SUGAR, SUGAR
Lucy Howard, of Austin, Tex., teaches therapeutic yoga and does internet marketing. She made her first puzzle as an icebreaker for her wedding last year. Ross Trudeau, of Cambridge, Mass., works for a K-12 education nonprofit. They met online last summer. Ross says, “We quickly bonded over our mutual love of crosswords and rock climbing.” They spent many hours together on Zoom making this puzzle. This is Ross’s 37th puzzle for The Times. It is Lucy’s debut. — W.S.
ACROSS
1 Onetime Sony rival
8 Off-color
12 Maker of the X6 and Z4
15 Doctors Without Borders, e.g.: Abbr.
18 Deep secret
19 ‘‘____ Dead?’’ (Mark Twain play)
20 Quickly learn one’s lesson?
21 Startling sound
22 Bookworms call dad?
24 South Beach and Paleo, for two
26 Swiss painter Paul
27 Company whose business is picking up?
28 Seedy area?
29 Big Apple media inits.
30 Depletes, with ‘‘up’’
31 A young Justice Ginsburg chuckles?
36 Signature item
37 Singer Watson, a.k.a.
Tones and I, with the 2019 hit ‘‘Dance Monkey’’
38 Apt name for a lawyer
39 False accusation, informally
40 Fancy Feast alternative
43 One ‘‘R’’ in R&R
46 Hoarse
47 Do core exercises all day, every day?
51 ‘‘____ Brockovich’’
52 Quick drive
53 Elusive legend
54 Business for Sanders supporters?
57 Holiday dish served with sour cream or applesauce
60 Links grp.
62 Hard to handle, in a way
64 Hunky-dory
66 Response to an order
67 Burger King bingefest?
71 Alma mater for Spike Lee and Donald Glover, for short
72 Logical connector
73 With the greatest of ____
74 ____ golf
75 Sloped-roof support
77 Govt. org. with a forerunner known as the Black Chamber
79 Race units
81 Dinner-table expander
83 Hops-drying oven
84 Supernova in our galaxy?
90 Follower of word or potato
93 ‘‘Gimme ____’’
94 ____-cat
95 Numerous
97 Symbols in Twitter handles
99 Like ____ of sunshine
100 Anatomical pouch
103 When E.M.T.s bring home the bacon?
108 ‘‘I mean .?.?. ’’
109 A/C spec
110 Members of the crow family
111 Heavier alternative to a foil
112 Guthrie who performed at Woodstock
113 Cutting edge?
115 Some astronomy Ph.D.s?
119 Longtime Japanese P.M. who stepped down in 2020
120 ‘‘Runnin’?’’ team of N.C.A.A. Division I college basketball
121 Comparable (to)
122 Disciple
123 Tarnish
124 Really good time
125 Capital near the North Sea
DOWN
1 Prepare for a road trip, perhaps
2 End of a threat
3 Nora Ephron and Sofia Coppola, for two
4 The land down under?
5 Walk-____
6 Prickly covering of a seed
7 ‘‘____ the only one?’’
8 Beatles title woman
9 ‘‘____ your request .?.?. ’’
10 Feature of a classical Greek drama
11 ‘‘You betcha!’’
12 ‘‘The ____ — is wider than the Sky’’ (start of an Emily Dickinson poem)
13 Bit of fill-in-the-blanks fun
14 Subject of intl. treaties
15 Compliant sorts 16 Squalid digs
17 Sports team V.I.P.s
20 Corporate money managers, for short
23 Ancient Egyptians
25 Result of a breast pocket mishap, maybe
28 Ally of the Brat Pack
31 Common baking pear
32 Sacred cross in ancient Egypt
33 Chance to go
34 Preserve, in a way
35 Only Stratego piece with a letter on it
37 Sardine container
41 Studmuffin
42 Absorb, as sauce with bread
44 Give extra consideration, with ‘‘on’’
45 Idaho, e.g., in dialect
47 Color marker
48 Got hip, with ‘‘up’’
49 How a door might be slammed
50 Subcontractor in a bathroom remodel
51 Gusto
55 One may be nominated for a Hugo Award
56 Least forward
58 Palindromic farm animal
59 ‘‘We ____ Overcome’’
61 Stubborn sorts
63 It helps in passing
65 Rocker Cobain
68 Japan’s street food mecca
69 Diarist who documented the Great Plague of London
70 Gets lost
76 Eponym of the Detroit Lions field
78 Any Olympian, once
80 Drops an f-bomb, say
82 False fronts
85 Promises, promises!
86 Takes steps
87 ____ avis
88 Coarse farm sound
89 Dangerous move on a busy highway
90 ‘‘Blueberries for ____’’
(kid-lit classic)
91 Legendary password stealer
92 Higher, as ambitions
96 Build-your-own Tex-Mex dish
98 Does a dog trick
101 Declare
102 Where hangers hang
104 They go wherever the wind blows
105 They can be batted and rolled
106 When high school seniors often visit the colleges that accepted them
107 Like binary questions
108 Volt-amperes
113 Attention hog, maybe
114 Galoot
115 Portrait seen on renminbi bills
116 Car-sticker fig.
117 ‘‘Roses ____ red .?.?. ’’
118 Nonsense