NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 29, 2015): Thanksgiving Leftovers

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 29, 2015): Thanksgiving Leftovers:

Q: Take the name of a well-known actress — four letters in the first name, nine letters in the last. Insert a letter between the second and third letters of the first name. Remove the last two letters of the last name. The result is a two-word phrase that means "freedom."

Since we've had this puzzle before, I've got nothing further to add.

Edit: Nothing = Blank

A: Cate Blanchett --> Carte Blanche

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 22, 2015): Happy Thanksgiving

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 22, 2015): Happy Thanksgiving:

Q: The following three Thanksgiving dishes have something very unusual in common:

Spit-roast turkey

Cornbread stuffing

Boiled squash

What is it they have in common, and can you name one other thing that might be served at Thanksgiving dinner that has the same property?

Well, it isn't Baked Alaska.

Edit: My hint was a callback to the recent (MOUNT) DENALI puzzle. The food I submitted was the simple CAULIFLOWER.

A: Each food item uses all five vowels (A, E, I, O and U) exactly once. Other possible foods with this property: Whipped young yams, cranberry coulis, pumpkin gelato, robust Zinfandel. Any food whose name contained all five vowels exactly once was accepted.

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 15, 2015): Under the Canopy

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 15, 2015): Under the Canopy:

Q: Think of a word that contains three consecutive letters of the alphabet together — like CANOPY, which contains NOP. Change these three letters to one new letter to make a synonym of the first word. What words are these?

This puzzle reminds me of a joke I heard back in grade-school.

Edit: Here's the joke.
Teacher: "Who can use defeat, detail and defense in a single sentence?"
Johnny: "De-feet and de-tail of de-cat went over de-fence."

A: DEFEAT --> BEAT

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 8, 2015): Actor Becomes On-Air Contestant

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 8, 2015): Actor Becomes On-Air Contestant:

Q: Name a famous actor — using both first and last name. Drop the first two letters of the first name and the last two letters of the last name. Then put a Y between what's left of the two names. The result, reading from left to right, will identify who might solve this challenge and play puzzle on the air with me next week.

Or take the letters that remain in the actor's last name, add a letter before and after to name where you might see the actor today.

Edit: The answer to my hint was the TV show, BONES

A: RYAN O'NEAL --> ANYONE

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 1, 2015): And Three Nines are Twenty

NPR Sunday Puzzle (Nov 1, 2015): And Three Nines are Twenty:

Q: This is one of the "lost" puzzles of Sam Loyd, the great American puzzlemaker from the 19th and early 20th centuries. It's from an old magazine with a Sam Loyd puzzle column. The object is to arrange three 9s to make 20. There is no trick involved. Simply arrange three 9s, using any standard arithmetic signs and symbols, to total 20. How can it be done?

The whole point is there are no tricks involved. So you don't need to flip numbers upside down or involve higher order math like square roots or factorials... at least my solution doesn't need those.

Edit: My hint was point as in decimal point.

A: (9 + 9)/.9 = 20