You can now find Patty Morgan's recipe for chewy ginger snaps below, along with the recipes for all four finalists here on our site. Morgan notes that she tried for years to recreate her parents' cookies. But her mother never told her the last secret until she was "literally on her deathbed."

And so, by popular demand, here is Patty Morgan's recipe:

Winnie & Jerry's Chewy Ginger Snaps

Ingredients:
-- 0.75 cup shortening
-- 0.5 cup brown sugar
-- 0.5 cup sugar
-- 0.25 cup molasses (plus a little extra)
-- 1 egg
-- 2.25 cups sifted all-purpose flour
-- 2 teaspoons baking soda
-- 0.5 teaspoon salt
-- 1 teaspoon ground ginger*
-- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
-- 0.5 teaspoon ground cloves

*For more ginger flavor, you can add crystallized ginger.

Directions:

-- Cream shortening, sugar, molasses and egg until fluffy
-- Sift together flour, soda, salt, and spices
-- Stir into molasses mixture
-- Form into balls and roll in bowl of sugar
-- Place on greased cookie sheet
-- Bake in 375 degree oven and remove before they look done

Again, thanks to all who submitted recipes. We've picked our winners, but there were so many excellent entries. If you'd like to keep sharing your ginger recipes, please do! Post your recipes below.

On Weekend Edition Saturday, this month's Impact of War series continues with Scott Simon interviewing Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, director of the U.S. Army's new Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, whose mission, according to its website, "is to develop and institute a holistic fitness program for soldiers, families, and Army civilians in order to enhance performance and build resilience." The interview takes place next week and will air on Saturday November 21. Do you have any questions for her?

Also for Impact of War, Bellamy Pailthorp of member station KPLU reports that even committed military families rethink their allegiance when bureaucracy ignores their needs. She tells the story on an Army wife who fought her husband's transfer from Fort Lewis, Washington, to a small town in Louisiana so that her two young children could get the medical and mental health care they need -- but staying near the family's current care providers meant seeing her husband deployed to Iraq for a third time.

Our series will be produced in cooperation with NPR's Impact of War Project. The collaboration is an outreach effort to NPR member station reporters around the country to aid in increasing their local coverage of the experiences and sacrifices of US troops and their communities. Links to many of these stories examining how community attitudes, public policy, military strategy, medicine and technology are altered by the wars can be found on npr.org.

Feel free to tell us your story -- how have the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq affected your family?

As you start making your Thanksgiving dinner plans, you might enjoy Weekend Edition host Scott Simon's interview with Evan Kleiman, the host of member station KCRW's program "Good Food." They talked about her obsession with pie, the season's essential dish. Yet the roots of this obsession started over the summer when -- despite not having a regular oven of her own -- she made a pie a day and blogged about it:

In the process, she learned all sorts of tips and tweaks to make the perfect pie, which she passed on. Her listeners, in return, submitted their own pie creations, including "Squirrel Pie" -- "pie pops" cut into the shape of squirrels -- and a Savory Tomato Pie with onions, garlic and a cheese crust.

Now, her program is hosting a pie contest and you can find out more about it, including how to submit your pie.

Coming up next week on our Impact of War series - Five years ago psychiatrist Judith Broder created The Soldiers Project which provides free confidential treatment to military service members and their families for as long as needed. Supporters say these volunteer services fill a crucial gap in VA services for the military. Last month, Broder received the Purpose prize for successful social entrepreneurs.

Our series will be produced in cooperation with NPR's Impact of War Project. The collaboration is an outreach effort to NPR member station reporters around the country to aid in increasing their local coverage of the experiences and sacrifices of US troops and their communities. Links to many of these stories examining how community attitudes, public policy, military strategy, medicine and technology are altered by the wars can be found on npr.org.

Feel free to tell us your story -- how have the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq affected your family?

This week, on Weekend Edition Saturday, you can hear a highly entertaining conversation with Host Scott Simon and British actor Philip Glenister about his role as Detective Gene Hunt on the hit television show Life on Mars - the UK version. Detective Hunt works without a rulebook, and also seems to have a problem with women in the workplace. Check out the clip below, and before you go be sure to leave your memories of 1973.

Next week, we'll bring you a series of stories focused on the impact of war on people thousands of miles from the battlefield -- military families struggling to cope and the unique network of supporters who are dedicated to helping.

The series begins on November 7th with the story of the wife of a Navy Petty officer -- a mother of three children, all under the age of 7, including one who is developmentally disabled. Also, NPR's Daniel Zwerdling will talk to us about legislation pending in Congress to assist caregivers of military families.

Our series will be produced in cooperation with NPR's Impact of War Project. The collaboration is an outreach effort to NPR member station reporters around the country to aid in increasing their local coverage of the experiences and sacrifices of US troops and their communities. Links to many of these stories examining how community attitudes, public policy, military strategy, medicine and technology are altered by the wars can be found on npr.org.

Feel free to tell us your story -- how have the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq affected your family?

It wasn't even 6 a.m., and I knew I might be in trouble when Captain Wayne Magwood turned to me and said if you're ever going to get sick on a boat, this is where it will happen. There's the seafood smell, he explained, plus the fact that shrimp trawlers have a particularly hard roll in the waves.

I sat down in the deck house kitchen, gazing out the window where the lights on shore moved up and down as we rocked. I had to lean back and close my eyes. I'd been deep-sea fishing before but never experienced anything like this. I watched the crew at work, smoking cigarette after cigarette, and wondered at their fortitude.

This was my first hour on the Winds of Fortune, a shrimp boat based on Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. We had a long day ahead of us. Captain Magwood -- mustached, dressed in two flannel shirts, his hair curled by the salty air -- sat in the captain's chair, guiding his boat through the dark, twinkling lights bobbing on the waves.

