'em through, but once they're gone, they're gone. Sorry for the inconvenience, and no mea culpa necessary. I've done it myself.
Thanks, Barry.
Another relatively tough puzzle. Lots of names, most of which were unknown to me. The ones I did know date me: e.g., INOUYE, GRIESE, HAILE. *Again* befuddled by a "this AND that" entry (54D).
Did not understand the revealer because I couldn't remember The Alphabet Song (glommed onto it later). Thanks, Alex, for listing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. *That* I knew. ("Solfege?")
INSPOTS for "Here and there?" Explanation, please?
Agree with others -- should be SOL (something I learned from a previous puzzle).
SXSW again so soon?! (On a related theme, am now dealing with the Austin City Limits Festival -- last and this coming weekend. Crowds, traffic, noise. Harrumph!)
Solfège is the term for the mapping of syllables to notes (e.g. “do” for the tonic), usually used in an educational context.
INSPOTS is two words, “in spots” to mean in various places, i.e. here and there.
@Anonymatt
Thanks for your reply. I was interpreting "in spots" as "trendy spots."
DODO, SOSO, LALA are good but why go to a solo SO? You had RAYRAY, MEME, FAFA, TEETEE to choose from to complete the pattern. Maria would not be happy!
@TKW
I think it's explained in the early comments today.
Great puzzle. Not knowing how to spell Haile or Inouye tripped me up for a time. Stir for prison was also new to me.
For all those worried by a dilemma:
“My father was a leaping enigma.
My mother, a fuzzy paradox.
And what am I? A horned dilemma! . . .”
From a misspent youth in Cambridge of the 1960s.
Google did not help. Krokodiloes? Whiffenpoofs? The Fantastiks?
2
A revue, The Proposition, in Inman Square. What I’d give to find that music!
@ADeNA
Would Tom Lehrer be worth searching for?
@ADeNA
Willthis help?
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1968/2/20/the-proposition-pbibts-nice...
I enjoyed the puzzle, but what explains 36A, "instir," as the answer to "behind bars"?
3
@Tom Devine
@Tom Devine “stir” as slang for cooler, slammer, coop, hoosegow, calaboose, graybar hotel, sneezer, joint — prison. Read it as “in stir”.
Tom,
STIR is slang for jail or prison.
(Luckily, this is a comments section, not a rap sheet; on the latter, the third time is a problem.)
I didn't notice that the theme answers were notes, just the doubles, so in fact filled in HeHe as I'd had HAILE as a for sure. That didn't last long, but did slow me down. Being tone deaf I didn't catch on to the ALPHABET song at first either, but did wait until coming to Wordplay, and it did finally dawn on me, so all in all a success.
I've done all the puzzles since being here in California with my family, just no time to comment until this morning.
2
To all the folks commenting that Yoko ONO is an artist, not a musician: she's released 13 studio albums, 8 collaborative albums, and 40 singles. I think that qualifies as a musician. Yes, she's also a multimedia artist. Nothing wrong with being multi-talented.
6
All I’m going by is her lack of apparent musical ability on Lennon albums. I believe “caterwauling” applies but maybe she has more talent than I remember.
3
@David Meyers She's an acquired taste. To me, it's absolutely caterwauling, and yet, it's oddly appealing...go figure.
My complaint is pluralizing okra (48 across), as one who earliest memories include my grandmother's fried okra (oh-KREE per her south Georgia pronounciation) I aver that okra like deer does not plural itself with an ess. If one is blistering ones hands hoing a row of okra one does not swear "those @#%$&% okras." For a novel use of the okra pods i suugest reading Jill Connor Brown's "Sweet Potato Queens." I would suggest if one must clue OKRAS, the one say, "Quick affirmative to pollster Scott."
2
I feel your pain, Mike, but this is the 14th appearance of OKRAS in the Shortz era (and the second time it has been clued as "Podded plants"). There was a thorough discussion of the plural in these comments when OKRAS last appeared, on July 4th this year.
@mike
I think the plural denotes different *strains* of okra.
One word: Yikes. This was a real grind for a Wednesday, but rewarding nontheless. Not to mention being a 16-acrosser.
The Austin festival and canal zone entries seemed to be very recent repeats. I got stuck on 54D for the longest time thinking of the Indy 500, but then that fill finally seeped in. Reversed the I and H in the pop star name then corrected it.
