Crosswords of the Day, 8/18/2009

Today was quite a pleasant day in crossword land. Both puzzles were good today, although I definitely preferred one over the other.

The NYT had an always welcome food/drink theme, specifically deserts that start with fruit names, like BANANA SPLIT or LEMON CREAM. Even though this was again a theme that was basically a list of things, food items, especially sweets, are always fun and more importantly, totally recognizable and uncontroversial. I actually loved solving this puzzle; it all flowed really well, there was absolutely no bad fill, and it had a brilliant clue/fill that I'll get into later. **** bordering on ****1/2.

The LAT was decent but unexciting. It had completely unrelated phrases where the first words of each phrase could be preceded by the word BABY to make a new phrase. So we get phrases like BLUES MUSIC and SPLIT HAIRS. The SPLIT HAIRS answer utterly confused me, and it was particularly frustrating since it was the one in the upper left, which one usually solves first. Now that I've researched it, I discovered that the baby split is a bowling terminology, but I had definitely never heard of this before. Oh well. The rest of the puzzle was totally fine, but unmemorable. ***.

Winner: The NYT. One of my favorite puzzles in a while, mainly because I was totally on the constructor's wavelength, and because of the upcoming clue/fill.

Best clue: One of my favorite crossword moments ever here. From the NYT, we get "Scientist who experienced a great fall?" for ISSAC NEWTON. Wonderful clue. But here's where it gets amazing. A completely unrelated entry intersects ISSAC NEWTON, namely APPLE CRUMBLE, and specifically, APPLE intersects ISSAC NEWTON. Love it! And as a bonus, guess what also intersects ISSAC NEWTON? ICARUS, relating to the great fall part of the clue! Man. :)

Worst clue: I've got nothing today. Both were bad fill free. I mean, the LAT had BLUES MUSIC for "B.B. King's genre" which is kind of awkward, but totally fine. And the NYT had TERPS, a word I'd never heard of and that feels obscure for a Tuesday. But both of these are not big deals at all.