San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD
CROSSWORD BUFF
ACROSS
1 Man who had all the
answers?
7 Some baggage
14 Fillet, say
20 William Howard Taft
or William McKinley
21 “It’s just me”
22 First-aid item for
allergy sufferers
23 Shared with, for a
while
24 Leadership style of the nudist-club president?
26 Like a senior year
27 Dates
29 Steamboat Springs
alternative
30 Pint-size
31 Like Ahab’s pursuit of
Moby Dick
35 Winter driving hazard 38 Ascribe to, as fault
41 When the nudist club
was founded?
46 They hit the sauce a
lot
47 “There’s another good
point”
49 “Hold on!”
50 Home to the world’s three highest capital cities
51 Nicolas who directed “The Man Who Fell to Earth”
52 Puffs
54 Graduation wear for a University of Hawaii student
55 Place for a throne
56 New members of the
nudist club?
59 Pans for potstickers 60 Time’s Person of the
Century
62 Lit into
63 Two are named after
Douglas and Fraser 64 Big name in tennis
balls
65 Weigh in
67 School with a 15thcentury chapel
69 It comes straight from
the horse’s mouth
71 “Raspberry ____”
(Prince hit)
73 Liquor with a doubleheaded eagle logo
77 Polo course?
78 What happens in the stand-up show at the nudist club?
81 Robert who played
A.J. Soprano
82 Pro wrestler Flair
83 John for whom the Voting Rights Advancement Act was named
84 Slangy contraction
85 Rock genre
86 Soon
88 Taco Bell slogan
91 Its size may be
measured in liters
92 Hours spent by the pool at the nudist club?
94 Popular hiding spots
in hide-and-seek
95 Virtual currency
96 Sensitive subject
99 Mimic
100 “Cómo ____?” 103Strong desire 104Not a joke, say
108 How people returned from a week at the nudist club?
113 Mountaineer’s tool
115 2006 World Cup champion, to native fans
116 Popping up
117 Follower of high or dry 118 Goal of some
workouts
119 Break between workouts
gestures
120Symbolic
DOWN
1 Travel expense
2 Largest South
American bird
3 A quarter of vier
4 Where the nudistclub orchestra plays its concerts?
5 Graze
6 Site of the Minotaur’s
Labyrinth
7 Feelings in the room,
informally
8 Build up
9 Choreographer
Lubovitch
10 Mont-Saint-Michel,
e.g. 11 Not in debt
12 One-named Irish
singer
13 Final Four game, e.g. 14 Thieves’ hide-out
15 Cleanup grp.
16 Conference with five University of California schools
17 ‘60s TV kid
18 Child, in Chile
19 Part of the U.K.: Abbr. 25 “What’s more ... “
28 Poetry night?
32 Humbugs?
33 A negative has a
reverse one
34 Acid container
36 Joneses
37 Baseball Hall-ofFamer Slaughter
38 Element of Freddy
Krueger’s glove
39 Hawaiian house
feature
40 Recipe direction
42 “Hey, man!”
43 Balrog’s home in “The
Lord of the Rings”
44 Techies and Trekkies,
stereotypically
45 Elevator innovator
47 You might skip it if
you’re in trouble 48 Self starter?
51 L.G.B.T. symbol
53 Statistic in football or
basketball
56 Kylo ____, “Star Wars”
villain
57 Signed i.o.u.’s
58 Published
59 Victory in the annual
nudist-club 1K?
61 Face card’s value in
blackjack
63 Supporting
65 Question that
introduces doubt
66 Muscle above an ab 68 “____ So Sweet to Trust in Jesus” (hymn)
69 Big name in
windshield wipers
70 Need for a jailbreak 72 Nellie’s love in “South
Pacific”
73 Behaves badly
74 Many a goody, they
say
75 Fighter’s fake
76 Releases
77 The lake in
“lake effect” snow
78 Whale constellation 79 Not as unruly 80 Small inlet
83 Vanderpump of Bravo’s “Vanderpump Rules”
85 Privy to
87 Tenor Andrea
89 In relation to
90 Punk cousin
91 Supercilious sort
93 Syngman ____, first South Korean president
94 Sin’s counterpart
97 First name on the
Supreme Court
98 Like babies’ legs,
often
99 Thermostat setting 101 Permanent marker? 102High-tailed it 105Minimal effort 106Neural transmitter 107 Common prescription
item
108 In shape
109Dark side
110 Criticize constantly,
with “on”
111 Is, in ancient
Rome
112 Divest
114 Many a goldenparachute recipient, in brief
Q: When I was a child, I frequently suffered from colds. My aunt would make a cough medicine of very softcooked onions with butter, brown sugar, ginger and a bit of vinegar. I never fussed about taking it. I liked it, and I always stopped coughing.
