I have a trifecta of readers I am wanting to wow. 1. My renaissance man who was an oceanographer and is now a general surgeon. He has some "reading" time driving in his car so I am looking for audio books. I have given him everything from Freakanomics to Panic on Level 4 to The Disapearing Spoon to books about a hurricane in Galveston. Fiction-wise Grisham, H. Coban, Rowling, Connally, and even the Irish Country Doc books have gotten good reviews from him. He has enjoyed some biographies like B. Franklin's and Malcolm Forbes. Any hot ideas? 2. My 18 yr old who is a manga magnet. She liked Harry Potter, has no interest what so ever in the Twilight series. She does not like to be creeped out but doesn't like gentle fiction. 3. My 85 yr old mom. In the past she has enjoyed Maeve Binchy, Sue Grafton and even laughed herself through Stephanie Plums first dozen but feels they are getting monotonous. She seems to like multigenerational epics. Thanks!

@Cassie- Stacy Ballis' " Good Enough To Eat" is great smart chick lit. As far as Janet Evanovich- the Stephanie Plum (first five) are good bit watch out for her older rehashed romance novels.. @Karen- I have a daughter like that. Try Richard Peck's trilogy about Grandma Dowdel- A Long Way From Chicago, A Year Down Yonder and the latest one whose name escapes me. They are wonderful. The audio versions are also a family favorite!

I am not a lawyer but hands down My Cousin Vinnie! .... "Mrs. Reilly and only Mrs Reilly, how many fingers am I holding up"....." did you say uutz?".... "are they magic grits?"

I am not a lawyer but hands down My Cousin Vinnie! .... "Mrs. Reilly and only Mrs Reilly, how many fingers am I holding up"....." did you say uutz?".... "are they magic grits?"

As an outsider looking in, you know what I wish? That the movers and shakers list had a little sidebar that explained why the particular item was moving and shaking. For example, I did not watch Jon Stewart's interview with Marilynn Robinson and if you hadn't written about it I would wonder why her book is on the list. Wouldn't that be cool?

This would be a great scale if it also had a metric conversion- so many recipes I seem to be drawn to are in grams and kilos. Then again, maybe doing the mental math is keeping my brain agile and if I get a scale that does it my brain will fizzle into nothingness. Thanks for the salt weighing tip Josh!

One of the most successful things we made for bake sales in recent years actually did not involve baking per-say. We made different types of tea, coffee and hot chocolate mixes (such as Chai tea mix, cappuccino cinnamon coffee mix, etc) and placed them in small decorated canning jars- with instructions. The small jars make perfect gifties and we found that a lot were bought for stocking stuffers. The left-over ones help up beautifully for the next bake-sale. We also did the same with soup mixes but to be honest the little teas and coffees were the ones that sold like hot-cakes. The other thing that really sells are homemade dog, cat and even horse treats. The kids had a lot of fun making the dog cookies in the shape of ginger-bread men.

I made these last night. I am not sure what part of "pit four pounds of cherries" I thought would not be time consuming.....sigh... anyway, I think there is something wrong with the recipe. Four pounds of cherries is, oh, 16 cups or cherries (one pound of cherries being approx. 4 cups). There is no way 4 pounds of cherries fit into 3 pint jars. Did I do something wrong? Have you made the recipe? It is totally my fault not thinking it through beforehand. Perhaps I thought that the cherries would cook down sort of like spinach does. Anyway, It was not to hard to rectify. I had to clean more jars, put more brandy in the bottom of each jar and I did add more sugar. I am hoping that the proportions given in the recipe are correct- 1/4 cup of brandy in the bottom of each pint jar? I haven't tried them, but I guess you can't go wrong with brandy, cherries and sugar on top of homemade vanilla ice cream, can you? Please comment.

It sometimes is included in canning kit (though I know it wasn't in mine and didn't realize they made such a thing for years) but I really recommend a canning magnet. It looks like a plastic pencil but where the eraser would be is a magnet. It is to lift the lids out of the hot water and makes it SO much easier to place the lids on the filled jars. Every time I use it I want to thank whoever invented it. I never have used a lid rack, the only thing I do is put one lid right way and one lid the wrong way into the little pot that I use to sterilize the lids in. That makes it easier to separate them and with the little magnet it is a breeze to pick them up! Also, I only use two big pots- the one to sterilize doubles up as the one I process in. The water is already hot and it doesn't take long to bring it up to temp. to do the processing since I have taken the jars and filled them, it already has around the right amount of water- that saves on heating energy and a bit of water. I am by no means an expert and would appreciate it if anybody wants to say "hey don't do it that way..."