That's One Small Slice of Lasagna

by clev

• Play it ↗
• Difficulty: easy

It's good to see a categorical make its way into the Puzzmo rotation. Today's grid has four hefty themers, stacked in pairs of two. It's a solid feat of construction that makes for a great puzzle.

The theme is a list of lasagna ingredients: each of cheese, noodles, meat, and sauce making their way into EXTRACHEESE, POOLNOODLES, MEATGRINDER, and SECRETSAUCE. Cheese and sauce lose a tiny bit of punch because their words are 1-1 with their ingredients (EXTRACHEESE is just cheese but more, MEATGRINDER is a totally different noun). But this tiny nit doesn't detract from an overall fun solve. Last thing I'll say about the theme is that POOLNOODLES doesn't create a particularly appetizing image in my head.

Shoutout to MEESE crossed with ASTER, the hardest corner of this grid. I'm a little surprised that I couldn't put this one together but I was so far down the flower rabbit hole that my brain was no longer functioning. I only needed the "s" from ASTER and I should've looked at the cross, but there I was, running through every letter in the alphabet. I later watched as my partner slotted MEESE instantly and I was blown away by her wizadry. If only my showerthoughts were as interesting as "If more than one goose are geese, why aren't moose meese?"

I loved seeing IMP clued as "Cheeky little creature in 'RuneScape'", it brings back some good memories. I recall having to kill what felt like hundreds of these cheeky bastards on a quest to retrieve four colored beads. Yeah, I'd call that a childhood well-spent.

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