Lisa Baertlein

Thanksgiving is a week away, let's talk turkey.

It's time to defrost your bird, says Mary Clingman, director of the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line (1-800-BUTTERBALL).

Clingman and her fellow Turkey talk specialists field about 100,000 panicked calls from home cooks each year and have dubbed this Thursday "national thaw day."

To avoid a "turkey-cicle" Butterball competitor Foster Farms (1-800-255-7227) suggests that cooks allow two days to defrost a 12-lb bird in the refigerator and about five days for a turkey twice that size.

Retailers like Wal-Mart are using inexpensive turkey and fixins' to lure shoppers at a time when the sluggish national economy and still rising unemployment is preventing some cooks from going all out on Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, some frugalistas are planning potlucks or other arrangements that help share the cost of the meal.

Here are some other tips from the folks at the turkey helplines: 

*Make sure your oven is big enough for your bird

*Check for giblets -- the organs and other bits often found in a bag inside the bird

*Use a meat thermometer

*To avoid setting yourself on fire while frying your turkey, turn off the flame while you lower the turkey into the oil

(Photo/Reuters)

Check out what women buy when they get tired of being a frugalista: boots, plaid and outerwear. 

Those were some of the products that helped October U.S. retail sales improve from a year ago, when the unfolding financial meltdown had shoppers fearing a second Great Depression.

"Frugal fatigue is setting in," said NPD Group analyst Marshal Cohen. After a year of scrimping, he added, the numbers suggest that some women are going in for a little retail fix.

"Women (not only moms) are shopping their closets, discovering new and fresh looks and filling in with some key updates," he said.

But selective shopping is not enough to ease worries about the all-important holiday sales.

Thomson Reuters research shows that while October sales rebounded, results from individual retailers were mixed.

Also in the basket:

Warnaco beats estimates; Liz Claiborne misses

Children's Place October same-store sales beat estimates

CVS says won't meet pharmacy benefits view in 2010

US commercial real estate to bottom in 2010-survey

Productivity at 6-year high, jobless claims fall

Wine sales at restaurants and bars are falling as diners trade down to less expensive options or skip wine altogether to save a buck.  But some restaurants are cooking up contrarian strategies to squeeze sales from the vine.

California Pizza Kitchen took its wine list more upscale and wine sales followed.

The pizza chain launched the new wine list on Oct. 5. It includes Cakebread Cellars Chardonnay, La Crema Pinot Noir and Stags' Leap Merlot for around $10 a glass.

"This is us going back to our roots. When we first opened CPK, (in 1985) part of the concept was we that we would have familiar wines at unfamiliar prices," said Rick Rosenfield, CPK's co-chief executive officer.

Morton's steakhouse, on the other hand, is working the downturn in fine wine prices to its advantage.

It is hitting auctions as luxury restaurants clear cellars and striking exclusive relationships with wineries like Charles Krug, Gundlach Bundschu and Liverano when they have unsold premium wine.

Its limited-time Krug 1881,  which sells for around $13 a glass, is the restaurant's top-selling Cabernet, said Tylor Field, Morton's vice president of wine and spirits.

While wine sales at retail continue to outpace those in restaurants, Charles Krug's Peter Mondavi Jr said the winery recently has made inroads at restaurants like  Smith & Wollensky, Roy's and Landry's.

(Photo/Reuters)

Talk about a disconnect.

Experts say U.S. economic growth has returned, signaling the end of the longest and deepest recession since the Great Depression.

But the good news for Wall Street -- where shares have been running up -- is showing no signs of trickling down to Main Street, where unemployment is flirting with 10 percent, foreclosures continue to rise and record numbers of families now depend on government-issued food stamps to make ends meet.

"For every person out of work, for every family facing foreclosure, for every small business facing a credit crunch, the recession remains alive and acute," U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in testimony to a congressional committee.

"Many people you might have called middle class or working class before have been ground down toward poverty or even destitution," said author Barbara Ehrenreich, who has chronicled America's working poor during her career.

While most Americans either fret about a job loss or deal with the financial devastation of joblessness, the income gap between the super rich in the United States and the average Joe is the largest since the 1920s. Nearly one-sixth of the U.S. population is uninsured. And, contrary to popular belief, Americans are less likely to move to a higher financial status than people who live in "socialist" countries like Germany, Canada, France or Sweden.

Many economists, who warn that the U.S. economy is in for a "jobless recovery," caution that the turnaround is on fragile ground.

"Sure the economy's standing up on its own legs again, but for how long once the government stimulus starts to fade?  That's the million dollar question for the nation's unemployed, all 15.1 million of them sitting idle through no fault of their own," said Chris Rupkey, an economist with Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York.

"We've got a long way to go," U.S. President Barack Obama said.

(Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser; Reuters photo)

Check out what's coming around again this holiday season.

It's that gift you gave someone last year.

According to a holiday shopping poll conducted by Consumer Reports in October, 36 percent of Americans say they have "recycled" a holiday gift. That's up from 31 percent in 2008 and 24 percent in 2007.

Those more likely to re-gift include women, adults under 55 years old, residents of the U.S. West and people with children under the age of 12.

Want to prevent your gifts from making the rounds again?

Skip presents like socks, slippers and ties, which were on the list of most disappointing 2008 holiday gifts, according to the survey.

