Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by Rafael Musa, is relatively easy. Also delightful: clever, tricky, oblique, nearly factoid-free.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

5-D, three letters, “Woman in Arabian Nights.” Somehow this kind of clue seems to sport an ID tag.

23-D, eleven letters, “Satisfies.” I would like to know how far back the answer goes. Now I do.

26-D, eight letters, “‘Steep, strain, serve’ product.” My first thought was LOOSETEA.

27-A, eight letters, “Dressing option.” Yes, please.

35-D, three letters, “Sound from a shaker.” For a moment I thought of the doo-wop syllable SHA.

46-A, six letters, “Introductory explanation.” I know the answer in a different way, and I was never happy about it.

51-A, four letters, “Reporter to take among the earliest flash photos (1880s).” Having read his writing and looked at his photographs, I don’t mind this factoid.

54-A, ten letters, “Child’s catchphrase.” Brilliant. A more typical answer might be AMNOT or ARETOO.

59-A, ten letters, “Having caught bugs.” SICKINBED doesn’t fit. SICKASADOG does but doesn’t.

My favorite in this puzzle: 3-D, seven letters, “Specimen, for example.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.