No lookups!!
Question: why can't that clue just be "Thurman"? T'would suffice.
And for the car, Ford made Corsairs? Oy.
One nit: Why is that dress clued for summer time? It's year-round over most of the world.
Let me end with a slight feeling of irritation aimed at weather reports: 20A is almost always used by the Grey Lady in reporting any occurrence of precipitation.
@Dr W
"Question: why can't that clue just be "Thurman"? T'would suffice."
To distinguish her from Thurman of the Yankees.
1
@Steve L
Now c'mon! With a three-letter fill?
@Steve L
Now c'mon -- with a three-letter fill??
This Crossword Has Published
[ 457 --> 0 ] Puzzles
Without a BAE Incident
Previously reset July 9, 2017.
7
I give an enthusiastic encore to more puzzles like this one give it a standing O.
Now for all who agree, let's rise and sing all together the ALPHABET song!
1
The history of the solfége syllables is fascinating. Here’s a link: https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/03/04/sound-of-music-history-do...
There is an ancient Latin hymn called “Ut queant laxis” which has six musical phrases, each of which begins one note higher than the previous. In the 11th century, Guido d’Arezzo (whose “hand” appears regularly in crossword puzzles) used the first syllable of each line to build the first musical scale (which had only six notes: ut, re, mi, fa, sol). The seventh note of the scale, “si,” was added centuries later and then changed to “ti” in some systems; most Europeans still use “si.”
But what about “ut”? That was considered hard to sing, so it got changed to “do” by a 17th century music theorist named “Doni” (guess why he decided to use “do”!).
One last interesting fact: Guido named the very bottom note of his scale (the lowest “ut”) “gamma,” so his scale runs from the lowest gamma to the highest ut. This is where we get our word for the entire range of anything: gamut.
15
@maestro This is why I read the comments section. Thank you.
4
@maestro - excellent post, but I beg to differ on the last part. The lowest note was called gamma ut (the gamma was represented by a capital Greek letter), and the name of that one note came to stand for the whole of the range, the gamut. The highest note was the la almost three octaves higher, which does appear in crosswords as a "high note" - ELA.
2
@David Connell - thanks for the correction. I have a vague memory of “ela” from a music history class a long time ago....
1
I sort of think that if you have to mangle SOL into SO in order to accommodate your theme, then maybe you should come up with a different theme.
I know few, if any, of the current portmanteaus, but it's always fun to try to guess them. IMAGINEER is a little twee, and I had to guess at the middle AGI, but I got it, and I'm pleased with myself.
Re 69A. Oh, please. If you consider that a DILEMMA, you've led an unusually sheltered life. It's a choice, not a DILEMMA -- and here are two possible Big Decisions you can make: 1) Have a small snack now -- some nuts, a few cheese and crackers, a soupcon of hummus -- to tide you over until dinner. 2) Have a late lunch, eat as much you like, and have a small snack before you go to bed to tide you over until morning. Okay -- Have I solved your "DILEMMA"?
I give this puzzle a SO SO REVIEW. When I go back to read y'all, I'm sure more than a few of you will have already said that.
1
"I know few, if any, of the current portmanteaus..."
Nancy,
IMAGINEER has been around for decades.
https://disneyimaginations.com/about-imaginations/about-imagineering/
4
@Nancy - Then you must hate the lyric "Sew, a needle pulling thread."
1
@Nancy
Rodgers and Hammerstein got away with mangling SOL into SEW, SO SO, while a SO-SO SOLution, is not SO bad.
As for DILEMMA I think that it depends on how one interprets and uses the word rather than how sheltered an existence one might have had. You do have a valid point, however I use the term as defined in the OED as:
A choice between two (or, loosely, several) alternatives, which are or appear equally unfavourable; a position of doubt or perplexity, a ‘fix’.
Heck, I am constantly faced with the DILEMMA as to whether to solve the puzzle late the night before or wait until morning.
