Hi everybody, and welcome to EV 402 + 40.
The preamble:
Clues to each of the four-letter entries must have a letter removed before solving. In clue order, these spell out the name of a composition involving five contributors (one of which is two words) to be highlighted in the grid (39 cells in total, in six straight lines). To preserve DIPLOMATIC TIES, an impostor must be removed from the completed grid (five cells), leaving real words (ignoring spaces). Chambers Dictionary (2016) is recommended.
When preparing the clues for the blog a few caught my eye, mainly in the SW. I filled that corner without too much difficulty and expanded steadily from there.
As I often like to do I avoided looking at the message until the end. Once I’d finished filling the grid, I found that the “composition” was also something filling:
PASTA ALLA CARBONARA
Now I just had to identify the five “contributors” – or ingredients – in the grid, plus a sixth, clearly one which must not be added according to purists. The “impostor” should be self-evident: the preamble tells us its removal will leave real words. In the end I did need to research the ingredients (guess where) to identify the right meat and the second word of the cheese. Our recipe is:
SPAGHETTI, PECORINO ROMANO, GUANCIALE, EGGS and PEPPER
… but no …
CREAM
My vague memory of Jamie Oliver causing a stir in this way, was faulty: some investigation showed that it was in fact Nigella Lawson whose 2017 recipe included double cream and caused something of a media outcry. (I had been thinking of the time Mr Oliver added chorizo to paella, with similar results.)
Thank you Chef Check for a tasty puzzle!
| # | ANSWER | Clue with definition underlined | |
| Explanation, with quoted indicators in italics and ANSWER letters in bold caps | |||
| Across | |||
| 1a | SPEC | Conjecture s[p]un short kiss (4) | P |
| S (sun) + PECk (kiss) without the last letter (short …) | |||
| 6a | IN ORDER | Tidy private’s second name becomes “Golden Daughter” (7, two words) | |
| IN[n]ER (private)’s second N (name) becomes OR (golden) D (daughter) | |||
| 11a | CENTRISTS | Strictness almost sways moderates (9) | |
| STRICTNESs almost is anagrammed (sways) | |||
| 12a | RUE | Leader ducks constant pity (3) | |
| The first letter (leader) avoids (ducks) tRUE (constant) | |||
| 13a | MOOD | Humour one of three in Holyrood’s [a]in government department (4) | A |
| O (one of three in hOlyrOOd) is in MOD (government department) | |||
| 14a | PALMIST | Port receives help detaining independent fortune teller (7) | |
| PT (port) takes in (receives) ALMS (help) containing (detaining) I (independent) | |||
| 16a | EPIC | Long [s]tale bread’s innermost flavour extremely deficient (4) | S |
| brEad’s innermost letter + sPICe (flavour) without outer letters (extremely deficient) | |||
| 17a | OAFS | Retirees replacing pes[t]o for starter of farfalle – idiots! (4) | T |
| OA[p]S (retirees) replacing P (peso) for the first letter (starter) of Farfalle | |||
| 19a | AETHER | Endlessly breathes bad air (6) | |
| Endlessly bREATHEs anagrammed (bad) | |||
| 20a | Pub order maintains right impression (5) | ||
| PINT (pub order) keeps (maintains) R (right) | |||
| 22a | OSSA | Tar[a] finally exhumes adult bones (4) | A |
| OS (tar) + finally exhumeS + A (adult) | |||
| 23a | TOOK ON | Received fine visiting settlement in Fife (6, two words) | |
| OK (fine) inside (visiting) TOON (settlement in Fife) | |||
| 24a | IMPS | l[a]n glimpses misbehaving children (4) | A |
| The answer is in glIMPSes | |||
| 26a | ATTAP | Attorney backing father leaves (5) | |
| ATT (attorney) + reversal of (backing) PA (father) | |||
| 29a | VITA | [L]ending to flee essential life in Rome (4) | L |
| The last letter is leaving (ending to flee) VITAl (essential) | |||
| 30a | NIRLIE | Rugged Scottish liner at sea around Italy (6) | |
| An anagram of (… at sea) LINER around I (Italy) | |||
| 31a | HEEL | Tip Earl f[l]ed to unending misery (4) | L |
| E (Earl) put inside (fed to) HELl (misery) without the last letter (unending …) | |||
| 34a | MOHRS | Safari animals expressed pain when captured by member of Royal Society (5) | |
| OH (expressed pain) when captured by M (member of) and RS (Royal Society) | |||
| 35a | TROPHY | Decline to throw out Academy Award (6) | |
| [a]TROPHY (decline) removing (to throw out) A (Academy) | |||
| 37a | TEGU | B[a]it of quite gungy lizard (4) | A |
| A bit of quiTE GUngy | |||
| 40a | ALEC | Name of male leading pairs of [c]allow economists (4) | C |
| The leading pairs of ALlow EConomists | |||
