Tuesday's New York Times puzzle solved: January 9, 2017

My time: 9:01.

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Peter A. Collins fills up our appetite for trivia with clues that have MEET IN THE MIDDLE.  Phonetically, that is.  See the "meat?"  NORTH AMERICA, LIVE A LIE, STROBE EFFECT, CLAM BAKE.

"Airplane wing feature" is SLAT.  To be precise, a leading-edge slat.  These are aerodynamic surfaces on the leading edge of the wings of fixed-wing aircraft which, when deployed, allow the wing to operate at a higher angle of attack.  And now I know that term too!

"Cool, giant sun" is S-STAR.  This rang a vague bell, and sure enough on September 27, 2017, F-star was a clue.  An F-type star is a white-yellow dwarf.  A S-type star, on the other hand, is a cool giant with equal quantities of carbon and oxygen in its atmosphere, and spectral bands of zirconium monoxide, whatever those are.

IOS is not only an Apple operating system, it is a Greek island in the Aegean, in the Cyclades group.  It's famous for its cheeses, particularly skotíri.

And now I know Donald Trump's middle name is JOHN.  Appropriate for a toilet-mouthed cretin.

Yesterday we had beauty company Aveda.  I've never heard of today's beauty company, Adrien ARPEL.  It was founded by its namesake, Adrien Arpel.

Something I really ought to know but can't seem to keep in my head: SANAA, de jure Yemen's capital. That's probably because the de facto capital has been Aden for a few years now.

Did you know that Frederick Douglass was once Ambassador to HAITI?  Me neither.

"I'VE Got Love on my Mind" is a song made famous by Natalie Cole.  It reached #5 on the Billboard charts in 1977.

I'm not usually a stickler for "clean" fill, but there's a lot of KHZ and SDS in this puzzle, and the Canon model EOS is neither very well known nor easily deduced from a letter or two.

Even I have heard of EBBETS Field, the Dodgers stadium in Brooklyn!  It took me some crossfill to get that this was the stadium where Jackie Robinson played, though.

Clever clues: "Tip of France?" is EURO.  "Operator's org?" is AMA.

And that RAPT it up.