Carol, There's no rhyme or reason to what they do or how they do it. That's based on the fact I always look at the jars in whatever Wal-Mart store I'm in, and no two of them do things the same way. I haven't seen the jars marked down at the Ardmore store yet this year, but some of the jars (though not all) are still marked down in Gainesville. So far, I've bought 18 cases at $6.00 per case, and I think that breaks down to 11 cases of half-pint quilted crystal jelly jars and 7 cases of wide-mouth pints. They were down to only 4 cases of half-pint jelly jars at the $6.00 clearance price the last time I looked last weekend, but they had gotten in a whole new shipment of jars and had completely refilled the once-almost-empty shelves. The new shipment? Those are back at full price. The clearance ones are on the end of another aisle near the canning aisle now, but not on the canning aisle. I expect that's so people won't think all the newly-arrived jars are on clearance. Is this not bizarre? If my memory is correct, they have done this in the past, and the jars that have just arrived will be on clearance in 2 or 3 months. I don't know why they do it this way. It isn't like new jars have a shelf life or a 'sell by' date like food products do. To me, it makes no sense to clear out perfectly good jars on sale just to replace them with identical jars at full price. As long as this store does it in this way, I'll buying the clearance jars. It seems like Ardmore normally puts them on sale briefly in the middle of the summer when they have regular shipments coming in and no place to put them, but I didn't make it up to Ardmore much this summer. I do remember seeing quart jars at a slightly reduced price there in July, but I don't can that much in quarts. Their price wasn't cut much either, I think it was cut 44 cents per case. Once they start really putting out more and more Christmas merchandise (the Gainesville store started putting Christmas stuff on the Garden Center shelves around Labor Day) in the store, they start clearing out lids, labels, pectin, etc. If I pay attention and always remember to check either the clearance aisle or canning aisle, I can get most all my canning supplies on clearance and rarely pay full price. My best guess it that the manager of each store decides what to clear out and when. In that case, I hope the manager of the Gainesville store stays there forever. I like finding deals on jars. Dawn

Ok - I have to weigh in on the wonders of a turkey roasted in an old fashioned roaster. The separate 'appliance' that sits on your counter and roasts only the turkey. My mom and my aunt both had one and we had GREAT turkey every time. I never gave it much thought until I had to become the Hostess of Thanksgiving. I struggled for several years with that giant turkey in a too small oven for everything else and the timing and juggling for oven space... About ten years ago I spied one at Home Depot for 29$ it came with an electric carving knife. Done. Best thing I've ever bought. I don't even have a thermometer. Moist, flavorful, with crispy skin. I do not stuff but do a similar prep as the Martha one. Everyone raves. Of course they are probably just being nice but when they ask for turkey leftovers I kinda believe them. And everybody keeps coming to our house... Best part is I have plenty of room in the oven for everything else.

If by "dealt directly" you mean ordered from Thermoworks directly, yes, I have. Since I've never had a problem with any of the tools I've bought from them, I've never had a reason to talk to their customer service. Even if a few of the Thermapens are "refurbished," they still carry the full warranty. For the price, I'd buy one, if I needed one. I've already given them as gifts to everyone I know who might have a use for a Thermapen. Back during turkey cooking season, someone was lamenting the fact that they didn't have an instant read thermometer to check the temp of the turkey. They were reluctant to purchase a Thermapen at full price. I was hopeful they might see this post and plan ahead for the next turkey cooking event.

Colleenoz, it's possible, but this is the third time in a few days, with the others more specific and direct. A great tip I got from from Linda--pick up proper baking pans at yard sales or thrift shops for less than disposable costs and stash them for these occasions. Bake in real pans and send them on their way with a sticky saying they're not to be returned! The reason for baking brownies below 350° F is to prevent browning. The M(don't want to look up spelling) reaction starts at 350°. For brownies, 325° is pretty much standard. Bbstx, besides the variability of ovens, there's the variability of clocks! And there's also the copy over effect. What if the original said "50-55" minutes but was one of those weird ways of making numbers and was copied wrong? What if Granny was going from memory and forgot that 30 minutes was just to check that it wasn't browning too fast, but it got changed to 20 minutes, and the total number got lopped off? Or she just forgot the numbers altogether and figured if it wasn't done at 30 min., it would for sure be under and you'd figure it out? What if she had a highly conductive pan that made brownies that much faster? What if it really is 35 minutes without checking it at 20? What if her ingredients were different enough that they baked that much differently? (I know that can be an issue in general. We'd need Grainlady to tell us what and why.) In college, I learned about how the notations of professional scribes who weren't allowed to scrape off mistakes were interpreted by future generations who didn't understand the system to change the meaning, and how even the very best scribes could accidentally substitute homophones, which on occasion could invert the meaning of a sentence from positive to negative, or some other drastic alteration. Don't cling so tightly to text. My favorite bread book, Local Breads by Daniel Leader, is so full of errata that they keep a web page of corrections up, and people on Fresh Loaf and similar sites add more. Don't cling to the text! You know how to bake. You know what done is. Trust the evidence not the words.