2
I have LINKED The Mothers Of INvention on more than one occasion here at WP’s hallowed halls. This VIDEO features the graphic exploits of fabled IMAGINEER R. Crumb. Genius loves company. DO DO wop titles garner more than SO SO REVIEWS from this tough crowd? Lend this LA LA LAND band an EAR. INOUYE, I rate “Big Leg Emma” SO much higher than so-so; easy to dance to with a catchy cadence.
https://youtu.be/iGLSkIJtjX0
1
For whatever reason, my post of last night has been suppressed. I've made several short replies, all of which have appeared. This kind of thing can drive a person batty.
Mozart is one of several composers to take the melody of the Alphabet Song / Twinkle Twinkle and make it the theme for a set of variations.
Here's a nice recording that also shows the score:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyhxeo6zLAM
The "original" scale's letters began with D (!) in Greek theory; our basic scale letters begin with C. The solfege more prevalent in Europe always calls C "do" (even C-sharp, C-flat, etc. are "do" in "fixed do" solfege. In America, we more often use "moveable do" solfege, where the tonic note (home base) is called "do" and the other notes are assigned accordingly.
Interestingly, Braille music uses the letter signs A-B-C-D-E-F-G to designate the notes C-D-E-F-G-A-B, which makes Braille a "transposing instrument" of sorts.
4
To match the ONO clue, 5D (GRIESE) could have been clued "Quarterback whose name sounds like he eludes tackles."
9
@Steve L
[groan]
Can someone please explain "in stir" for behind bars?
1
like a martini
1
AFAIK it’s just an idiom for being in jail/prison. I don’t know the derivation, but I doubt it relates to cocktail bars. Happy to be corrected, though.
In "The Shawshank Redemption," speaking of his life in prison, Red says, "I've had some long nights in stir. Alone in the dark with nothing but your thoughts, time can draw out like a blade."
2
These are supposed to be be crossWORD puzzles, not names of obscure or stupid TV shows, old actresses/actors. Let's have more words and fewer names to make things a little more interesting for those not watching re-runs on TV or keeping up with second rate film stars.
14
@robert
hear, hear!!
1
This was a struggle for me in some sections, but I managed to finish. Couldn't think of a film at 41a, so at one point I took a break on the back porch and alternated between singing the scales (do re mi...) and the alphabet song, trying to match up EF with the corresponding note in the scale. Apparently my tonal memory is no better than my factual memory, as I just couldn't do it despite multiple attempts. Finally told myself to just go back and work the crosses and managed to work it out.
The theme reminded me of something I read some years ago. Someone had gone to basketball games at multiple venues across the country and recorded fans chanting "Air Ball!". He confirmed that every group of fans everywhere chants it in perfect unison and always using exactly the same notes (sol / mi).
I'll use non-crossword events as an excuse to link this old favorite (and a forecast):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDRbF80NKDU
..
3
Stay dry, Rich (in Atlanta).
The news reminds me of Panama City Beach and days in southern Alabama, but Georgia will be on my mind.
2
@Barry Ancona Thanks, Barry, but we'll be fine here - just some rain.
But this thing could still be a hurricane when it hits Macon (about 80 miles south of here). Could be a rough time for a lot of Georgia, though of course worse in the panhandle.
OH. OK. Cute theme and satisfying fill. If I remember correctly, the first seven notes of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star are the same as the notes in the reveal. JODIE Whittaker was wonderful in Broadchurch. Paper or PLASTIC -- talk about a DILEMMA.
1
Interesting photo today although I am not sure how well it relates to the theme.
I got LALALAND from the clue and the revealer helped me find DODO BIRD and the other theme entries, (although I too was puzzled by SO and not SOL).
ONO has sparked a discussion today. "Artist whose singing can cause the listener to slowly moan her surname aloud?"
I'm not sure why some considered DILEMMA an inappropriate entry. True it is not a life and death decision but, assuming one eats a daily meal and has missed lunch, there does come a moment when one might ponder whether to eat a late lunch or to wait until dinner time. Maybe DILEMMA is a strong word but I have certainly used it to describe such everyday situations.
3
@Andrew
It's because they misread the clue. See my comment on the thread about this clue.
There were a few complexities that threw me, the most glaring was IN STIR stepping up to be CAST(S) as parade marshall. Upon further review I learned the phrase for hoosegaw dates back a mere couple of hundred years...I prefer a soothing ballad to today’s 67a ditty. Randy Travis croons to/about his BAE and a classic DILEMMA that has been an AGER of relationships for a long, long time.
https://youtu.be/pJgV-TGkFeU
SARONG For Now,
Bru
4
Your use of SARONG was SARONG.
