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By Ed Sessa
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
11/14/18

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

11/14/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, November 14, 2018

ACROSS
1 Hee-hawers
6 Tinker Bell’s 
friend
9 Part of WTO
14 Low on funds
15 Garden tool
16 Four-bagger
17 Manx currency
18 Seriously funny 
shows?
20 Organ near the 
stomach
22 Doldrums
23 “Boyz n the Hood” 
actress Long
25 __ shadow
26 Hive builder
29 Entrance
33 Amaretto flavor
35 Trivial matter
36 Reef creature
37 Foes of the evil 
Saruman
38 Logical 
beginning?
40 Appear
41 Word that always 
brings a smile?
44 Winding Alaskan 
river with a 
Hawaiian name
47 V8 veggie
48 Upper arm 
muscle
49 Yoga chants
50 Wrigley Field 
abbr.
52 Roll in the grass
53 Political spin, say
55 Cocoa company
60 Anno Domini 
alternative
64 With 67-Across, 
what five pairs of 
answers in the 
circles represent
65 Hippie’s wheels
66 Coke go-with
67 See 64-Across
68 Roofing stone
69 English cuppa
70 More than a little 
heavy

DOWN
1 Pharaoh’s sacred 
snakes
2 Look for bargains
3 Heart’s 
companion
4 Sea eagle
5 Martyred bishop 
of Paris

6 Advanced deg.
7 “You have two 
choices”
8 Writer Zora ___ 
Hurston
9 Oscar-nominated 
film starring Viola 
Davis
10 Towel holders
11 Mate, across the 
Channel
12 Ruby of “A Raisin 
in the Sun”
13 Critical-care ctrs.
19 Mesoamerican 
pyramid builders
21 Petty peeves
24 Take __ from: 
emulate
26 Study hard
27 Marx collaborator
28 Buildup of fluid
29 Actress Helena 
__ Carter
30 Passes the 
threshold
31 More like the 
Magi
32 “Notorious” 
screenwriter Ben
34 Israeli leader 
Dayan
35 Maker of sweet 
wafers

39 Collective 
possessive
42 “Missed it by that 
much”
43 Musical 
wunderkind 
Bortnick
45 Columbia 
University athlete
46 Auto parts 
supplier
51 Like some gases
53 X-rated stuff

54 Get straight?
56 Automaker 
founded in 
Sweden
57 Tot
58 Jeans choice
59 Scots Gaelic
60 Rite Aid rival
61 Midnight mouser
62 Degree for a 
CFO
63 Reddit Q&A 
session

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6A — Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

What do you get when you 
simmer a pot of oatmeal on low 
heat, add a French minor, a dash 
of cinnamon, a drizzle of almond 
butter, an affinity for yoga and 
nearly fifty thousand Instagram 
followers? This is just one recipe in 
the cookbook of lovely ingredients 
that makes up LSA sophomore 
foodie Maddie Ross.
Ross or, as she’s known on 
her wildly popular health and 
wellness Instagram account, @
cest.madeleine is the human form 
of sunshine. Where some people 
hide behind their iPhone screens, 
scrolling with a looming cloud 
of doubt and self-destruction, 
comparing themselves to pixelated 
8-inch images of acquaintances 
and strangers, Ross is quite the 
opposite. In fact, she’s used her 
Instagram platform to express 
herself in a positive way. Where 
many use Instagram to alter who 
they are, she uses the social media 
app to get to the center of exactly 
who she is.
Her account is filled with 
encouraging, honest captions and 
gorgeous photographs of stacked 
avocado toasts, bowls of creamy 
oatmeal, pieces of grilled fish and 
white sweet potato fries grilled to 
perfection with a pool of earthy 
green pesto for dipping on the side. 
From experience, I can tell you that 
Ross’s cooking abilities and sunny 
disposition are anything but phony. 
In fact, the conversation I shared 
with her over homemade oatmeal 
bowls was blissfully authentic, 
peaceful and warm.
Against the wall of the quaint, 
chic kitchen she calls her own 
during the school year — decorated 
with a sign that reads “chop it like 
it’s hot” — I observed her in her 
element, standing over the stove, 
simmering banana slices on a 
pan sprayed with avocado oil and 
crackling with sweet maple syrup.
“I don’t mind that my bedroom 
is so small because I spend most 
of the time in here anyway,” She 
said with a smile, gesturing to her 
kitchen. “The kitchen is my happy 
place.”
She prodded at the browning 
bananas with a seemingly magical 
touch as the kitchen began to smell 
how a cold Sunday morning should. 
I could tell immediately that Ross 
feels her best in the kitchen — she 
traversed the space naturally, has a 
terrific handle on multitasking and 
created art out of bananas, oats, 
almond butter and granola. I never 
thought much about the magic 
touch of someone gifted at cooking 
until I had the chance to really 
watch someone with said touch in 
their element.
“Cooking and baking and then 
photographing my meals is like 
my art form,” she said when asked 
what her process is for sautéing, 
baking and mixing her delicious 
Instagram photos into life. “I 
normally go by what will look 
pretty and what will taste good too. 
I’ll admit it’s a little bit of both.”
She certainly has her go-to’s, 
though — toast, salmon, anything 
with eggs and anything with 
avocado.
Ross admits her Instagram 
account, 
which 
is 
currently 
aesthetically pleasing and drool-
worthy, wasn’t always so beautiful 
and well-thought out. She started 
the account after struggling with 
disordered eating the summer 
before high school. It was, in perfect 
13-year-old fashion, donned with 
the title “The Dancing Foodie” and 
was a private account that she hid 
from her family and friends. Once 
those around her found out about 