| 41a | SWAGGIE | Mishandled wages curbing US soldier vagrant down under (7) | |
| Anagram of (mishandled) WAGES around (curbing) GI (US soldier) | |||
| 42a | HOLI | Closure of church [a]isle limits focus of folk festival (4) | A |
| The last letter (closure) of churcH plus I (isle) goes around (limits) the centre (focus) of fOLk | |||
| 43a | OPS | Police officers ducking constant military procedures (3) | |
| [c]OPS (police officers) avoiding (ducking) C (constant) | |||
| 44a | LOVE-SONGS | Pines over birds, failing to start romantic airs (9) | |
| LONGS (pines) around (over) dOVES (birds) without the first letter (failing to start) | |||
| 45a | STERILE | Steps to keep department at Mayo Clinic clean (7) | |
| STILE (steps) holding (to keep) ER (department at Mayo Clinic) | |||
| 46a | MESE | Fa[r]ce not quite embracing Siemens keynote (4) | R |
| MEEt (face) not quite holding (embracing) S (siemens) | |||
| Down | |||
| 1d | SCREAMING | Caught papers supporting Stokes in grand clashing (9) | |
| C (caught) and REAM (papers) underneath (supporting) S (stokes) + IN + G (grand) | |||
| 2d | PEPPERMINT | Sweet pimp nearly repents after misbehaving (10) | |
| Once anagrammed (… after misbehaving) PIMP with REPENTs missing its last letter (nearly …) | |||
| 3d | ENMITY | Dislike being married for the first time (6) | |
| EN[t]ITY (being) with M (married) in place of (for) the first T (time) | |||
| 4d | OROPESA | Float spare room lacking walls? Stupid (7) | |
| An anagram of (… stupid) SPARE and rOOm without outer letters (lacking walls) | |||
| 5d | RIDERS | Clauses teacher raised to restrict German article (6) | |
| SIR (teacher) raised around (to restrict) DER (German article) | |||
| 6d | I-SPY | International adversary ultimately [b]eats special game (4) | B |
| I (international) and adversarY ultimately takes in (eats) S (special) | |||
| 7d | OSLO | Capital’s old dull c[o]urt (4) | O |
| O (old) + SLOw (dull) without the last letter (curt) | |||
| 8d | ROMANOV | Dynasty jumper worn by bloke on front of Vogue (7) | |
| ROO (jumper) inside (worn by) MAN (bloke) on the first letter (front) of Vogue | |||
| 9d | DRIFT | Schism holds up democratic movement (5) | |
| RIFT (schism) goes under (holds up) D (democratic) | |||
| 10d | RETE | Lo[n]g to go north without national network (4) | N |
| E[n]TER (log) reversed (to go north) without N (national) | |||
| 15d | AORTA | Regularly aboard Thai vessel (5) | |
| Regularly AbOaRd ThAi | |||
| 18d | SCOTCH EGGS | Ruin, say, good Southern food (10, two words) | |
| SCOTCH (ruin) + EG (say) + G (good) + S (Southern) | |||
| 20d | PATHS | Directions: fire half of alternative practitioners (5) | |
| Remove (fire) half of homeoPATHS (alternative practitioners) | |||
| 21d | IN ANY CASE | However I say “nuance” outside of University is wrong (9, three words) | |
| I SAY “N[u]ANCE” apart from (outside of) U (University) is anagrammed (wrong) | |||
| 25d | SLOGGER | Lumberjack props up second workhorse (7) | |
| LOGGER (lumberjack) is underneath (props up) S (second) | |||
| 27d | TERAI | Hat from past era insured (5) | |
| The answer comes from pasT ERA Insured | |||
| 28d | PERIOST | Covering riposte’s unconventional (7) | |
| RIPOSTE is anagrammed (unconventional) | |||
| 32d | ETCHED | Characters in sketch editor cut (6) | |
| Characters in skETCH EDitor | |||
| 33d | SPLINE | Key function embodies programming language (6) | |
| SINE (function) incorporates (embodies) PL (programming language) | |||
| 34d | MEASE | Finish off diazepam to calm lan’s temper (5) | |
| The last letter of (finish off) diazepaM + EASE (to calm) | |||
| 36d | DSOS | Crosses donor sorting out [A]scot at first (4) | A |
| Donor Sorting Out Scot at first | |||
| 38d | UGLI | Fruit key to Tamil g[r]ub from the south (4) | R |
| The answer is inside (key to) TamIL GUb going upwards (from the south) | |||
| 39d | NÉVÉ | [A]verse to take part in brief call for snow (4) | A |
| V (verse) going inside (to take part in) NEEd (call) without its last letter (brief …) | |||
I noticed EGGS and PEPPER quite early on, but I had to get Pasta alla Carbonara from the removed letters before I found PECORINO ROMANO, SPAGHETTI and GUANCIALE. CREAM was not that easy to find at first, only because the impostor could potentially have been anything! But it had to be that – and it made new words when removed.
I enjoyed the whole puzzle. The trick with the 4-letter entries was well executed.
Thanks to Check and Kitty.
What a lovely, fun puzzle – very satisfying! I liked the device used in the 4-letter entries, nice to have something slightly different.
Thanks for the blog.