3
My Corvair's oil pan was so poorly constructed that it came loose after a few hundred miles, spilling out oil, damaging the seal etc. I carried a replacement kit in the trunk until, thanks to HS metal shop I found a machine shop that tapped, or perhaps re-tapped, the bolt holes. The steering on the other hand.....
The tune in my head was from the Sound of Music and I never realized it was the ALPHABET song. Visited the Von Trapp Family lodge in Stow VT interesting and sordid back story to those plucky Von Trapps.
Solid Wednesday. Thanks Alex
1
Glad to see I wasn't the only one whose mind was firmly stuck in the Sound of Music! I was still struggling with it, kind of halfway there, but it took reading the Constructor's Notes to really click in.
1
@dk
But the clue was “Corsair”, an Edsel, not a Chevy Corvair, no?
3
Clues like "Live", "Record holder", "Summer cover-up", and "Here and there" (and there are more), and answers like INSTIR, DAYBED, KOOPA, and ASHPLUME gave me some delicious resistance. I like the mini-theme of GREISE/HAILE/INOUYE and the clean grid. So the puzzle was motivating and entertaining.
Even with a good knowledge of music theory and solfege, it took me two beats to suss the theme (with a happy "Aha!"). Which left me thinking that without knowing a bit of music theory, a solver might get the puzzle done but might not get it.
1
WEE-BEE INFO: QB=23 words/117 points/1 pangram. Short and "good in parts", like the curate's egg. Here are the ugly stats:
4 5 6 7 8 9
C 1 1 1
E 1 1
N 1
O 1 1
P 1 6 1 1
T 3 1 1
Y 1
BINGO, yes.
We had the usual Northern English loo, a very unusual word from the world of printing (which in the BK's wheelhouse of course); a couple of specialist scientific words; a long word I had never seen before, but that probably pops up in election years. There is that funky Yiddish variant; THAT class-ridden early 20th century adjective that keeps popping up here and in the crossword. Oh, and if you are doing this with your kids, you need to explain why hallucinogenic drugs are OK but not even the mildest scatology is allowed. So no POOP, POOPY or POOPOO today. NYET, tavarishch. Our old friend CONEY is also lost in time. And those BKs may know some obscure words from printing, but they never heard of a TENPENNY nail, so couldn't actually build a bee-hive. So don't get me started on PONCEY.
18
@NICE CUPPA
I was disappointed indeed that CONEY failed to make the cut, an animal that does not even demonstrate NEOTENY. However, I felt powerful indeed finding today's perfect pangram.
2
I, too, tried all of those! And why is yoyo never a word?
@Mean Old Lady YO-YO is hyphenated, and Spelling Bee does not accepted hyphenated words :)
No No. Ugh Ugh.
So, Will admits that ROTO-TILLER is hyphenated? Sam Ezersky, pls note. Still smarting over that one in the Wee Bee a few days back.
This seemed loaded with names, often obscure to me, so I spent a lot of my time hop-skip-jumping around the PuzzAzz board. Not my usual fun solve. Sorry.
Went back and caught up on yesterdays late Comments. Solid Geometry was not offered in the GA DeKalb County Schools curriculum....nor in fact in our children's HS in NE Ohio, though AP calc and statistics were -- generational contrasts, I suppose.
@Mean Old Lady
A quick Google search shows that ROTOTILLER is generally written as one word, no hyphen.
Those of us who do both SB and XWD probably all had the same thought re-ROTO(-)TILL(er). Maybe Sam and Will should talk to each other more.
I wonder if Will does the SB...he probably does from time to time, but it's a bit of a time-suck and he could be spending the time playing table tennis instead.
@Wen et al
Hands up for actually and physically using a ROTOTILLER. No hyphen there.
OTOH ROTO-ROOTER is hyphenated.
I was a bit confused with the revealer, but maybe it was just me. I realize that the seven letters of the alphabet are commonly used for the musical scale, but as far as the notes associated with each name go, does it run ABCDEFG or CDEFGAB?
