Hi Guys...thanks for ALL your great and helpful suggestions. We had our party yesterday. The weather was Sunny and 'nippy'...but just right!! The kids enjoyed the 'haunted' shed and the outdoor graveyard in the field. We even gave them 'hay rides' in my husband's tractor cart that was filled w/hay. We set up benches and a iron chiminea and they toasted marshmallows. I had a pumpkin hunt, hid 48 of them while my friend read Halloween Stories to them. The candy corn jar was a hit. The adults were really competitive with the guessing, as well as the voting for the Best Carved Pumpkin. The first prize in the kids group,was a 3 1/2 yr old. SHE actually painted a cute face on her pumpkin, and was so proud. We didn't get to play any other games, because they were having too much fun doing different things. So, all in all, it went really well. I had made goodie bages for all the kids, and also for the adults. I had collected some vines from my yard, and made small wreaths (15) and hot glued some small autumn fruits and berries and orange organze ribbon (from Michaels),and placed them over - glass votive holders that were 3 for $1, w/pumpkin spice votives..and that was their gift. The adult prizes went pretty well. (3)...the fall centerpiece in small clay flowerpot. two mugs - a dollar each with,two - a dollar each fall plaid napkins and some cocoa packets, and then a small ceramic pumpkin w/4 Halloween Napkins...I let the first place winner choose first, then the second and third. It went over really well, and everyone kept saying how much fun they all had and that the kids had the best time. Even got some calls back this morning to express what a great time they had!! So, thanks again. Oh! also we did a Pot Luck, and EVERYONE outdid themselves...all wanting each others receipes!! Whew...I'm just so relieved it went well, and now I can RELAX...til Christmas!!! LOL

Thank you Nancy (WIZARDNM)-I made your ham loaf last night and it was fabulous. Ok it does have a funny story behind it, after I get it all put together and put it in the oven I noticed I didn't put in the ground mustard-luckily this was only 5 minutes into cooking time. So I yank it out and put the mustard in it, moosh, moosh, pat pat, make presentable..no one will know but me! About 45 min later house smelling yummy, I go pour off fat as directed, well instead of using a baster to suck out the fat because I hate cleaning that "sucker", I decide to tilt the pan over a can in the sink. Well as I was tilting the loaf decided that it needed a little cleaning and half of it fell into the sink...plunk, slat, moosh everywhere. After much cursing, the other half went back in got lots of basting since its other half decided the sink was a better place than the oven...arrggghhh. But it was fabulous! Everyone ate it up. DD even ate it and she hates ham, first thought it was meatloaf until DH told her it was ham but she looked at me and said "that's ok Mom, it still taste good even though I hate ham". : ) So thank you. Oh I also owe thanks to someone on the another thread that mentioned that she heats 2 pizza stones and then places the pizza in between to make it like a pizza oven..tried that technique and that worked wonders. Thank you all for your suggestions. Sol-thank you for the recipe! Heidi

Thank-you! I've been chafing at the imperfections in my ability to read Spanish (it used to be much better)--especially considering your English is impeccable-- but I like your way of looking at it better. It's the scanning in Spanish that I just can't do, though. Never could. Where you look at a whole paragraph and know what it's about, and your eye picks out the word or two about what you're looking for. I actually have to read all the words in Spanish. :) I don't know if the power difference has any real effect on performance. The BGH "max power" may just be what's needed to run both the top heating element and the grill at the same time (which is another difference from the Franke). I don't know if those modes would help pizza, but I'd guess that's the kind of thing it was really meant for. I doubt max power is used that often by any oven. Probably in a pre-heat mode where all elements are on to make the oven heat more rapidly than just using the ones you want to cook with. But I don't know that for sure. A consideration in buying any appliance is service. Ovens sometimes need to be calibrated, or a part may fail. A Chinese oven from an established local company which services and stands by it (for instance, will replace it if the unit is a "lemon"--just no good), if they actually do that, might trump a respected European oven which is sold though by the store, but they just give you the box and expect you to deal with any issues yourself. The same goes for outside sources for service. Here, some major independent appliance stores have their own service departments and have excellent techs. There are also companies in the city that specialize in one brand, such as Gaggenau or Whirlpool, and some other independents that work on the "big box store" brands such as Samsung, LG, and Panasonic, and will do any general service and repair, but don't stock the parts, which makes for a wait. Some of the big makers also have their own techs, or have certified techs at a local independent to do warranty work. It never hurts to find out who can and will do the work both during the warranty period and after. There should be a one year warranty on either. Factory testing can't find all faults, and sometimes something comes loose or breaks in shipping. The warranty should start on the day of installation. It's important to check that, because if it starts on the date of sale, but the unit is installed months later, you lose a big chunk of warranty. If the maker is giving a big extension on the warranty without added value, that's a red flag. Miele gives an extra year of warranty if you use their installers, presumably because they were getting too many warranty calls for issues caused by poor installation. But, another company might give a five year warranty, where one or two years is the norm, because they're known to have build issues. The five year warranty says, "Don't worry. We've got you covered. Buy ours anyway and we'll fix the faults." At a certain point, analysis goes out the window. After you've figured out all the features, the service, the reviews, etc., and there aren't any deal killers with either, perhaps it's the one with the nicer dials or racks that you end up preferring, or the one that matches the fridge. If you can see them in person and touch the doors and racks and knobs, you might feel which one you like better.

Some months ago I related a story where I went to a hardware store to buy a tarp. Rather than asking for a "Tarp", I used what I had learned as the proper name of the item: Tarpoleon (pronounced as rhyming with Napoleon) The clerk responded "I don't know what that is", I asked again for a "Tarp" and she directed me to the right location saying I've never heard that word before. I was posting that story here as an example of how little training workers in big-box hardware stores receive, and I was surprised to see the word "Tarpoleon" underlined with a red squiggle, so I looked up the word in another tab for the correct spelling, and found not only was my spelling incorrect, but the way I had been raised to pronounce it was also also simply wrong.