Lost in the sauce

Coming to you this weekend from sweet home Chicago ahead of the Midwest Crossword Tournament! Despite occasional Midwestern references throughout my puzzles, I feel like this blog has been shockingly geographically misguided (after all, the first three-ish years of grids appeared in a California publication) and so we're gonna change that with this theme. 

Say hi if you see me at UIC (because I will if you "I" see :)))) )!


A few breadcrumbs: