Need some help with today's NYT Strands? Today's theme, “Dress for Lunch,” isn't too esoteric, and there aren't too many answers.

Below are some helpful hints and what-if answers for Strands #257. We will start with the hints and then lead you to the full solution for Strands #257.

WARNING: There are spoilers for Strands #257.

The official theme for NYT Strands #257 is... Dress for Lunch.”

And here's an unofficial tip from me: “Light Eats.”

If you're still not sure, here are a couple of words that could be valuable hints. Spangram gives us a hint on conjunctions. Today begins with 's' and ends with 's'.

Scroll down to see what it is.

SALADGREENS.

Now, what's the answer to today's Strand game #257?

Drumroll please.

... Spangram was SALADGREENS.

Strands #257

“Dress for lunch”

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Hello Strands fans! Today I have something simple and good for you. When I heard the phrase “dressing for lunch” I immediately thought of salad dressing.” The word “salad” immediately caught my eye, but I couldn't quite figure out how to spangram it. So I started looking for different types of salads: caesar, cobb, wedge, etc.

I couldn't find any of them, so I noticed ROMAINE in the upper left corner and started looking for the type of salad leaves instead. I found ICEBERG on the other side and RADICCHIO on the bottom right.

This gave me enough space to think of a spangram ending: SALADGREENS.

Now that the four letters of KALE were neatly coded, all I had to do was figure out the anagram for WAETRCRSSE. It doesn't take a genius to decipher it: it's WATERCRESS.”

Are you reading this in a slow time zone? The full article on Strand's solution to yesterday's game #256 can be found here.