Arancini! I haven't had those for years, and they were one of my favorite foods! It's a lot of work for one person (I think; I've never made them), but the next excuse for a potluck that comes around...
Really nice! I went from thinking those shaded entires were just for decoration, to realizing I was way off but still had no idea.. and so fun once I got it.
Can I request an explanation? As far as I could tell, the themed clues had nothing to do with the answers, but I'm sure there's something critical I missed!
For each of the highlighted entries, the clue defines a word and instructs you to reverse it when filling the grid. For example, in 1A, an "Artist" is a DRAWER, which "retreat"s in the grid to make REWARD.