her secret hobby when she was 
observed photographing her meals 
and gaining interest in culinary 
art, the account came off private, 
underwent a slight transformation 
and began to pick up major traction.
“I mean Instagram for me is 
about connection — it’s how I found 
joy in food again. I met some of 
my best friends at school through 
the community I’ve found on my 
account,” she said.
It seems that Ross was a bit 
of a revolutionary in the small, 
conservative town in rural Ohio 
she calls home, and the community 
she inspired back home has only 
grown since coming to college.
“Some people say that I invented 
avocado toast in Bowling Green, 
Ohio. I definitely didn’t invent it, 
but I was sort of the first to do it.” 
She claimed when asked how her 
upbringing informed her desire 
to create a community for herself 
through Instagram.
“The closest Whole Foods to 
where I live is the one here, so we’d 
drive the hour to Ann Arbor just for 
Whole Foods,” she said. 
If a pro on the pro / con list 
of attending the University is 
proximity to Whole Foods, Ross 
is certainly in the right place. 
Despite her love for Ann Arbor 
and delight in being somewhere 
that has spaces that cater to her 
passions 
— 
specifically 
Tiny 
Buddha Yoga, Fred’s, Zingerman’s 
and her favorite Indian restaurant, 
Cardamom — Ross has a larger 
desire to travel, something the two 
of us share.
She listens nearly exclusively 
to old French music, loves Nina 
George’s novel “The Little Paris 
Bookshop” and has lately been 
exploring different flavor profiles, 
especially Indian and Moroccan 
food. Her travel to-do list is 
overflowing with zip codes in 
countries she’s never been before 
in addition to spots on every corner 
of the United States — normally in 
the pursuit of the foodie havens 
popping up from coast to coast.
“I want to go to L.A., just for 
the food scene. I also really want 
to go to Seattle and Portland — oh, 
and Australia. I feel like I’d love it 
there. And I just picture myself in 
France, maybe Paris, just reading 
and writing and eating a baguette.”
Her travel dreams and future 
destinations stems from her love 
of unique cultures, interesting and 
new flavors and her intense desire 
for adventure and exploration. One 
of her more recent explorations, 
which has planted her desire to 
travel even more, was a yoga retreat 
and trip to Costa Rica, where 
she spent time being mindful, 
immersing herself in unfamiliar 
culture and food and enjoying 
trying new things — like surfing.
“I’m 
open 
to 
anything. 
Especially 
food-wise, 
I’ll 
try 
anything.” She declared, as I 
scraped my bowl of oatmeal clean 
and listened to her stories of Costa 
Rica — including her first time 
surfing, which she deemed scary 
but liberating. Ross appears to 
feel the freest when she is on the 
pursuit of a new adventure, headed 
to a new place or with the promise 
of a unique experience.
The woman she is through her 
beautiful, inspiring photos on 
Instagram is absolutely faithful 
to who she is in real life. In a 
world so quick to document their 
lives in an extremely obscured or 
dismantled way on social media — 
Ross is redefining the norm. Never 
have I met someone whose social 
media accounts are a glimmering, 
authentic mirror reflection of 
exactly who she is — spunky, 
creative, honest and bright. Her 
plans are big, and her dreams 
are lofty but after meeting her in 
person. I have no doubt that she 

