"Getting Possessive" - March 11, 2022

[JeanneC]

Nine week streak shot to…!
Congrats to those who solved!

[pookie]

Wha? How does KISS figure in there?
Not another "suggests" the answer is it?

[MajordomoTom]

yes, the Chef's is there, the KISS is probably from the last across clue, but it's a suggested one.

THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE UNIVERSE!!!
KISS!!!!

[Inca]

Glad I did not spend too much time on this one. 1. I don't like when the clue's are used. 2. I never heard of the expression 3. M Gaffney

[rosiegirl]

Can someone tell me what a Chef's Kiss is?

[woozy]

Wha? How does KISS figure in there?
Not another "suggests" the answer is it?

It has to be a phrase "Chef's ______" and it has to be 9 letters total. And the last clue is "Kiss drummer Criss".

Not another "suggests" the answer is it?

Of course, it is. And of course "Chef's Kiss" is a high ranked google result for "Chef's ______".

(I personally have never heard anyone refer to it by name--- Chef's Hat, Knife, Table, Choice, Country, Counter, Apron.... are *all* more common phrases in my mind and claiming ... well, we had to restrict it to something with exactly 4 letters is ... really unsatisfying.....).

I *did* get the answer by the way but I was really hoping I had missed something that would make the real answer more satisfying.

[Joe Ross]

Can someone tell me what a Chef's Kiss is?

Great puzzle!



(Thursday WSJ Answer grid- THATS A BIG GIF)

[woozy]

Can someone tell me what a Chef's Kiss is?

It's when a chef puts their finger to their lips and goes "Mwaah". We've all seen this. .... and apparently *some* people have heard it referred to (although I certainly have not).

[pookie]

When I wrote earlier, after "I quit", I almost said that it's probably a Matt Gaffney "the answer is SUGGESTED by blah blah blah.
Thought I might mislead or spoil someone's solving.
But that's it for me. No more Gaffney puzzles.
I'm not a mind-reader and I've never heard of CHEF'S KISS either.

[escapeartist]

After finally finding the mechanism at the last hour, I was stuck with 5 letters.

Circled the grid answers and CHEFS popped out.

Gaffney puzzle - do the thing- and then do it again

Googled "Chef's" and saw the answer.

Which is funny because while looking for more letters, KISS stood out to me, and I was looking for the owner of that kiss.

mmmwah!

[DrTom]

I didn't think it was a bad puzzle, I just think I probably am a bad solver. Even at the very end, with nudges galore, I was incorrect. I went for CHEF'S RECIPE and the Answer to the clue TBSP. It was 9 letters, it was "kind" of a two word phrase and I liked Recipe better than Kiss. Thankfully MENU was not in the puzzle or the clues.

My rabbit holes were:
DOCTOR'S BAG
WRITER'S PENS
TEACHER'S TOTE
JUDGE'S HAIR - OK, I know that it is English Judges who wear a wig in court (well mostly because I have two friends who are both A. Judges B Vain)
BAKER'S TBSP

Which gave me nothing I could use

Then I went with organizations (there were 4) thinking that perhaps the letters of the degree for people in that org would form a word - nope

OK, inference, JOB TITLES is something people "possess" and it is 9 letters (was disenchanted of that)

Finally un ami nudged (well shoved actually ) me towards the correct path and I still came up a TBSP short.

I suppose I should have been looking for ERRAND in the clues because I was on a FOOL'S one.

[escapeartist]

I rode down a lot of those trails too, Dr.Tom.

Glad to see I wasn't alone.

[31 Down]

I initially thought the puzzle was well constructed except for the somewhat obscure solution. On reflection, had the answer been a very common phrase, it could have been solved without making the final step of realizing the symmetry. Kiss being the first word of a clue made chef's kiss a no doubter.

[mheberlingx100]

My first thoughts were chef’s knife and chef’s hat, neither nine letters. Then I looked back at the clues, and there was kiss — voila!

[woozy]

What bothers me is that if it's a "suggested by" the setup and the answer should have been in the same form as the keys. We should have done the meta, it should have spelled out a two word phrase ending with CHEF (such as IRON CHEF) and then the answer should have been the answer to the clue with the word KISS in it (in this case PETER).

I just don't see "We dealt with phrases of the form <OCCUPATION>'s <OBJECT> to get further along so when we get half the phrase CHEF'S so recycle it and take the phrase phrase CHEF's <OBJECT> and declare ourselves done" as be acceptably tight or even logical.

[eagle1279]

So when I finally got to CHEF'S after many fruitless rabbit chases, I knew I was looking for a 4-letter second word that would be the first word in a clue. That led me to either RULE (44D) or KISS (77A) neither of which I had heard of and both of which appeared in google searches. KISS seemed more common, so that's what I picked. Tough meta for me.

[woozy]

So when I finally got to CHEF'S after many fruitless rabbit chases, I knew I was looking for a 4-letter second word that would be the first word in a clue. That led me to either RULE (44D) or KISS (77A) neither of which I had heard of and both of which appeared in google searches. KISS seemed more common, so that's what I picked. Tough meta for me.

or 6A Chef's High (if you can have a Baker's High [yeast fumes] why not a chef's high [saffron and garlic???]?)

or Chef's Word, Chef's Hill? (Okay, stretching it a bit but... )

[patpatchica]

I enjoyed this meta, and it made perfect sense to me. After I got the possessive CHEF’S, it was simple to find KISS after applying the same mechanism - first word in a clue. The kicker for me was KISS DRUMMER CRISS has three sets of double letters like the puzzle title. It was very straightforward to me.

[Mister Squawk]

Did anybody submit CHEF SALAD? The grid gave CHEFS and all those ALA and D letters floating around near the bottom of the grid?

That was going to be my fallback submission, until googling revealed "CHEF'S KISS" (not an expression I'd ever heard before), along with the confirmatory clue for 77A.

[KayW]

I’d never heard the phrase CHEF’S KISS before, but when I couldn’t think of any 4-letter words to complete the phrase, google autocomplete suggested it and spotting the clue at 77a cinched it. As soon as I saw the emoticon I realized I was familiar with the concept if not the term.

EDIT: It turns out it's not actually "autocomplete" but apparently something called this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_su ... -down_list