LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “Presidents’ Day”
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is a U.S. president who would have made a good sixth theme entry.
Answer: GROVER CLEVELAND, found by 522 solvers, 511 of which were solo solves

Apologies for the disorder last week with submitting entries! My laptop went kaput and chaos ensued…big thanks to MGWCC webmaster Alex Boisvert for getting things back up and running with alacrity, tenacity, and perspicacity. Everyone’s streak should be intact now, but if yours is not, please email me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com and I’ll release the hounds on it (“the hounds” being…Alex Boisvert). NOTE: remember that your streak will not show up until after you’ve entered *and* I’ve verified your entry.

On to the puzzle: Five theme entries last week. They were:

17-A: [Food first domesticated in the Andes about 4,000 years ago] = LIMA BEANS. Yes, they are named after Lima, Peru.

20-A: [He directed “Home Alone,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”] = CHRIS COLUMBUS. I had always assumed this director’s name was a Hollywood moniker but no, it’s his given name.

34-A: [Zurich, Lucerne, or Basel-Stadt, e.g.] = SWISS CANTON

53-A: [1965 title role for Steve McQueen, with “The”] CINCINNATI KID

57-A: [“Omigosh!”] = HOLY TOLEDO

All five of those are big cities in Ohio, so our presidential answer is GROVER CLEVELAND. I also gave credit to the three jokesters who submitted the Ohio “cities” of Harrison (pop. 13,120), Clinton (population 1,197), and Grant (population??? — even the Internet doesn’t know it!)

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This puzzle’s contest answer is a city often seen in crossword grids.

Good luck!

–Matt