will achieve them all.
“Well, sourdough bread saved 
my summer,” she said. “I told 
myself, ‘Maddie, you have to do 
something with your summer,’ so 
I started to make sourdough bread. 
A loaf of sourdough bread is my 
absolute favorite food. But it has 
to be homemade … and naturally 
leavened. I’m a bread purist.”
“Now I could see myself opening 
up a cafe or a bakery…” she trailed 
off thinking for a moment, her 
spoon, cradling a final spoonful 
of oatmeal, suspended in the air. 
“Well, my real dream is to open 
a half bookstore, half bakery. 
I’ve always seen myself running 
a business or being a business 
owner.”
It’s extremely clear why Ross 
can see herself running a business; 
she is passionate and clear in her 
visions, astute and unique in her 
observations 
and 
enthusiastic 
about life. Where Maddie Ross 
exists, negativity does not. It 
seems her major goals in life are 
to always head toward the light 
and away from the darkness, 
remembering to come back to her 
base: good ingredients, wholesome 
meals, lasting conversation, long 
walks and great books. She has 
set concrete values, passions and 
ensures that she gives her full heart 
and an equal amount of her energy 
to each.
One of these is connecting with 
people, something that, as a foodie 
and a social media presence, comes 
as no surprise. 
“Everyone eats, you know? 
To me, the easiest way to crack 
into even the toughest people is 
through a good meal. I love feeding 
people. I love talking to people. I 
love having real, human moments. 
I try my best to fall as far away from 
superficiality as I can.”
Ross was getting ready to head 
to a yoga class after our breakfast 
conversation, in keeping with 
her desire to be in touch with her 
mind and her body, and sported a 
perfectly on brand “Bakers Gonna 
Bake” sweatshirt.
I asked Ross what her life 
philosophy is, beginning from a 
past of disordered eating and self-
doubt, and having grown into such 
a remarkably strong, sanguine 
woman. 
She 
is 
a 
refreshing 
presence in our city and the world 
of Instagram, bringing us doses 
of realness and mentorship with 
every stride forward. 
“I want to lean into the grey 
areas. Sometimes, I’m so locked 
into black and white thinking like 
it’s all or nothing,” she said. “And it 
doesn’t have to always be perfect. 
It doesn’t always have to be in my 
control. I try to focus on what I can 
control, cherish the simple miracles 
and bask in the little moments, 
letting it all happen as it may.”
I headed away from her inviting, 
amiable corner of town and back 
into the frigid and grey world 
outside, feeling a bit sunnier, a bit 
luckier and refreshed from such 
raw conversation. We planned a 
coffee date to find Ann Arbor’s 
best oat milk latte and exchange 
our favorite books but until then 
I’ll have to drool over her recent 
Insta post and channel my best 
Madeleine Ross positivity on my 
most stressful days: Take a deep 
breath, make a good meal and 
remember to be mindful. We all 
need a reminder to stop and be 
present, to share the good in the 
world with faith that goodness will 
be returned back to you.
My 
best 
advice 
to 
head 
toward the real is to follow @
cest.madeleine and allow her to 
inspire you to kickstart start your 
own journey toward the real and 
away from the superficial — in 
food, in relationships and most 
importantly, in life.

Campus foodie Madeleine 
Ross talks brunch & books

ELI RALLO
Daily Arts Writer

COURTESY OF MADELEINE ROSS

STUDENT PROFILE

From an early age I was taught 
to laugh. As a kid, my primary 
caretaker was an ex-doctor from 
the former Soviet Union with an 
ample bosom and several gold 
teeth that twinkled in the light 
every time she smiled. Her name 
was Raya, and she was my favorite 
person in the entire world. Every 
year of my life till the age of five was 
spent with Raya. We would make 
authentic Russian beet borscht and 
watch “Anastasia” and laugh. Oh 
god, we would laugh. Raya was the 
queen of her own kind of borscht 
belt comedy. She compared finding 
love at her age to finding a parking 
spot, every spot being either 
taken or handicapped. Her jokes 
were dirty, and the punchlines 
were always in Russian. I never 
understood them, but I understood 
the hearty belly laugh that followed 
each kicker. It would start deep, 
like a sneeze and travel up through 
her entire body exiting with a bit of 
spittle and excessive force. Her eyes 
would close and the cavernous lines 
like parentheses around her mouth 
would grow longer to highlight her 
wide, golden-toothed grin. Two 
years after her death, I still hear her 
laugh.
Funny women have always had 
a presence in my life. Raya taught 
me to laugh at myself, to laugh in 
the face of pain, to laugh it all away. 
She was my adopted grandmother, 
and she never let me go hungry. 
Come to think of it, I think my 
chubby childhood has something 
to do with Raya’s forceful hand in 
the kitchen. So, dear reader, when 
I hear that ridiculous and oft used 
insult, women aren’t funny, I 
imagine Raya laughing a laugh so 
big that those awful men and their 
micropenises combust from the 
sheer feminine power.
In 2007, Vanity Fair published 
an essay by Christopher Hitchens 
titled “Why Women Aren’t Funny.” 
Yes, really. In the essay, Hitchens 
argued for the “superior funniness 
of men” versus the “inferior 
funniness of women.” According 
to Hitchens, women are inherently 
serious due to their childbearing 
and childrearing capabilities. He 
goes on to write, “For some reason 
women do not find their own 
physical decay and absurdity to be 

