Fri., 5/8 Jeffrey Wechsler

[magus]

THEME:   foreign breads lead phrases in a "punny" way
   
GOOD ONES:    
Ability to laugh at deli bread {& theme}   RYE SENSE OF HUMOR   
Good feelings during Jewish bread celebrations?   CHALLAH DAY CHEER [pronounced /(c)halla/ hence "holiday cheer"]  (My friends in Brooklyn called it "holly bread" --- don't know why)   
Cautionary tale about Greek bread?   PITA AND THE WOLF   
   
BTW:   
It's used in rounds   AMMO [ammo is rounds]   
   
ERDE is not used in English.   
   
   
RATING:   
Three grins = Loved it; Two grins = Enjoyed it; One grin = A bit bland for my taste; One teardrop = Not much fun   

[Thomps2525]

Bread-related puns: a clever theme for the puzzle-solving members of the upper crust.

Today's NEA crossword is similar to all the previous NEA crosswords: No theme, no long words, no unusual words. There were five foreign words (ADIOS, ESTA, LOS, NUNC, SRA) and seven of the over-used words that appear in several crosswords each week: APE, EPEE, ETNA, OAT, ODE, OLEO and OPAL.

The Universal crossword included three 15-letter answers, LITTLEORNOTHING, MEDIUMDUTYTRUCK and BIGGERANDBETTER. 
 

[rbe]

I thought the same thing about AMMO.

I did not like using TIBIA for "Calf neighbor." Calf neighbors could be ankle, shin or thigh.
Tibia neighbors would be bones like fibula or femur. 

[magus]

But bones and muscles can be neighbors --- just not Arabs and Jews.