Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is David P. Williams’s third Stumper in the last three months. I hope that this constructor is now in regular rotation: his puzzles are challenging, amusing, and full of novelty in both clues and answers. I bounced around in search of a starting point, landed on 13-A, five letters, “Avocado is its alternative for high-heat cooking,” and never looked back.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

2-D, four letters, “Formerly classy person?” I respect such clues.

5-D, seven letters, “Figure carved on Pirates of the Caribbean ships.” I know someone who would approve.

6-D, eleven letters, “Talk derived from a nautical water cask.” See? Novelty.

16-A, ten letters, “Greater good?” See 2-D.

19-A, seven letters, “Spread of very varied opinions.” Hah.

21-D, four letters, “Lit ____.” I hope so.

23-D, eleven letters, “High-tech handles.” I think this clue would be better as “Handles.” Who thinks of them as “high-tech”?

24-A, letters, “Triangular treats.” The speed with which they might be consumed makes it difficult to register their shape.

35-D, eight letters, “Recipient of the deductive ‘You have been in Afghanistan’ (1887).” No doubt sending many a solver to find out what permits this deduction.

39-A, thirteen letters, “Pithy pair.” I appear to be going for alliterative clues today.

54-A, four letters, “Orange peel portion.” I began wondering how many segments an orange has. (Typically ten.) And then I remembered that I was doing a Saturday Stumper.

56-A, three letters, “Liquid that makes pretzels chewy.” Eww.

58-A, five letters, “Highbrow.” Yes, but this word has another meaning for me.

My favorite in this puzzle: 10-D, ten letters, “Surname of TV Guide’ s #2 of its 50 best cartoons (2013).” Partly because of the loopiness of the clue (#2! 2013!), partly because the word surname amuses me as applied to cartoon characters, partly because TV Guide makes me think of my grandparents.

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.