My Little Crossword Battle Today
So, I was working on a crossword puzzle earlier, just relaxing, you know? And I hit this clue: seafood appetizer often. Seemed simple enough at first glance.
My mind immediately jumped to the usual suspects. Oysters? Maybe. Shrimp cocktail? Definitely fits the bill. I scribbled those down in the margin, just in case. But I needed to check the number of letters, right? Let’s say the puzzle grid showed it needed six letters. Okay, so ‘OYSTER’ fits. ‘SHRIMP’ doesn’t quite fit that six-letter count. Hmm.
I stared at the grid for a bit. I didn’t have many crossing letters filled in yet, which always makes it tougher. Let’s imagine I had just one crossing letter figured out, maybe a ‘P’ sitting there in the fifth spot. So, O-Y-S-T-E-R wouldn’t work with a ‘P’ there.
Back to thinking about appetizers. What other seafood things do people eat before the main course? Crab cakes? Too long usually for a six-letter slot. Calamari? Also often too long. I started thinking about specific preparations rather than just the raw ingredient itself.
Then it kind of clicked. What about that dish, often with shrimp, cooked in garlic butter? You see it on menus all the time as a starter. SCAMPI! Let’s check… S-C-A-M-P-I. That’s six letters! And if that fifth letter was a ‘P’? S-C-A-M-P-I. Yeah, that fits perfectly with the imaginary ‘P’ I had. Bingo.
Felt pretty good finally landing on that one. It’s funny how sometimes the answer is right there, but your brain just doesn’t grab it immediately. You have to sort of circle around it. Crosswords, man. They keep you on your toes sometimes.
