"We'll Have Waters All Around" - March 26, 2021

[Dplass]

My rabbit hole was "take the clue numbers of each island. find other clue numbers that *add up* to that clue number, and use the letters to spell something". This, and its 3 variants, failed miserably.

[Bird Lives]

I also found the "We'll have waters all around" not particularly helpful this week. With 23 islands clearly observable, and with 1 begging us to look at them, i thought it was redundant. Any suggestions for a different title?

There are three elements:
islands
"something you might ask for in a restaurant"
adding up the numbers.

"We'll have waters all around" isn't redundant because the word "islands" does not appear in the grid or the clues. The clue for 1A refers only to "23 answers." As I said in a previous comment, I can't think of anything better. "L'addition, s'il vous plait" is not bad, but it's redundant with the 1A clue, it leaves out the islands, and besides, its suggestion of a French connection is misleading.

[femullen]

When I finally got it, I had to bite my knuckles to keep from typing here, "It finally added up!" and then asking for Sam Adams Summer Ale.

[Billy M]

A few notes/observations on this one:

Like many other muggles, I struggled with the idea of simply appending the word "dressing" to solve the meta. I wanted it to be revealed in the grid. But I also remembered that this is not the first time that the answer was not explicitly spelled out with the grid (and as others have noted "the rules are ARE THERE ARE NO RULES"). Most recently, TRIAL JUDGE from last month, was entirely derived via the rhyming of theme answers.

That being said, and this was in the back of my mind for most of the weekend, 1A could've been worded slightly differently to suggest that a third word would be found by adding. As written the clue reads

Put smaller numbers together to get a larger number, as you'll do with 23 answers here

An alternate wording could have been something like this

Combine that which is smaller to get that which is larger, as you'll do 23 times with 23 answers here

It would have implied that you were looking for 23 answers that had something in common and that you would be adding 23 times. In adding 23 integers, you'd perform the operation of addition 22 times, the 23rd time would be "adding" the word dressing. That being said, not my puzzle, and plenty of people still made their way to the shore. And somebody (once again not me) will be receiving a mug in the mail in the near future.

[Billy M]

An aside - I've seen a few posts indicating that someone would never ask for thousand island in a restaurant besides good ol' Micky D's. I'm here to confirm that while our esteemed group may not, there are plenty of others that do. People like what they like, and that's okay. Pre-pandemic, I worked in a very well respected casual fine dining restaurant, and while it wasn't a nightly occurrence, I would say that about three times a month a guest would request thousand Island for either a seafood dish, a salad that was already dressed, or occasionally, and please bear with me, a very nice steak. While we didn't keep it in house, pretty much any kitchen has the things to make it, and I can remember leaving my place behind the bar or on the floor more than a few times during a dinner rush to make thousand island from scratch for a guest who had requested it. Or ranch, tartar, or cocktail sauce. There was no way in hell I was going to ask the chef or anyone on the line to make thousand island dressing in the middle of a rush.

Also, Matt did say might

[HunterX]

An aside - I've seen a few posts indicating that someone would never ask for thousand island in a restaurant besides good ol' Micky D's. I'm here to confirm that while our esteemed group may not, there are plenty of others that do. People like what they like, and that's okay. Pre-pandemic, I worked in a very well respected casual fine dining restaurant, and while it wasn't a nightly occurrence, I would say that about three times a month a guest would request thousand Island for either a seafood dish, a salad that was already dressed, or occasionally, and please bear with me, a very nice steak. While we didn't keep it in house, pretty much any kitchen has the things to make it, and I can remember leaving my place behind the bar or on the floor more than a few times during a dinner rush to make thousand island from scratch for a guest who had requested it. Or ranch, tartar, or cocktail sauce. There was no way in hell I was going to ask the chef or anyone on the line to make thousand island dressing in the middle of a rush.

Also, Matt did say might

Oh I'm definitely one of those who said I'd never actually ask for TID in a restaurant. ("Pu-LEEZE...") But it wasn't a judgement against those who like TID. It was an attempt to maintain my carefully curated image as a Class-A snob!