A: Onion cough medicine appears to be popular in many parts of the world. We have heard of various versions from India, Hungary and the North American frontier.
Some people sweeten the onion syrup with honey rather than brown sugar. There is some evidence to suggest that honey has antiviral activity (Molecules, Oct. 29, 2020).
A meta-analysis of six randomized controlled trials found that honey worked better than placebo to alleviate coughs in kids (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, April 10, 2018).
However, honey should never be given to babies less than a year old because it might contain botulinum toxin.
Q: After reading another of your columns about someone having sleep problems, I just had to write to tell you of my newfound cure. Originally, my husband found this for me on the internet as a help for leg cramps. They were waking me up and then I would find it hard to fall back asleep.
I started taking a magnesium supplement. Not only did it cure my leg cramps but it also helped me fall back to sleep faster, especially if I have to visit the bathroom in the middle of the night.
This supplement has been a godsend to me. In addition to magnesium, it contains ashwagandha, Rhodiola and melatonin. Although melatonin usually makes me feel like I want to jump out of my skin, this has so little in it, I don’t feel that effect. With one pill a night, I get a great night’s sleep.
A: Thank you for sharing your experience. A recent review of dietary supplements to improve sleep found that there is evidence for the benefit of low-dose melatonin, but more research is needed on magnesium (Postgraduate Medical Journal, Jan. 13, 2021).
Ashwagandha root can also improve sleep quality ( Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Jan. 10, 2021).
Although many readers find magnesium helpful against leg cramps, a systematic review of research concluded that it is unlikely magnesium helps prevent nighttime cramps (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Sept. 21, 2020). People with impaired kidney function must avoid extra magnesium.
You can learn more about nondrug approaches for better sleep, including ashwagandha, in our eGuide to Getting a Good Night’s Sleep. This online resource is available in the
Health eGuides section of PeoplesPharmacy.com.
Q: I had been suffering with painful cracked fingertips for years. I even went to the doctor for it. However, the prescription creams I got didn’t work.
Then I decided to stop eating whole-wheat bread and other wheatbased products. Within two weeks, my fingertips were healed, and my digestive troubles resolved. I think I could be gluten-intolerant. That was a few years ago, and I have not had a single split fingertip since.
A:You should ask your doctor if you might be at risk for celiac disease. If you have been scrupulous about avoiding gluten, though, an antibody blood test for this condition will not be accurate. Even a biopsy may not tell the story. A genetic test might reveal your susceptibility, but it won’t determine if you actually have celiac disease.
Good smokers often come with serious sticker shock, with the prices of top-rated brands hitting $1,000 or more before you can say “brisket and ribs.” But even if you have the cash, sometimes you don’t have the space.
In 2003, Alton Brown addressed these challenges on an episode of his show “Good Eats,” creating a smoker from of an electric hot plate, a pan of wood chips and two large, basic terracotta flowerpots. I was tempted to dismiss this as balderdash, but I decided to a Food Shack test of the method.
It works. For less than $55 for materials, this smoker setup can fit inside the most modest of outdoor spaces, and nobody will complain about the quality of the food. So with apologies to Kenny Chesney, “No Space, No Cash, No Problem.”
There is reason behind the madness. Those fancy ceramic grill/smoker cookers, such as the Big Green Egg and Kamodo Joe brands, utilize the amazing heat retention of good, thick pottery. And while standard orange terracota garden pots don’t work quite as well, it’s a close enough horse race to merit testing them out.
Here’s how it went down at the Food Shack:
I found two 14-inch-diameter terra-cotta pots at Lowe’s for $31.96 total. These worked fine, but I would recommend larger ones if you can find them.
Place the bottom pot on a bed of bricks to elevate it, and place the hot plate inside, running the cord through the pot’s drainage hole at the bottom. Connect it to a heavy duty extension cord if needed.
Electric hot plates, which range in price from $10 to $35 (I got mine for $12.99 at Walmart), can have various heat settings. I recommend starting with the middle settings and adjusting from there — the lowest setting is probably too low; the highest is definitely too hot.
On top of the the hot plate goes the solid metal pan of wood chips, which can be soaked or dry, but I prefer soaked. Above the pan, situate a grill grate that either sits inside the pot or rests evenly in between them. Fourteen inches is a pretty standard