crowning touch

It's the Spirit of Ecstasy, the Rolls-Royce's crowning touch.

There’s no need to defrost, because frozen pastry bakes up beautifully crisp and flaky, making it the crowning touch for a cold-weather favorite.

In 1932, a gas station owner in Ontario got an artsy Times review for setting his incinerator in a garden planted with narcissus, geraniums and verbena, and — the crowning touch — “the smoke comes out the little chimney” made to look like “a plaster gnome with long beard, high Santa Claus cap and colorful clothing … smoking contentedly by the side of a little lake.”

Recently, two girls dressed as toy soldiers popped by for a photo just as the crowning touch was added to this year’s display: a creature from “Where the Wild Things Are” on the roof, guarding over the whole production.

When Cameron first meets his clone, the welter of apprehension, curiosity and concern is apparent on Cameron’s face, but Ali’s crowning touch is Jack’s faint expression of sympathy toward the man he will replace.