Joseph Knecht

    An Ode to Dogs Gary Larson 's theme for this puzzle was service animals,  which all happen to be dogs. But let's face it -- have you ever seen a seeing eye cat? 😀.  Jimmy Stewart's famous Ode to Beau was probably my best option for a splash screen --  Old Shep  is a bit maudlin (but a favorite of my Dad's) and Who Let the Dogs Out  is positively manic.  No asterisks, no circles, no reveal -- just 5 punny clues that fill to a two word in the language phrase, the second word being a wet-nosed canine (see also 15A for a slobbering comic Easter Egg). The fills are illustrated here with definitions of the full phrase, followed by the canine ... 17A. Service animal for a heavy-metal musician?:  ROCK HOUND .  Someone who collects rocks and minerals.  For anyone with a passing interest in this subject I cannot recommend enough the Golden Nature Guide to  Rocks and Minerals by Herbert Zim .  This brief book ...

  IT DEPENDS ON HOW YOU SLICE IT (see also 35D) Today's constructor Katherine Simonson makes her LAT debut with 4 across theme clues identified only by trailing question marks.  The clues are all references to countries, but they don't make a whole lot of sense and the two word fills don't make any sense either -- but on closer inspection the second word can be combined with a word embedded at the end of the first fill to make an in the language phrase. Here are the themers ... 17. Warmup bands from Casablanca?:  MOROC CAN OPENERS .  This one did make a bit of sense -- here's Ilsa  and Sam warming up in Rick's Cafe in the movie Casablanca ... As Time Goes By 23. Liquid from Munich?:  TEU TONIC WATER .  45. Faucet hardware from Stockholm?:  SWE DISH WASHER . 53. Ice cream treats from Manila?:  PHILIP PINE CONES . I couldn't see any particular connection between the in the language part of these phrases. Here's the grid ... Here's the rest ....

We had a letter deletion theme a few weeks back, but this week our constructors Amie Walker and Wendy Brandes   delete 7 different letters in 7 starred theme clues, which together spell a common ingredient used in baking sweets.   The clue for each themer is for the word that results after a circled letter is removed from the actual fill for the themer, so the actual fill doesn't match the clue .  Thus you'll need one of the down perps to get the actual fill. Got that ?    I'm sure that this theme will not bring joy to all of our solvers but I thought it was rather clever 😀.  To get a heads up on what the word might be, you could start by solving 4D .   Here are the clues and fill followed by the word implied by the clue ... 16A. *Medical breakthrough:  CUR V E . CURE . 18A. *Many a spammer:  BO A T . BOT , as in an app for sending email spam to a distribution list. 38A. *Bae: BOO N . BOO ....