Or, for a virtually fail-safe bet, try cold hard cash.

Also in the basket:

P&G, Colgate quarterly results top expectations

Burger King profit, revenue miss expectations

Kellogg 3rd-quarter profit rises, tops Street view

Elizabeth Arden posts surprise quarterly profit

Fashion's Night Out to be Repeated in 2010 (WWD, subscription required)

(Photo:Reuters)

Celebrities often lend their name recognition to big brands, but sometimes such advertising can be downright confusing.

Take the companies ESPN anchor Chris Berman is pitching these days: Applebee's restaurants and weight loss center Nutrisystem. 

Restaurant meals often have more calories than we expect, so we were surprised to see Berman add Applebee's commercials to his repertoire. 

In his ads for the weight-loss company, Berman brags about all the weight he's lost (41 LBS) on Nutrisystem's calorie and portion-controlled meal plans.

Equally incongrous is blues legend B.B. King's history as a pitchman. 

King, who has type 2 diabetes, has helped advertise a  LifeSpan blood glucose meter. 

But the music icon also has loaned his name to blues clubs and according to the Internet Movie Database he has been a pitchman for fast-food chains Burger King, Wendy's and McDonald's. 

(Photo/Reuters)

Starbucks says it will start selling a decaf version of its Via instant coffee in the United States on Nov 17.

The coffee chain, which in the middle of a corporate turnaround, hopes that Via will help it grab a big piece the $21 billion instant coffee market from established players like Nestle's Nescafe and Kraft Foods Inc's Sanka.

Borrowing from the old Pepsi vs. Coke taste challenges, Starbucks baristas for four days invited customers to do side-by-side comparisons of Via and its regular brew.

Starbucks says early indicators show that Via is exceeding expectations with regard to sales and customer and employee response.

How did Via fare versus your own expectations?

(Photo/Starbucks)

JC Penney stores in the United States and Puerto Rico are going exclusive with Liz Claiborne Inc's namesake brand and celebrity designer Isaac Mizrahi will sell his upscale Liz Claiborne New York line only on QVC, a TV shopping network.

The moves from Liz Claiborne were seen by some as a downward shift to mass-market retail channels and came as department store orders for Liz Claiborne's products have fallen during what has become the longest recession since the Great Depression.

Analysts said the JC Penney deal is more lucrative for Liz Claiborne and signals the end of a decades-long relationship between Liz's main brand and the Macy's department store chain -- which didn't exactly go quietly.

"The Liz Claiborne brand has sold poorly in recent years and has continued to decline. As a result, we could not justify expanding it at Macy's," a Macy's spokesman said.

JC Penney is known in the United States for stressing affordability and discounts while higher-end department stores like Nordstrom or Saks carry more designer merchandise and higher price tags. Macy's tends to be somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, but lately has been discounting aggressively and focusing on everyday values.

Liz Claiborne, which recently hired a turnaround firm, said its "bold steps" would  "further the revitalization" of the Liz Claiborne brand and "significantly alter its earnings trajectory."

The agreement with JC Penney begins in August 2010. The Liz Claiborne New York line will partner with QVC after this year's holiday season.

Mizrahi is no stranger to the small screen -- or the silver screen. The outspoken designer currently is co-hosting Bravo's "The Fashion Show" and was the subject of the 1995 documentary film "Unzipped." 

While Mizrahi is not the first celebrity to pitch products on a home shopping channel, he did break new ground in 2003 with his exclusive women's apparel and accessory line for Target.

His QVC show called "Isaac Mizrahi Live!" debuts in December and will sell Liz Claiborne New York apparel, accessories and home goods.

(Photo/Reuters)

Andy Puzder, chief executive of Carl's Jr and Hardee's parent CKE Restaurants, is not a man to mince words and on Thursday he shared his views on "socialist type" state governments in California and Oregon. 
     
Many of the company's Carl's Jr restaurants are located in the Golden State, and Puzder has plans to lessen that exposure over time. 

"As such, we're targeting a large percentage of our growth in Texas. It is deemed to be more business friendly," Puzder told analysts on a conference call. 
     
"Oregon has a higher minimum wage and a similar regulatory structure as California and also has a similar socialist type government at the state level so business there actually can be as bad or worse than California," he said. 
     
"Texas is doing really well," he added.

(Photo\Reuters)

In its battle to end the myth of the $4 Starbucks coffee -- the world's biggest cafe chain is offering tips on how to save money in its cafes, which are lowering prices on some beverages as they battle market newcomer McDonald's.

Here are some tips from Susan Nodilo, manager of a popular Starbucks in West Hollywood.

1. Bring your own cup and save 10 cents -- and the environment.

2. Order a smaller, unadvertised "Short" (8-ounce) espresso drink, which costs less than a "Tall" 12-ounce drinks, but contains the same amount of espresso.

3. Short on cash, but in love with lattes? Substituting brewed coffee for espresso saves an average of 85 cents per drink.

4. Try a French press. Coffee served in a press costs around $3. Each press yields four 8-oz cups and costs less than two 16-ounce "Grande" drip coffees.

5. Finally, she said, Starbucks' food and beverage prices include California taxes -- so those drinks from competitors may be pricier than you think.

(Photo\Reuters)