I have to keep up appearances, after all...

(And if you've ever seen the way I pour real maple syrup on just about anything, or the eyes of those watching the quantity I put on pancakes or French toast, you'd be surprised I just made that previous comment.)

[auee89]

An aside - I've seen a few posts indicating that someone would never ask for thousand island in a restaurant besides good ol' Micky D's. I'm here to confirm that while our esteemed group may not, there are plenty of others that do. People like what they like, and that's okay. Pre-pandemic, I worked in a very well respected casual fine dining restaurant, and while it wasn't a nightly occurrence, I would say that about three times a month a guest would request thousand Island for either a seafood dish, a salad that was already dressed, or occasionally, and please bear with me, a very nice steak. While we didn't keep it in house, pretty much any kitchen has the things to make it, and I can remember leaving my place behind the bar or on the floor more than a few times during a dinner rush to make thousand island from scratch for a guest who had requested it. Or ranch, tartar, or cocktail sauce. There was no way in hell I was going to ask the chef or anyone on the line to make thousand island dressing in the middle of a rush.

Also, Matt did say might

These Deviled Eggs from a local fav don't work without the house-made 1000 Island Dressing - delightful!

FRIED DEVILED EGGS
HOUSE GIARDINIERA, NDUJA SAUSAGE, 1000 ISLAND

[Billy M]

An aside - I've seen a few posts indicating that someone would never ask for thousand island in a restaurant besides good ol' Micky D's. I'm here to confirm that while our esteemed group may not, there are plenty of others that do. People like what they like, and that's okay. Pre-pandemic, I worked in a very well respected casual fine dining restaurant, and while it wasn't a nightly occurrence, I would say that about three times a month a guest would request thousand Island for either a seafood dish, a salad that was already dressed, or occasionally, and please bear with me, a very nice steak. While we didn't keep it in house, pretty much any kitchen has the things to make it, and I can remember leaving my place behind the bar or on the floor more than a few times during a dinner rush to make thousand island from scratch for a guest who had requested it. Or ranch, tartar, or cocktail sauce. There was no way in hell I was going to ask the chef or anyone on the line to make thousand island dressing in the middle of a rush.

Also, Matt did say might

Oh I'm definitely one of those who said I'd never actually ask for TID in a restaurant. ("Pu-LEEZE...") But it wasn't a judgement against those who like TID. It was an attempt to maintain my carefully curated image as a Class-A snob!

I have to keep up appearances, after all...

(And if you've ever seen the way I pour real maple syrup on just about anything, or the eyes of those watching the quantity I put on pancakes or French toast, you'd be surprised I just made that previous comment.)

-again, people like what they like!

[ReB]

I guess I was very fortunate this week: I quickly saw that the 23 place names were all islands (which was the first fulfillment of 1A), so I immediately jumped to THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING. I was pondering how to confirm THOUSAND, when I was struck by the oddness of there being exactly 23 islands.

Then I remembered again 1A tells us we'd have to somehow add the entries, and realized that you could add 23 numbers to get to 1000 if the average number was about 40. I did a quick scan of the distribution of the corresponding clue numbers, decided it was feasible, got out my calculator and was duly awed when the last number gave me 1000. No rabbit holes for once.

As far as DRESSING, I pondered a bit looking for confirmation but soon decided that (1) since THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING is so well-known a restaurant item and (2) since our puzzle author is not a sociopath, I would just have to go with that.

[wb93]

I ended up giving much more consideration to the puzzle title than I should have. As a consequence, was certain that the something was drink/cocktail-related. Wanted to find those drinks by adding/combining “island” answers.

Lesson learned to not try to guess the answer, but rather let the meta reveal itself.

This weekend was obviously not the “salad days” of my meta solving for me.

[Cindy N]

While I am in the "disappointed at no dressing confirmation" camp (I mean, look how many of us missed RANDOM last time, right?) I am puzzled at people substituting 60A for 19A. Just wondering why you would use a clue that asked for a city, rather than one that mentioned the Harbor and the full name is Ellis Island? Not saying anything against you, just curious.

