Thursday, April 23, 2026 |

BEQ tk (Eric) rate it
Fireball tk (Jenni) [4.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
LAT tk (Gareth) rate it
NYT 7:55 (ZDL) rate it
Universal 5:31 (Eric) [4.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
USA Today tk (Emily) rate it
WSJ tk (Jim Q) rate it

Daniel Hrynick’s Universal Crossword “Loaded With Carbs” — Eric’s Review

Daniel Hrynick’s Universal Crossword “Loaded With Carbs” — 4/23/26 (Click to Enlarge)

I don’t know why I’m so averse to reading a puzzle’s title before I start it. But I missed this one and didn’t fully understand the significance of the circled letters until I was done.

Energy-packed foods are “hidden” in the theme answers:

• 20A [Planetary zones of “extreme” cold] POLAR ICE CAPS
• 36A [1964 Beach Boys hit] I GET AROUND
• 42A [Belt out with some vocal chords?] THROAT SING I remember 30-ish years ago, when Tuvan throat singing was the latest exotic music to have its 15 minutes of fame in the United States. I’ll admit it’s unusual by “Western” standards.
• 58A [Crypto.com Arena, formerly … and a hint to the middle four letters in 20-, 36- and 42-Across] STAPLES CENTER

So far as I know, I’ve never eaten TARO, but I know that taro corms are a staple crop in many parts of the world. I like that each “hidden” carbohydrate is in the middle of the theme answer, making CENTER literally true.

Other stuff:

• 9A [Country south of Libya] CHAD Of the 10 countries with four-letter names, three are in Africa. Maybe my African geography isn’t as bad as I thought, because I was pretty sure CHAD was correct here.
• 14A [Name that’s an anagram of “nomad”] DAMON I briefly considered MANDO (short for “Armando”).
• 18A [Desirable pancake batter features] LUMPS You don’t want to overdevelop the gluten by beating the batter. My pumpkin pancakes are pretty tasty — even when I mistakenly used cumin instead of cinnamon.
• 29A [Yearly movie event in Canada’s largest city] TIFF The Toronto International Film Festival began in 1976 as the “Festival of Festivals,” showing movies that had been popular at other film festivals around the world.
• 56A [28 grams, roughly] OUNCE I should probably have known this.
• 3D [Possible question from someone getting their first tattoo] WILL IT HURT? Don’t believe them when they say “No.”
• 12D [Bobs and weaves, for short?] DOS You knew this wasn’t about boxing, right?
• 26D [Yellow ribbon at construction sites] CAUTION TAPE The house across the street from us and the one behind it burned up on Monday; that whole “pod” (four houses sharing a common driveway) is surrounded by caution tape. I’m glad no one was hurt and that the fire department kept the fire from taking out more than two houses.
• 32D [Biome that often borders tundra] TAIGA I no longer remember what distinguishes those two habitats from each other. Maybe taiga has more trees?
• 35D [Org. concerned with fall protection] OSHA I don’t remember reading of that agency being gutted, but it wouldn’t surprise me if has been.

Zhou Zhang and Kevin Curry’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Time: 7m55s

Difficulty: Breezy (<8m)  |  Easy-ish (8-9m30s)  |  Working on it (9m30s-11m)  |  Rough going (11+m)

Zhou Zhang and Kevin Curry’s New York Times crossword, 04/23/26, 0426

Today’s theme: HAND ME DOWN (Something that’s kept in the family … or a hint to making sense of three pairs of answers in this puzzle)

• SOmeWHAT donates ME to COUPON
• CEmeNT donates ME  to BEEF LOIN
• HOmeLINESS donates ME to POLO

Didn’t quite catch what was going on with the theme until after I finished.  I understood we were moving ME around, but was thrown off by the wording of the revealer — I read HAND ME DOWN as an instruction, rather than an explanation of what was already done.

Cracking: IF I MUST

Slacking: AMT, solving it, paying it, etc.

Sidetracking: Fring’s COATI monologue