Get inside the mind of puzzler Cathy Allis

When the oil spill happened last year in the Gulf of Mexico, Allis, who lives in Saratoga Springs with her cat, wondered:

[...] I made a puzzle called 'Crude Invasion' for the New York Magazine.

What a hit dirty movie might be? TOPS(OIL)ATTHEBOXOFFICE

What parents might launch against a bathroom-hogging kid? T(OIL)ETOFFENSIVE

Uncle Remus character doomed to be grilled? BR(OIL)ERRABBIT

To Allis, "fusion cuisine" means putting together two words having to do with food to make another word.

Jewish foods end up being a puzzle called "Getting Noshes" with clues such as:

Physical affection with servings of Jewish derma? HUGSANDKISHKES

[...] recently, he says, she led in Times' Sunday puzzles, the pinnacle for constructors.

"A good crossword puzzle isn't there to try to make you suffer," she says.

[...] order, she received a book of blank crossword-puzzle grids as a gift, made a crossword puzzle for her father who was in the hospital, started making a medically oriented crossword puzzle for the hospital publication where she worked, and took an adult-education class on how to make and market crossword puzzles.

(She later worked in retail, worked at a school for children with special needs, sold questions to an online-quiz show and wrote 1,800 riddles for a board game called TriBond.) Her biggest payday for crosswords is $1,000 for a Sunday New York Times puzzle, she says.

The Times pays $200 for Monday-through-Saturday puzzles, she says, and other major publications pay from $200 to $350 for a Sunday-size puzzle.

Shortz asked her to write the answers for a puzzle themed to oldies music so that Clinton could write the filler clues.

"Most people think you make up the clues and then you put the answers in," she says.

[...] she starts looking for her next idea -- maybe something as promising as the movie "The...