Honestly, some mornings you just want to drink your coffee and find a few words without feeling like you're back in culinary school. Today is not that day. The December 19 NYT Strands puzzle is a bit of a curveball, especially if your idea of "knife skills" starts and ends with spreading peanut butter on toast.
The theme today is On the chopping block, and while that might sound like it’s about corporate layoffs or French history, it’s actually much more domestic. We are talking about the kitchen. Specifically, the very precise ways a chef tells you to cut things up.
NYT Strands Hints December 19: A Little Nudge
If you're stuck, you're probably staring at a jumble of letters thinking there's a secret message about executioners. There isn't. Every single word in this grid refers to a specific cutting technique.
Think about how you'd prep a carrot. You don't just "cut" it; you might turn it into tiny sticks or little squares. If you can spot a four-letter word that describes a 3D square, you've already found your first foothold.
One of the words today is a real "if you know, you know" type of term. It's French. It involves rolling up leaves—like basil or spinach—and slicing them into thin ribbons. If you aren't a frequent viewer of The Bear, that one might stay hidden until you've cleared the rest of the board.
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The Spangram That Ties It All Together
The spangram is the "North Star" of any Strands puzzle. It’s the word or phrase that touches two opposite sides of the board and perfectly sums up the theme. For the December 19 game, the spangram is MAKINGTHECUT.
It’s clever. It plays on the "chopping block" theme while also being a common idiom for succeeding or qualifying. In this context, it literally refers to the act of making a cut with a blade. Look for the "M" starting about three rows down on the far left side and trace your way across the grid.
The Full Word List for December 19
Sometimes you just need to see the answers to understand where your brain went wrong. Here is what you're looking for:
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- CUBE: Those neat little squares.
- DICE: Smaller than a cube, often used for onions.
- SLICE: The most basic move in the book.
- MINCE: Think garlic. Tiny, tiny pieces.
- JULIENNE: The fancy way of saying "matchsticks."
- CHIFFONADE: That ribbon-cutting technique I mentioned earlier.
- MAKING THE CUT (Spangram): The big one.
How to Get Those Hint Tokens
If you're still struggling to visualize these in the grid, don't forget the "pity" system. It’s actually quite useful. Find any random word that isn't part of the theme—as long as it’s four letters or more—and it counts toward a hint.
Words like MICE, MINE, or KING are all hiding in there. Find three of those "garbage" words, and the game will circle the letters of a theme word for you. It won't tell you the order, but it narrows the search space significantly.
A Quick Strategy for Beginners
Don't start in the middle. The corners are your best friends in Strands. A corner letter only has three possible neighbors it can connect to, whereas a center letter has eight.
If you see a "J" or a "Z" (though there's no Z today), those are high-value starting points because they limit your options. Today, finding that "J" for JULIENNE or the "C" for CHIFFONADE is usually the fastest way to break the puzzle open.
Once you clear those long, complex words, the smaller ones like DICE and CUBE tend to just fall into place because there are fewer letters left to choose from.
The hardest part about the December 19 puzzle isn't the logic; it's the vocabulary. If you didn't grow up watching Food Network, CHIFFONADE feels like a word someone made up just to ruin your streak. But that's the beauty of Strands—you usually walk away with a slightly better vocabulary than you had ten minutes ago.
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Now that you've got the answers, go ahead and clear that board. If you want to keep the momentum going, try looking for the MINCE and SLICE words first, as they occupy relatively straightforward paths compared to the winding spangram.