Okay, so I sat down with the NYT crossword today, like I usually do with my morning coffee. Got through a good chunk of the top half pretty smoothly, feeling smart, you know? Then I hit this clue: italian dessert.
Right away, my mind went to the big ones. Tiramisu? Nah, checked the squares, way too many letters. Gelato? That felt more likely, length-wise sometimes. I tried picturing ‘GELATO’ in the grid, but the letters I already had intersecting just didn’t match up. Had a ‘N’ near the middle, I think? Didn’t feel right.
So, I skipped it for a bit, worked around it, hoping the crossers would give it away. Filled in a few more answers here and there. Came back to italian dessert. Still staring at it. What else is there? Panna cotta? Again, usually too long unless they shorten it somehow, which felt weird.
I started running through other options in my head. You got your biscotti, your spumoni… cannoli! That one felt familiar from crosswords. I counted the letters. Yep, matched the space count. Looked at the crossing letters I had managed to fill in around it. Let’s see… did C-A-N-N-O-L-I fit? That ‘N’ I remembered was right there in the middle. The ‘O’ nearby also clicked with a down clue I was struggling with.
Penciled it in lightly at first. C… A… N… N… O… L… I… Stepped back and looked at the grid. Yeah, that actually worked. The words crossing it suddenly made sense. That tricky little down clue finally resolved itself because of the ‘L’.
Success!
It’s always satisfying when those tricky theme clues or slightly less common words finally click into place. Wasn’t the absolute hardest clue ever, but it definitely made me pause and dig a little deeper than just ‘gelato’. Cannoli it was. Another square filled, another step closer to finishing the puzzle. On to the next clue!
