Paul Volcker prepared a 26-pound turkey for his extended family in New York City Thursday.

(CNN) – Paul Volcker, former chairman of Federal Reserve and an economic adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, knows a thing or two about turning out a tasty Thanksgiving turkey.

Volcker shared his tips with CNN on Thursday and said his secrets include port wine and strips of bacon.

Obama mentioned Volcker’s turkey prowess at a news conference Wednesday when the President-elect told reporters that Volcker and fellow Obama economic aide Austan Goolsbee both have “special turkey cooking recipes if anyone needs some advice on how to make the ideal turkey.”

Volcker and Goolsbee were named Wednesday to head up a new economic recovery board Obama is creating as part of his incoming administration’s effort to turn around the economy which has been in crisis since mid-September when the nation’s credit markets and financial system seized up.

Related: Volcker to head board of economic experts

Biden is having trouble grabbing the spotlight since Palin was tapped for the GOP ticket.

(CNN) – Sen. Joe Biden faces a paradox: He offers the most unfiltered contact with the media of any of the big four. But he's the least likely to be covered.

Over the three weeks since Sen. Barack Obama tapped Biden to be his running mate, Biden has seen coverage of his campaign slip from feverish to low-key.

The night before Obama announced his vice presidential choice August 23, the press staked out Biden's Delaware home and gave minute-by-minute updates of his every movement.

But then Sen. John McCain picked telegenic and nationally unknown Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, and the press corps traveling with Biden's campaign dwindled to a skeleton crew.

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Biden is preparing to Debate Palin.

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) — Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has been tapped to help Joe Biden as he prepares to take on GOP rival Sarah Palin in the upcoming vice presidential debate.

Granholm will spend four days helping Biden sharpen his skills before he faces off with Palin October 2.

At a fundraiser Tuesday night, Biden told supporters debating Palin would be tricky.

“Folks look, I know what she’s going to try to do. She’s going to try to make it as personal as she can. She’s going to take a lot of straight lefts and jabs at me, she’s going to try to get me to respond, she’s going to try to get me to respond in a personal way," Biden said. "That’s not my style. I’m not going to do it.”

Instead, