Saturday, October 11, 2025 |

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Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “Crave Matters” — Eric’s Review

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Crave Matters” — 10/11/25

A basic, old-school theme this week that’s telegraphed by the puzzle’s title: Take familiar phrases that include a word beginning with GR, change the G to a C, and see what wackiness results:

• 23A [Stream that’s been flowing from time immemorial?] ANCIENT CREEK
• 28A [Laryngitis symptoms for a rooster?] CROWING PAINS
• 45A [Wrinkle on one’s arm?] ELBOW CREASE “Elbow grease” was my father’s preferred remedy for any pot or pan that had food cooked onto it. Letting it soak was not permitted.
• 53A [Hard mass in a tree’s crevice?] CRANNY KNOT
• 86A [Excited to dine at the seafood restaurant?] UP FOR CRABS I’ve got a nit to pick with this one, but I’ll scratch it off.
• 95A [Boorish kangaroo?] CRASS HOPPER
• 108A [Throat treatment from a pediatrician?] CROUP THERAPY
• 118A [Hole in a chunk of Swiss?] CHEESE CRATER I’m not sure whether there’s any significance to the choice of cheese in the clue; Swiss cheese is of course full of holes naturally.

There’s some inconsistency as to whether the GR to CR word is the first or second word in the answer, and there’s the one three-word outlier. But none of that slowed me down, and I don’t expect it will slow many solvers.

The theme answers are all fine. “Elbow crease,” “Up for crabs” and “croup therapy” amused me more than the others.

Other stuff:

• 7A [Hen’s offspring] BROOD Not CHICK.
• 21A [Morpheus frees him from the Matrix] NEO The Matrix? Three letters? It’s Neo.
• 22A [Comet alternative] AJAX/53D [Comet, e.g.] CLEANSER I’m not usually one to notice duplication in clues and answers, but this feels like a bit much.
• 91A [Cinnamon treat] CHURRO Yum. They’re on the menu at our favorite Mexican restaurant, but we never have room for dessert.
• 113A [1942 Abbott and Costello film] RIO RITA I feel like I’ve suddenly started seeing that answer a lot in the last few weeks.
• 8D [Karel apek play] R.U.R. A gimme even without the Č in the playwright’s surname. I think the Wall Street Journal‘s new puzzle interface can’t handle some diacritics.
• 13D [Means of control] REIN That looks odd without the S.
• 83D [Disinfectant since 1889] LYSOL What with the Ajax and the Comet, this has to be the most germ-free puzzle I’ve done in a while.
• 107D [“Pinocchio” author Collodi] CARLO I’m sure I’ve seen this before, but I needed some crosses for this one.

Sam Ezersky’s New York Times crossword–Amy’s recap

NY Times crossword solution, 10/11/25 – no. 1011

This 16×15 puzzle happens to have a lot of terms I wasn’t familiar with:

• 17A. [Symbol for electric flux, in physics], PHI. I know Greek letters but not flux in physics.
• 24A. [Ambitious tactic in bridge], SLAM BID. Joon knows bridge, I don’t.
• 27A. [Deck deception], FALSE CUT. For magicians or card cheats?
• 31A. [“___ Deo gloria” (Latin doctrine)], SOLI. Nothing like an untranslated Latin phrase with a vague context.
• 35A. [Car touted for its dual efficiency], DIESEL HYBRID. They have those?
• 26D. [Like typical frat boys, informally], BROEY. Not sure I’ve encountered that before.
• 27D. [Johann ___, philosopher who influenced Hegel], FICHTE. Never heard of him. Haven’t seen the surname, either.
• 35D. [String or integer, in computer science], DATA TYPE. That’s a thing? A semantic unit? Not green paint? My techie husband says yes, it’s a thing.
• 44D. [Lt. ___ Slothrop, main character in Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow”], TYRONE. I suspect most of us haven’t actually read that?

Oof. On a brighter note, fave fill: IPHONE CAMERA (nice clue, [It snaps with a tap]), HEADBUTT, LAMAR JACKSON, BLOW YOUR MIND, MANI-PEDI, Count CHOCULA, CABS IT.

Unfave fill: Basically a partial, NO TRACE. Plural APRILS. DIET TIP. S AND M instead of the ampersand it wants. And for crying out loud, LP RECORD? This child of the 1970s says no, absolutely not. Between all the things I didn’t know and this handful of ugh, I didn’t enjoy the puzzle.

I hope you all liked the puzzle better than I did and found things that resonated with you. 2.75 stars from me.