Need help with today's NYT Strand puzzle? Today's puzzle theme is Better together

Below are the clues and answers for Strands #116 First, here are some hints before the answer to #116

WARNING: There are spoilers for Strands #116

The official theme of NYT Strands #116 is "Better together"

And here's an unofficial tip from me: "A delicious mix"

If you're still in the dark, here are a few useful words that give you valuable hint tokens:

Still struggling? Spangram gives you a hint on conjunctions Today it starts with a "C" and ends with an "S"

Scroll down to see what it is

COMBOMEALS

Now, what's the answer to today's strand?

Drumroll, please

Spangram was combo metal

Strands #116

"Better together"

??

??

Hey Strands fans Here's a tricky question for you today When I saw the clue "Better together" I was immediately thrown back to Strands #93 where the individual words were combined (eg "divide" and "conquer")

Today, it was about food, which is often combined, but I didn't understand it right away I spent a lot of time scanning the board for the word, eventually arriving at "FRIES" in the lower left corner

What goes with FRIES? BURGER, of course, and I found it starting a little above that Next I saw CHEESE to the right of FRIES, but could not immediately think of a combo Next I spotted GRAVY, but wasn't convinced that this was Canadian poutine

In fact, it was BISCUITS a little above that This put the board away enough that I could see the spangram clearly

Now all I had to do was find a partner for CHEESE, and I solved the remaining letters in the upper right corner to spell MACARONI, completing the puzzle for another day

If you are reading this later in the day, you can read this article in its entirety in yesterday's article Yesterday's article on the solution to game #115 on the Strand can be found here