Grid: 8 minutes; meta: ten extra 

Matt Gaffney’s Wall Avenue Journal contest crossword, “Sounds Scrumptious” — Conrad’s writeup.

This week we’re searching for a six-letter phrase. There have been six lengthy theme entries with foolish fill. I wrote them down and didn’t discover a sign at first. I attempted to make one thing of DREAD/BREAD and SHOREDOUGH/SOURDOUGH, however that rabbit gap petered out. I stated “DREADAGENIE” out loud and considered meals. FETTUCCINE (which occurs to be ten letters lengthy) got here to thoughts and I had the rabbit: every foolish entry rhymed with a kind of pasta and the clued numbers referred to the size of every kind:

WSJ Contest – 07.29.22

• DREADAGENIE (10): FETTUCCINE
• ZINGMEANIE (8): LINGUINI
• TONYAZLOTY (9): AGNOLOTTI 
• PERMABELLY (10): VERMICELLI
• SHOREDOUGH (4): ORZO
• SAVVYGOALIE (7): RAVIOLI

The primary letters of the rhyming pastas spell FLAVOR, our contest resolution. I had most of FLAVOR stuffed in (and knew that needed to be the reply), however needed to Google a bit to finish the record. This Wikipedia article got here in useful. I’m not 100% certain on AGNOLOTTI however the reply was a lock so I submitted it. Solvers: let me know the way you probably did, and in case your record matches mine. We’ll finish with Public Enemy’s Battle the Energy.