so riotously amusing, which is why 
we admire Lucille Ball and Helen 
Fielding, who do see the funny 
side of it. But this is so rare as to be 
like Dr. Johnson’s comparison of a 
woman preaching to a dog walking 
on its hind legs: the surprise is 
that it is done at all.” So, according 
to Hitchens, women do not find 
death as funny as men and they 
are too serious, therefore they are 
incapable of being as funny as men 
or funny at all.

In response to this essay, Vanity 
Fair published an eloquent rebuttal 
by Alessandra Stanley titled, “Who 
Says 
Women 
Aren’t 
Funny?” 
Stanley neatly and savagely lines 
up the ways women have slayed 
the comedy game for centuries. 
She even drops a line about our 
matriarch Sarah cracking a joke 
way back in Genesis. Yeah, we’ve 
been funny for a while. Stanley 
also mentions Kate Sanborn who 
wrote in her 1885 book “The Wit of 
Women”: “No man likes to have his 
story capped by a better and fresher 
from a lady’s lips.” Not much has 
changed since 1885; men still hate 
getting out-witted by funny females. 
Even the “King of Comedy” A.K.A. 
Jerry Lewis claimed again and 
again that women aren’t funny. 
Jerry Lewis repeatedly said he 
didn’t feel “comfortable” with 
women performing comedy and 
when asked if he had a favorite 
female comedian he responded 
that he didn’t have any. When the 
“King of Comedy” says women 
aren’t funny, it becomes more clear 
that maybe the problem isn’t a few 
sour men but a deep-rooted double-
standard riddled with misogyny 
that has infected the entire comedy 
industry. In her essay, Stanley 
writes, “It used to be that women 

were not funny. Then they couldn’t 
be funny if they were pretty. Now a 
female comedian has to be pretty — 
even sexy — to get a laugh.” It turns 
out, no matter what, women are 
criticized for being too much or not 
enough.
If you ask a female comedian how 
they feel about men like Hitchens 
or Lewis or any other white male 
comedian thinking we aren’t funny 
we will answer with a resounding, 
“we don’t f****ing care if you like it” 
(Tina Fey said that). While we don’t 
care what old, dead, white men 
have to say about the inconsistency 
of having boobs and a sense of 
humor, it still sucks. It sucks that 
as women we still have to justify 
our funniness and that we have to 
remind the world that women are 
funny: Remember when Tina Fey 
and Amy Poehler did Weekend 
Update? “Broad City” is still on, 
right? What about that time Cardi 
B co-hosted “The Tonight Show”? 
That was something. Joan Rivers 
once said, “Men find funny women 
threatening. They ask me, ‘Are you 
going to be funny in bed?’” If funny 
women are threatening, angry and 
funny women are a bloody threat. 
But look how far we’ve come! 
Women are killing the comedy 
game, occupying more roles in 
leadership positions on comedy 
networks and making space for 
women in TV, film and the internet 
for their content. So yeah, it sucks 
that women have more to prove, but 
it’s also amazing how much female-
driven content is out there today.
Women are funny because 
funny isn’t gendered. Women are 
funny because jokes should rely on 
one’s wit and talent not on what is 
between one’s legs. And guess what, 
like most subjective things, taste 
differs. And like most performers, 
not everyone excels at their craft. 
So yes, some women may not be 
funny but just as many, probably 
more, men are failing at funny too. 
Men claimed women are unfunny 
because they wanted them in the 
audiences and their beds rather 
than on the stage. The argument 
that women can’t be funny is an 
antiquated, misogynist claim that 
has no evidence or proof, and thus I 
proclaim it dead. Bye forever, good 
riddance.

Women are funny, okay?

BECKY 
PORTMAN

DAILY HUMOR COLUMN