[boharr]

City Island is in the Bronx.

[HunterX]

My most common nudge to baffled Muggles was "check your math." Several came SO CLOSE!

Sometimes that guy Joe Ross has a point with the spreadsheet thing.

Two-things:

• This is the first time I've used the mathematical capabilities of Excel to solve a meta. (Are you reading this, Meg?) I started and continue to use it for it's easy & superior mark-up, list-building, & ink/toner/paper-free characteristics.*

• To one muggle, I used variants of "Re-check your math!" 64 times. That beloved, unnamed muggle claims it was only 4, but we disagree. It's *possible* that my count is a tad hyperbolic based on extreme AYFKM?!?!? emotions, but we'll never know...

*Checkout HunterX's wonderful Suggestion for using an iPad app to solve Metas!

NEVER doubt the power of a spreadsheet! (Motto to live by, in my (work)book.)

Thanks for the plug, Joe! This particular puzzle didn't look quite as fun/colorful in the iPad app as the samples in my post. Kind of a "sea" of yellow with some tiny blue islands:

[Andrew Bradburn]

Two things:

1. Kudos to everyone who solved it
2. My hail mary should have counted, had I sent it in: "Java To Go." (Java and Togo are islands)
3. Jangler still hasn't solved MGWCC

and that should tell you all you need to know about how well I count.

Reminds me of The Apartment, when Shirley MacLaine holds up four fingers and says "three," or something like that. Seriously, "Java to go" is brilliant, you should have entered it! My own opinion is that they should have accepted any answer with THOUSAND ISLAND and a reasonable third word, as DRESSING is only implied. I would have.

As for MGWCC, I am not close to solving it either, and my hat is off to those who have, especially the person who started a new streak with it, after having missed last week's. Now THAT is impressive! I am growing weary of seeking nudges just to keep a (small) streak alive, so I will probably submit my own Hail Mary at the last minute if I don't figure it out today.

[C=64]

A couple of other people have mentioned it, but the fact that Matt tiptoed around the word ISLAND and never used it in any of the clues meant there was a 1000% chance that it would be one of the three words in the meta answer.

Unrelated info: The Icelandic word for ice is "ís", so they spell Iceland "Ísland".

[Ergcat]

My rabbit hole was "take the clue numbers of each island. find other clue numbers that *add up* to that clue number, and use the letters to spell something". This, and its 3 variants, failed miserably.

I was adding just about everything.... #letters in the island name, assigning numbers to each letter, taking any Roman numeral in the island name and adding it up, etc. So many Silly rabbits to follow! I even consulted my daughter who has a PhD in mathematics , but to no avail! ( she did suggest adding clue numbers but I had already dismissed that!).

[Scraps]

As far as DRESSING, I pondered a bit looking for confirmation but soon decided that . . . since our puzzle author is not a sociopath, I would just have to go with that.

You’re quite sure of that? On what evidence? From how many frustrated muggles did you take depositions?

[Jeremy Smith]

Well, this was a disastrous week. Leaving 19 across off and using 60 across instead gave me 23 answers, but not the correct ones, so did not add up to 1,000! I was done after that. Apologies to those who tried to help me with nudges!

Yep—same mistake I made. 22 of the themers referred to a place. 60A refererred to a place. 19A refers to a name.

[Henry Paul]

Thanks to all the helpful muggles who tried to nudge us in the right direction.. but to no avail. It certainly didn't help that I got "Cairo" instead of "Capri" and never went back to correct it. So when the (oh so very smart) Mrs. ended up totaling 929 (on her calculator) it didn't help all that much.

Oh well; to next week!

[DaveKennison]

Hmmm. I see the problem in the cluing, kind of, but ... “Waters All Around” suggests looking in the grid for islands. Ellis Island is indeed an island, whereas Sucre, Bolivia, is a city. Yes?

And I want to know ... where’s my mug, damn it?! ...