Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is by Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor, composing as Lester Ruff. I had an easy (Les Ruff) start, getting roughly a third of the puzzle in five minutes. And then I spent half an hour getting the rest.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

4-D, four letters, “Snowless flurries.” I put my Stumper hat on and made the right guess.

12-D, ten letters, “’65 Oscar score song played by a balalaika band.” My starting point — as a solver of this crossword, not as a musician.

15-A, ten letters, “That’s a surprise!” I guessed correctly, erased, guessed again, erased, and went back to my first guess.

22-A, six letters, “All Nancy Drew book authors.” Funny.

24-D, ten letters, “Juno star, per Wikipedia.” “Per Wikipedia” seems to introduce an unnecessary complication with perhaps unintended overtones.

26-D, three letters, “She’s absorbed by extravagance.” Yes, it’s Saturday.

38-A, seven letters, “Cabbage + onions = jalapeños ...” I’d never heard of it.

41-A, six letters, “‘Softest-soft and Whitest-white’ sloganeer.” Fiendish.

54-A, four letters, “Chariot racer in the 67 Olympics.” Clever.

55-D, ten letters, “All I Did Was Ask memoirist/
broadcaster.” One of least favorite broadcasters. Painful listening.

My favorite in this puzzle: 51-A, ten letters, “Singer name-checked in Darin’s ‘Mack the Knife.’”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.