I'll say I'm surprised that this year's team not only made it this far, but they're the number one seed. When I saw them play at Villanova earlier this season, they were destroyed at the X, losing 23 of 25 face-offs. Very few teams are able to survive giving their opponents twenty extra possessions, and sure enough, the Wildcats pulled off an 11-10 win.
The 'Cuse got their revenge in the Big East tournament, coming close to even in the face-off department and winning the game 13-9, but their Achilles heel is exposed. In the first round of the NCAA tournament, they ran into the best face-off man in the nation, and Kevin Massa won 22 of 23 to allow a below-.500 team to hold a lead over the #1 team for most of the first half. But SU played a ball control game the rest of the way, forced turnovers, tied it by halftime, and won 12-7. Orange vs. Denver, today at 5:00, after the Cornell-Duke semifinal.
So in honor of the team, I made a batch of salt potatoes to go with dinner last night. Syracuse is known as the Salt City for one of its early industries, and legend has it that workers who harvested salt from the briny springs surrounding the city used the salty water to cook potatoes for a cheap meal. They eventually became a clambake and barbecue staple in Central New York, and a popular snack at the New York State Fair. My adaptation of the recipe has the potatoes finished in the oven for a few minutes to highlight the salty crust.
3 pounds small new potatoes, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter
1/2 pound salt
4 tbsp butter
Add salt to 2 quarts of water and bring to a rolling boil. Scrub the potatoes and gently pierce the skin of each one with a fork. Boil the potatoes for about 30 minutes. Fish them out of the water and place them in a shallow baking dish. Bake for 5 minutes in a 350° oven. Serve with little dishes of melted butter and plenty of cans of beer. Serves 6 to 8.
I've got a connection to the other traditional Memorial Day sporting event: the Indianapolis 500. My mother is from Terre Haute, and went to school with Mari Hulman, matriarch of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I've been to the Speedway, but never watched a race there (nor have I played golf there: Brickyard Crossing is reputed to be an excellent course). While I'll cook up a Syracuse-themed meal in honor of the lacrosse team this weekend, I don't really know what would qualify as Hoosier cooking.
Long weekend: after pausing to recognize fallen heroes, you'll still have time for some extra puzzles.
Trip Payne posted a 1995 variety cryptic of his called Indeed!, originally published in the magazine "Tough Cryptics."
The Wall Street Journal has a Boom Boxes by Patrick Berry this week. If you have trouble with the issu content, go to blogs.wsj.com/puzzle and download the PDF. If you have trouble with the puzzle, you can request a hint on the comment side of the wsj.com post or you can look at the hint file below the fold, which gives you the enumerations in each row.
Nathan Curtis has given us a Some Assembly Required. In other news, his blog now has a feature where users can rate the difficulty of his puzzles, so if you want to bang your head against a wall, you can pick out one of the difficult ones. [update: this one is easier than most Some Assembly Required, so if you haven't tried one before, this is the one to start with]
Puzzazz users: update your app: version 2.4 has some of the promised improvements, including a new virtual shelving system that labels the shelves and includes a separate shelf for your purchased puzzle books. If you have purchased The Year of Puzzles ($19.99), they have added a Rows Garden by Patrick Berry. It is appropriately dedicated to the Rose City: Portland.
Falcon said the National Post puzzle this week was the easiest he's seen in a while. Props to Hex for even putting their theme answers in order--just the kind of attention to detail you expect them to show.
The Times has a Split Decisions by Fred Piscop behind the paywall. Deb Amlen reports that this is the first one Piscop has written since the death of his mentor, George Bredehorn, and shares some of Piscop's comments on picking up Bredehorn's pencil. That said, Bredehorn's work will live on for a while, as he left behind a database of word pairs he liked and wanted to use sometime.
hints for Wall Street Journal puzzle below the fold
Hints for Wall Street Journal puzzle of May 25: "Boom Boxes" by Patrick Berry
Scroll over the enumerations column to see the lengths of the two or three answers in each numbered row. That will help you find and place the answers, but won't give you the actual answer.
ROW
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ENUMERATIONS
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1
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3-2
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4
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6
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2
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6
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5
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4
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3
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4
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5
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6
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4
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6
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4
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5
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5
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5
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5
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5
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6
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5
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4
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6
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7
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6
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5
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4
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8
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6
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4
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5
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9
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4
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7
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4
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10
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8
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5,2
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–
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11
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5
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6
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4
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12
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6
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5
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4
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13
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4
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4
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7
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14
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4
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5
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6
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15
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4
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7
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4
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