@Art Kraus it’s more about the alphabet song. When you sing the alphabet song we all learn in preschool, “ABCDEFG” lines up with “Do Do So So La La So”
TIL about Daniel Inouye before he was Senator Inouye. Warning: coarse language but very impressive.
http://www.badassoftheweek.com/inouye.html
1
@Francine I've long thought that Inouye's actions in winning his medal of honor were so impressive as to be nearly beyond belief (e.g. prying a live grenade from the hand of his severed arm).
But there are much cleaner (and shorter) accounts.
1
@Rich in Atlanta
As an amputee, I was amused to see the combination of ONE HAND and INOUYE, and that it wasn't mentioned in the commentary by either Ms. Amblen or Mr. Eaton-Salners. Could it have been inadvertent?
Bruce,
Either Deb and Jeff and Rex didn't notice it, or they did and chose not to mention it. Did Alex not see what he did, or did he see it but choose not to mention it? Did Will or Joel notice? It's a wicked cross; I'm glad you were amused.
As a mother of a 4yo as soon as I saw ALPHABET emerge I started humming. I did notice the solfege originally, and was waiting for the Sound of Music clue. Loved the theme, found some of the answers difficult (IN STIR, GRIESE, INOUYE). But loved the appearance of IMAGINEER.
1
Eating a late lunch is a DILEMMA?
Yikes.
13
I had the same thought....if that is your toughest decision, you are living in some kind of...cave? Or LALALAND.
3
@Michael haha I felt the same way. It made more sense to me when I saw it as “taking a late lunch VS waiting until dinner.”
1
@Rc
If you're criticizing the clue, you're not reading it right. It's not two separate things: eating a late lunch is a DILEMMA and waiting till dinner is a DILEMMA. Rather, "to eat a late lunch or wait for dinner" is together one DILEMMA.
2
Why is ONO so often cued as some kind of singer? She was a notable experimental artist. Her brief foray into music was an experiment that left no trace outside Beatlemania Trivia and bad crossword cues.
14
No one else seems interested in this, but I'll take a shot at 45-A. The clue was "1950s Corsairs, e.g." and the putative answer is "EDSELS." There are many reasons why the Edsel failed, most of them good ones. In the opinion of many automotive experts and journalists, however, the Corsair was forced from the market by deceitful and frankly, dishonest criticism from Ralph Nader's group, particularly through the book "Unsafe at any Speed." Corsairs are a collector's item today, in ways that Edsels have never been. They were even raced in SCCA competition successfully. IMHO, it is incorrect to equate the Corvair with the Edsel.
3
I had winged instead of EDSELS until the crosses fixed it. Didn’t they have winged fins on the back? Just a bit before my time.
@Nikallez
I think you are confusing the Edsel Corsair of the 1950s for the Chevrolet Corvair of the 1960s, which was the subject of Chapter 1 of Mr Nader's 1965 book.
12
@Ken (formerly Upstate Kenny)
The main problem was the 'fish-face' IMHO.....
Big fins were features of many cars in the ensuing decade, I seem to recall. One cartoonist lampooned 'The Belchfire Eight.'
1
Any time we can argue over who sells LOX and who doesn't counts as a win against worrying about the real world.
10
@David Lundy
One might say that any time we can spend time doing a crossword puzzle, and then reading and commenting about it, or watching a ballgame or going to a play or movie counts as a win against worrying about the real world.
So let's just ban leisure time activities and all go out and become community organizers.
@David Lundy
I like your remark. It bagels the mind.
1
As I always, I take exception to referring to Yoko ONO as a singer. Artist, OK; singer, no way.
5
@David Meyers Thanks for sharing that yet again. A person is only a singer if you approve?
3
In musical topics, David knows what he is talking about and frequently enlightens us regulars.
Civility!
MOL,
Wrong David.
Got held up with INSTIR for “behind bars”. What?
1
STIR is a synonym for jail. Hence IN STIR.
4
Never heard of stir as a synonym for jail. Guess that’s because I’ve never been there. I’ve seen lots of synonyms for incarceration but stir is not one of them. Don’t get the connection. The can, lockup, cooler, clink, big house. All from movies. Never heard stir. All of those make somewhat sense. But stir? Really? Ok.
5
Some background: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/09/in-stir.html
And of course "STIR-crazy"
At first I was thinking scales and expected DO RE MI FA SO LA TI for the notes A - G (first seven lettesr of the alphabet). Then I realized the puzzle was too small for that. So didn't get the theme until I came and read the Word Play.
