Friday's New York Times crossword puzzle solved: February 12, 2021

My time: 11:14, four minutes faster than average.

The northwest corner was my bugbear on this one, even though an answer there, ISRAELI, was one of the first I put in.  Both the devious clue "Star Bucks, say?" and the letter soup of the answer, NBA MVPS, kept me frustrated for some time.

"Major retail outlets" is EMPORIA.  Yuck.

The ambiguity of the word "let" in "let someone know if you can go" had me putting in a present tense answer — *RSVP TO — but this "let" is the past tense: RSVP'ED.

"OH, TO be in England" is the first line from Robert Frost's poem "Home Thoughts From Abroad."

PERIDOT is apparently "one of the few gemstones that naturally occurs in a single color (olive green)." The exclusively green peridot is August's birth stone.

Fourteenth-century Grand Duke of Moscow IVAN I made Moscow very wealthy by maintaining his loyalty to the Mongol Horde (hence, the nickname Kalita, or the Moneybag). He used this wealth to give loans to neighboring Russian principalities. 

I had a hard time with MANSPLAIN in the northwest corner, probably because I had the -plain part first and got fixated on that.  I put *MAKE PLAIN and then *LAYS PLAIN.

"Trick, in slang" is HOSE?  Yep.  No LIE!

U.S. Route 20 is 3,365 miles long if it's a MILE.  It's the longest road in the United States.

ED ASNER just came up as playing Captain Davies in "Roots."  Today he's clued as playing Warren Buffett, as described on May 26, 2018.

Italian dessert TORTONI has been in the blog a few times before.  Today it's clued as being "topped with crumbled macaroons."  It can also be topped with almonds or chocolate shavings.

Crossword mainstay ARI Melber was in the blog as recently as January 19.

On September 9, 2018, I wrote that "although I'm familiar with them, I guess I never knew for sure that Chevy makes the 'VETTE," and that seems to still hold true, because the answer just wasn't coming.

Clever clues: "Trap" is PIEHOLE.  "A famous one is often connected with a school" is PAINTER.  "It's always up to something" is STAIRCASE.  "Melon seeds?" is IDEAS (we've had the same answer clued as "bean sprouts?" before).

I liked this one.  Interesting fill included PEACHY KEEN, SPHINX, MANSPLAIN, THE EURO, WATCH CHAIN, XXX RATED, and DERBY HATS.