Today's
Los Angeles Times crossword by Fred Piscop is titled "Fare Play" and is filled with puns which use alternate meanings of words referring to cooked food:
Inebriated fare? FRIEDRICE
Illegally taken fare? POACHEDSALMON
Fare constantly questioned? GRILLEDCHEESE
Fare after successful medical treatment? CUREDPORK
Soundly defeated fare? CREAMEDCORN
Fare at the Friars Club? ROASTEDNUTS
Excessively pampered fare? CODDLEDEGGS
Angry fare? STEAMEDMILK
STEAMEDRICE would have been better a better choice than STEAMEDMILK but RICE had already been used in an answer.
"Coddle" means "to treat with extremes or excessive care or kindness; pamper." In cooking, it means "to cook (as eggs) in liquid slowly and gently just below the boiling point." I'm not sure how anyone could cook something "gently." Anyway, the word comes from the Middle English
caudel, which derives from the Latin
calidus, meaning "warm."
Calidus is also the source of the word "cauldron."
The Friars Club, founded in 1904 in New York City, is well-known for its "roasts." Those are banquets at which a famous person, usually an actor or comedian, is subjected to good-natured ridicule by his friends and fellow actors and comedians. From 1947 to 2008, there was also a Friars Club in Los Angeles. It was founded by Milton Berle, Bing Crosby, Jimmy Durante and other celebrities who had moved from New York to Los Angeles in order to be closer to Hollywood, the motion picture industry and the rapidly-growing television industry.
"Appears gradually" is FADESIN. "Fade" means "to lose strength or vitality; to lose freshness or brilliance of color; to sink away; vanish." One might question how an image in a movie could fade
in. "In motion pictures, "fade" means "to change gradually in loudness or visibility" and therefore a movie image can fade either in or out.....although "fade
in" contradicts the original definition of "fade."
Okay, I'm done now. I'm going to fade out.....although maybe I shouldn't say that. "Fade" comes from the Latin
fatuus, which means "foolish; insipid; fatuous" and I would prefer to not be thought of in that way.
