Putting The A In STEM (Meta)

Love me some Aristotle, thanks! What is the race with the POLE thing?

My kind of puzzle!! Thanks Ben!

Clever! I got here but I think I didn't fully understand some of the clues. The letter that starts your country but is covered in gold, is it S since it follows Au?

Love me some word-letter riddles.

Definitely had to backsolve a few of those (“IC”, especially), but wow that was clever. I also spent some time thinking each letter might come from other entries, since BECHAMEL is the base sauce of a pot pie, and ELDORADO means covered in gold (and there’s an A in the middle of it), and two letters that get very cold could be (O)maha and (S)we…. but of course that just would not work out for me. (Also just had to try submitting MATHEMATICS, given your job.)

Like some others, I struggled with the esses, but since the physic part seemed clear and using ALL as a word for whole didn't work... (I was on the track of finding a word that started with A based on the title.)

You little cryptic devil, you!!

Got to PHYSICS almost immediately (though I failed to parse POLE as part of the S clue). Needed to google some options to think of what to put in front of it, but once I saw it there was no doubt. Fun one, thanks.

It's easy to miss that the clues with blanks after inserting the answers, can be read as one continuous poem.

Took a bit, and some encouragement from a friendly muggle, but ultimately got there. Thanks for the fun brainteaser, Ben!

Fun, thank you!

(N00b question — some folks have times of 2, 3, or 4 seconds for the puzzle… is that from just revealing it and focusing on the meta? Thanks!)

Sendhil, yes. Some of us prefer to solve on paper first, then use Crosshare to submit the answer.

That was great!

This was different and fun!

Very creative puzzle!! Love riddles and love this puzzle! Interpreted clue 65a incorrectly and that was preventing a solve for a while! Thank you, Ben!

whoa how zen... can't believe I grokked that one. Very cool - thanks!

Fun use of riddle, Ben. I didn't get the bend racing with a pole, but the PHY string and IC were solid and AU = gold from AUStralia = S sort of made sense. Thanks.

Loved it!

Oh, good god. Had to you onelook for *physics* (I was convinced the "word for whole" was "all") and gave myself a dope slap when the first hit was the meta.

Great puzzle!

this one eluded me for so long because i was staring at chicken pot pie for the longest time not knowing what to do with it... i thought BECHAMEL and i'm like does this go in the pot pie? then finally thought about "pea" and the rest was fairly smooth solving until i didn't know what the POLE meant... but had enough of the puzzle to guess the answer... the AU covering AUSTRALIA to extract the "S" was my other in to the puzzle to get me thinking about letters

I traveled down all the wrong roads already mentioned. I spent SO much time trying to shoehorn ALL in. This puzzle went well beyond my level of clever I am afraid, but hey, new mechanisms are always a challenge. Thanks for the puzzle Ben

The spoilers didn't get me any further than I already was; I kept getting tangled using ALL for the start, and ? exactly what to use re: your country. But when I finally figured it had to be physics, well, then I just figured what 4-letter companion needed to be in front of it. Pure poetry!

omg im so upset with myself. OUTSET means the start. fun one!! thank you