But Captain Magwood's work doesn't begin and end on the boat. Competing with a huge supply of overseas, farm-raised shrimp, Magwood is leading the way to market his shrimp -- both on the docks and online. His market recently created a Facebook fan page for his shrimp, which, at the time of this post, has almost 600 members.

They keep it updated with the size of each day's catch. On September 28, for instance, they wrote: "anyone wants large heads off 50lbs or more 5.50 per lb. today only." And on October 2: "Capt. Wayne got 1,000lbs today! Awsome day. We needed it."

Of course, they haven't given up on more traditional means of spreading the word about their product. These stickers have been around for a number of years and show up on bumpers all over the state -- and beyond:

Do you know someone who has held a swine-flu party? Have you held one? To tell us what you think, join our discussion group on facebook. Or you can post your comments below.

Click here to see American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan:

Watch children in rural Kenya

And students in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:

I recently visited the Zabaleen neighborhood of Minsheyet Nasr in Cairo, Egypt, and met with Hana Fathy. Weekend Edition Sunday host Liane Hansen, senior supervising producer Davar Ardalan, and senior producer Ned Wharton met Hana when they visited Cairo last year. The reporting trip was part of an NPR series, in collaboration with National Geographic, called "Climate Connections."

You can hear those stories here:

-In Cairo Slum, the Poor Spark Environmental Change
-Slow but Sure Environmental Progress in Cairo
-Rising Sea Levels Threaten Egypt's Ancient Cities

When I met Hana, he was in a tough situation. The USAID grant money, which the group Solar Cities was using to build and maintain solar water heaters in the impoverished community, had run out. Hana had only received a handful of private orders for the units. With his first baby on the way, he had returned to the family business of sorting plastics.

Hana Fathy and his wife, Sabah, are photographed with their new baby, Christiano. Hana works with Solar Cities building solar-powered hot water heaters and biogas digesters.(Kimberly Adams / NPR (c) 2009)

But since I visited in August, things have turned around for Solar Cities. The group has become a nongovernmental organization, which makes them eligible to receive new sources of funding. Solar Cities founder T.H. Culhane -- along with environmentalist Katey Walter Anthony of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks -- also won the 2009 Blackstone Ranch Institute Innovation Challenge Grant. The grant, given in partnership with National Geographic, will provide $50,000 toward research on biogas digesters, such as the one on Hana Fathy's roof.

This biogas digester sits on Hana's roof. At the time this photo was taken, the unit was out of commission because rats had chewed through the pipes. It has since been repaired.(Kimberly Adams / NPR (c) 2009)

Additionally, a variety of private funding has flowed to the organization from schools and private individuals. Meanwhile, Hana was recently hired to work for the Sekem farm in Egypt, as their chief renewable energy expert. And, according to T.H. Culhane, Solar Cities has "secured funding to bring Hanna to Tanzania to train people in the building of solar and biogas alternatives (instead of) deforesting for cooking and water heating fuel."

Root of the ginger. Some say it cures upset stomachs, nausea, colds, and motion sickness. (Flickr user heymrleej)

Alton Brown, host of the Food Network's Good Eats, told us this week that nothing tastes like ginger but ginger. "Ginger is one of the most powerful ingredients that there is," he said, "from a flavor standpoint and a chemical standpoint and a pharmacological standpoint. It is unique in a way that most foods aren't. It's one of my top 10 ingredients."

Our host, Liane, couldn't agree more. When we told her that she got to pick the key ingredient for our latest recipe contest, she paused for maybe two seconds before saying ginger and enumerating each of the forms it takes at her house -- crystallized, ground, fresh, jellied, syrup.

We'd like you to send us your ginger recipes -- to recipes@npr.org. You have until October 22nd. NPR's food essayist Bonny Wolf will pick her favorite three, and then resident ginger-aficionado Liane Hansen will lead the Weekend Edition staff in picking a favorite dish.

Theo Balcomb, age 4. (family photo)

The Wizard of Oz is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. My parents tell me it was the first movie I ever saw, though I don't remember actually seeing it for the first time. Somehow, it seems to have always been part of my consciousness. It's not surprising. It completely overloaded my senses. The first scenes of the swirling tornado, the wooden doors banging and the hay bales rolling. The shock of Oz with scads of smiling, shiny people, brilliant yellows and greens, a falling shingled house and striped stockings. When it felt like it was all too much to handle, there was the soothing voice of Glinda. She was the epitome of calm, cool and collected. But all that was interrupted by the overwhelming terror of the Wicked Witch of the West. She petrified me to the point that I could not go into a dark room without hearing her signature cackle or seeing her in my mind, zooming through my brain on her broom.

This weekend, we'll interview the president of the International Wizard of Oz Club. We'll even hear from one of the actors who played a Munchkin in the film. He's 94. In preparation, I'm curious about what you all remember about the movie. I know I'm not alone in my desire, every now and then, to slip into my ruby shoes and skip down the yellow brick road. What are your memories of watching the film? Let us know what you remember about the merry old Land of Oz.

Welcome to the party! As Scott Simon approaches his millionth Twitter follower, we're celebrating by inviting all of you to join our 140 Characters Of Fame feature.

Share your best 140 character, and we'll pick our favorite 10 and read them on the air next Saturday, Sept. 19.

Tell us a joke, jot down a thought, post a witticism or send a salutation. But do it fast -- only submissions entered between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. EST will be accepted. Leave us your Twitter handle so we can contact you if we choose your message.

**UPDATE: That was a great two hours -- your messages made us laugh, snort and raise our eyebrows. We've now closed the board for entries, but take a look at what people entered on our 140 Characters of Fame page.

And be sure to check back next week, when we'll broadcast our favorites!