So I had every intention of completing this puzzle this morning, then spending a leisurely day working on the blog entry – not that it would take me all day, but I could work on it for a while, take a break, come back to it, etc. However, household chores and an administrative 10D kept me occupied all day, and at 4pm as I was getting ready to actually relax, I realized I still needed to solve the puzzle and write the blog entry. So a bit more hurried than I had hoped, but at least I will get it posted on the same day the puzzle comes out… fingers crossed.

• Name: Dinner Combos
• Grid size: 15×15
• Entries: 68
• Difficulty: Medium Easy (my solve time: 6:50)

“Dinner Combos” is what was promised, and that’s pretty much what we get. The themers are portmanteaus (or portmanteaux?) of two different dinner entrees. clued punnily as combination dinners:

• 15A: [Flaky Greek dish/Mexican wrap combo?]: SPANAKOPITACO – Spanakopita is a Greek savory spinach pie with a flaky outer crust – quite delicious. If you put it in a tortilla, and maybe garnished it with salsa and guacamole, it would be a very unusual taco.
• 22A: [Con carne/creamy pasta combo?]: CHILINGUINE – I made a really good firehouse chili last week that was a mash up of chili and gumbo – a real-world combo dinner I guess. Linguine is a type of pasta that is similar to spaghetti, but thicker and has an oval cross section. I could see serving chili over linguine.
• 32A: [Garlic shrimp/Polish dumpling combo?]: SCAMPIEROGI – Shrimp scampi is a simple but delicious dish; not sure it would go well with pierogis, but I’d be glad to give it a try.
• 46A: [Saffron rice/layered pasta combo?]: PAELLASAGNE – I’ve never made paella myself, but my sister-in-law does a version on the grill that is fantastic and makes for a unique summertime BBQ party. I will not recommend she add lasagne to the menu this summer. And I just learned that “lasagna” is a single noodle, whereas “lasagne” is the dish.
• 53A: [Squid rings/barbeque bits combo?]: CALAMARIBLETS – I love me some calamari – especially if lightly breaded and flash fried so it’s not too heavy or oily. I don’t think I’ve ever had riblets per se – I’ve smoked and eaten plenty of ribs, but I’ll have to keep an eye out for these small morsels next time I go out for BBQ.

My solve time belies the rocky path I took to the solve, and it was a nail-biter whether I’d get the happy pop up when I filled in the last blank. Though I didn’t have to run the alphabet, I needed several tries and a bit of good luck to get 39D and 52A/D. I also just generally struggled – I’d get an entry or two, but then get stuck and have to hop to a different section of the grid. At one point I though I was done when I made a guess at 52A and didn’t get a pop up (happy or sad) – I looked and saw I had a huge chunk of the NW empty. 52A/39D is a classic natick, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen either in the thousands of crosswords I’ve solved. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.

Canadian content:

• 2D: [Drake’s output]: RAP SONGS – Aubrey Drake Graham was born in Toronto and that’s about all I know about him.
• 17D: [Toronto alternative art gallery: Abbr.]: MOCA – The Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto is currently closed for installation but will reopen April 17th.
• 18A: [Ottawa-based spy agcy.]: CSIS – The Canadian Security Intelligence Service investigates activities suspected of constituting threats to the security of Canada and reports on them to the Government of Canada.
• 27A: [Roadside Assistance grp.]: CAA – The Canadian Automobile Association provides roadside assistance to motorists in need. I once had a dead battery while out running errands. I was not an AAA member (or CAA for that matter) but I was able to use my phone to join and arrange a jump for my battery within 20 minutes. I’ve been a loyal member ever since.
• 40A: [Star or Sun release: Abbr.]: ISS – Assuming that the clue references the issues that the Toronto Star or Vancouver Sun put out, I’m counting this as Canadian content. I briefly thought it could be solar wind, or photons, or something else astronomical but the capitalization pointed me elsewhere.

Other stuff:

• 4D: [Depot: Abbr.]: STN – Is it STA or STN? Flip a coin.
• 10D: [Absolute fiasco]: SNAFU – Situation Normal, All Fouled Up.
• 25A: [Suppress, as emotions]: CONTAIN – I was wracking my brain trying to get this – hold in? bury? some other clinical term? I needed most of the crosses to finally get it.
• 39D: [Scottish “Satan”]: DEIL – OK, I have definitely never seen this one before, but I guess I should have known to just take the English word and remove a few random letters.
• 52A: [South African Dutch dialect]: TAAL – Oof – this was almost the death of me – I thought Boer, or Rand, but really had no idea. However, I do know how to say “thank you very much” in Afrikaans – buy a donkey.
• 60A: [Claire’s car in “Six Feet Under”]: HEARSE – I recently rewatched “Six Feet Under” and can’t recommend it highly enough. Claire Fisher is my (and probably everyone’s) favourite character in the show, so she gets this week’s quote.

Quote of the week:
“I wish that just once people wouldn’t act like the clichés that they are.”
– Claire Fisher, “Six Feet Under,” Season 1 Episode 3: “The Foot”

P.S.: Maybe you noticed the various words in this post that have hyperlinks – If I did the coding correctly, those links should take you to the definition of those words in the Crossword Blog Glossary page I created. Let me know in the comments how it works for you and if there are any terms I should include as I plan to do periodic updates and additions.