Hello, puzzle people!
For almost twenty years now, I’ve been going to eat numbing hot Sichuanese food on the Framingham/Natick line in my state of Massachusetts. If the term “Natick” is unfamiliar to you, it’s a square in a crossword grid that sits empty because the two crossing entries are too hard to solve and won’t cancel each other out. I hope you don’t have this experience today. If Sichuanese food is unfamiliar to you, I recommend you try some as soon as restaurants open back up in your locality. It’s a wonder.
It’s Themeless Week again at Square Pursuit, and I’ve been riding hard on the themeless train since Byron Walden’s excellent championship puzzle in this previous weekend’s Crossword Tournament From Your Couch. If you haven’t solved it, you can head over there now and grab it for free, along with the others, and consider making a charitable donation in return.
My themeless this week may be a bit gentler than usual, but you’ll have to tell me. May it be full of numbing hot flavors and devoid of Naticks. Enjoy, everybody! Back with an apt themed puzzle next week.
Square Pursuit 
Nice puzzle! Really enjoyed the long entries and the cluing for 13D. Definitely some rough spots, though. Not sure what source you’re using for 24A, the official data doesn’t seem to be available yet and none of the fake-ish lists that magazines publish corroborate it, from what I found (not that that would be an ok source, in any case). I’m not sure what you were going for with 4D, but I may not be familiar with some usage of the word. Marsala wine seems to be an ingredient in a sweet and savory Marsala sauce, but it’s not a “maker” of the sauce, to me. You wouldn’t call macaroni a “cheesy pasta dish maker”. I don’t know, just feels off.
Keep ’em coming 🙂
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Thanks for the catch on 24A. I think it warrants a cluing revision, and so I’ve revised it to be a bit more corroborable. I loved reading all that feedback, and hope you enjoy next week’s themeless. too!
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