Potential Goal For A Unicorn

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Note to readers: In the past, Wordplay indicated crossword clues with quotation marks. In crossword construction and editing, though, clues are typically indicated by brackets, a practice Wordplay is now following.

THURSDAY PUZZLE — I’m hungry. Are you hungry?

Let’s sink our teeth into this crossword by Paolo Pasco and Sarah Sinclair. That should assuage our cravings for a fun puzzle. If you’re solving online, try not to get any pixels caught in your teeth; I’m all out of grid floss.

And if you are tempted to give up on this one for some reason, don’t — there’s a nice surprise when you’ve had your fill.

Today’s Theme

At first, I thought that Mr. Pasco and Ms. Sinclair’s rounded grid represented a cell, with all its parts swirling around inside, and that the revealer was going to be something like “The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.”

I was disabused of that notion when I got to the actual revealer, at 26A, which reads [Pepperoni, mushroom or green pepper … or what each cluster of black squares represents in this puzzle]. The answer is PIZZA TOPPING, but I had a problem: The answer, like many of this puzzle’s entries, didn’t fit in its slot.

And we all know what that means. It means that I spent a good amount of time cussing at the puzzle and not filling in answers, which is the hint I use to recognize that the grid is stuffed with rebus squares. Those squares, which lie along the perimeter of the grid, are shaded for extra visibility.

So we’ve been served a large pizza with some delicious toppings, but that doesn’t explain why we have rebus entries along the grid’s perimeter. That is hinted at in a second revealer, at 41A, which reads [Feature of a deluxe pie … and of this puzzle?]. That deluxe feature is a STUFFED CRUST, illustrated by the multiple letters stuffing the shaded squares.

I hope you finish the pizza — sorry, I mean the puzzle — because when I entered that last letter, the grid came to life in a way that made me hungry for more.

Tricky Clues

1A. My first guess for [Château : France :: ___ : Spain], before I knew about the rebuses, was “casa,” but clearly I wasn’t thinking big enough. The answer is CASTILLO.

50A. When [Rough houses?] is one word, it means to wrestle or to play physically. As a two-word clue, it refers to houses that are literally rough, and the answer is STUCCOS.

66A. This [Vixen, e.g.] is not the old-timey term for a spirited woman. It’s one of Santa’s REINDEER.

3D. The [College team whose name is its home state minus two letters] is the Fighting ILLINI, and the missing letters are O and S.

17D. Did you think that the constructors were talking about musical instruments in the clue [One of two heard in “This Kiss”]? Not this time. But there are two SHORT I’s in the phrase.

24D. When a crossword clue is enclosed by brackets in the puzzle itself, it prompts the solver to think of a nonverbal synonym. What would you do if you were wondering [[Is this still good?]]? You might SNIFF the item in question.

36D. An [Artist whose work has a wide reach?] is a MURALIST, because many murals are wide in size.

59D. Oh, I wish I were an Oscar MAYER wiener … that is what I’d truly like to be …

Constructor Notes

I’ve read a lot of constructor notes in my time, but this is one of my favorites.

HOW TO MAKE A PIZZA:

1. Think about Evan Birnholz’s “False Starts” puzzle, as you do once every week or so.

2. Wonder if there are other ways you can have a crossword in which every Across answer has a fun/tricky property.

3. Have an idea for a puzzle in which every Across answer starts with a two-letter rebus, with the revealer SHRUNKEN HEADS.

4. SHRUNKEN HEADS might not be the best thing for the breakfast test. Maybe pivot.

5. Tweak the idea into STUFFED CRUST, with the two-letter rebuses being at the beginning and end of every Across entry.

6. Run the idea by Sarah, who suggests a grid shaped like a pizza, with two-letter rebuses around the “crust.”

7. Realize this makes the idea good. Go forward with a collab.

8. Go back and forth a lot about what a mushroom looks like in black square form.

9. Try to make the grid in Crossfire. Realize it was not designed to put 40 different two-letter rebuses in squares according to the constructors’ whims. (We were shocked to learn this; it seems like a fatal design flaw.)

10. Remember the aaronson.org-linked project Swordsmith, a open-source, Python-based, grid-filling engine that allows for more tinkering.

11. Create an ungodly hack to force the algorithm to put two letters in the squares we specify. Now we’re cooking with sauce!

12. Realize that without the mythical Perfectly Scored Wordlist, the algorithm is going to keep spitting out lousy fill like ELODEA. There is no other solution than to create a 1,100-line spreadsheet so we can iteratively collect outputs we like and Frankenstein them together by shoving them in as additional seeds.

13. Delight in the finished puzza (that’s puzzle plus pizza)! Send to editors. Wait a few months. (In the interim, take turns buying Adam Aaronson pizza, trusting that he’ll understand the thematic resonance in due time. Realize that before that happens, you will seem weird. Do it anyway.)

14. Purchase a newspaper with today’s crossword. Preheat … pen? … to 350 degrees.

15. Realize a metaphor can go only so far. Forget about it and enjoy the crossword. Serves one or multiple people. Leftovers can be refrigerated.

Note from Deb Amlen to online solvers: Haha! Such kidders they are. Please do not place your devices in the refrigerator.