2
The first three theme answers started with identical syllables, but the fourth did not. I thought that was misleading, and not in a fun way but in an unfair one.
1
@Fabio Juliano
That was done because the theme answers are the melody of the song... do do sol sol la la do.
Sing it out loud and it will make more sense!
Now if only, as Alan J pointed out, the fifth note weren't actually "sol"...
1
I love the days where The Boy gets a shout out for helping you with an answer... and want to know when the Wordplay byline is going to change to ‘Deb Ambien & The Boy.’
3
@Calvin
That pesky autocorrect! Deb is anything but a soporific!
1
Oh my, CS, that made me laugh out loud.
@Calvin, he's busy with schoolwork, so I count myself lucky when he's willing to give me the time to help me with the clues. But if I ever start a band, that's EXACTLY (typo included) what I'm going to call it.
Another non standard grid. I like it !
@Brian
We had that wide one a week or so ago.
@Brian
What makes it "non standard?"
@Ron
Standard weekday grid is 15 x 15
When I first saw LA LA LAND on the plane to Berlin last year, I gave it one of my SO SO REVIEWS. But this year I've seen it so many times in my TV ROOM, I've come to love it! Especially Emma Stone.
1
I liked it too. My expectations were low because of SOSO reviews, SO I was pleasantly surprised. Loved the clue, too.
1
The fifth scale degree is SOL, not SO, in spite of Mr. Hammerstein's supposed "needle pulling thread."
Other that that, I enjoyed the puzzle.
21
@Alan J - perhaps one day my original post (now 45 minutes ago) will appear with that "note" and more...including a link to a performance of Herr Mozart's variations.
Perhaps it will appear...
One day...
@David Connell
Oh gosh I hate "The Sound of Music", for so many reasons.
David, music expert, care to offer an opinion?
@Steve L
Bless you, Steve. Bless you a thousand times, a million times. Oh, how deeply I hate "The Sound of Music"! And I've never seen any production, stage, film, any other place someone may have perpetrated it! The score alone is enough to make my skin crawl.
And Alan and David: I'll take your word for it, but I've never understood why sometimes that note is called SO and sometImes SOL. I've just accepted it all my life, so now I have to wonder why it matters.
Enjoyable. Now that my "The Boys" are out of the house, I need another way to learn some new vocabulary.
2
They don't visit? They don't call? They don't write?
2
@Barry Ancona
You sound like a Jewish mother. Maybe Benjamin should offer to take them to the deli for some LOX.
It's all right. We ate on the way over.
nice one, don't see much solfage in xword
2
Somewhere, somewhere in this universe, there is a place that calls itself a Jewish deli that has a supply of LOX. Everywhere else, LOX is found at bagel shops, and occasionally, the few remaining appetizing stores, the most famous of which in New York is Russ and Daughters on Houston Street. Jewish delis have a supply of corned beef, pastrami, and other sandwich meats.
They do not have LOX because LOX goes with cream cheese, which is dairy, and for the observant, is a no-no in a fleishig (meat) restaurant, because it is not kosher to serve meat and dairy together.
Even now that many so-called Jewish delis are not kosher, the distinction remains, and one would no more likely ask for a bagel and LOX in a Jewish deli than a BLT.
It’s similar to a hypothetical clue “Spanish restaurant supply” for the entry TORTILLAS, but for a different reason (confusing Spanish and Mexican cuisines, in this case). Somewhere, there might be a Spanish restaurant that serves tacos, but it’s not a good clue.
BTW, my first guess for LOX was RYE, which would have made more sense.
11
@Steve L -
Here's the menu page from our wonderful Gold's Delicatessen in Westport. Lox featured heavily.
https://goldsdelicatessen.com/menu-category/appetizing/
2
@David Connell
Oh vey!
I did say that somewhere in the universe, such a place existed. And now I know it’s in Westport, Connecticut.
I am sure that’s soon there will be other people telling me about other delis with similar menus.
And there are definitely some Spanish restaurants that serve tacos. I know this is true, I’ve seen them.
But LOX is still not a typical item on a Jewish deli. And for the reasons I mentioned in my first comment, it’s still not a good clue.
@Steve L
Perhaps you need a New York endorsement?
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/24ctqbite.html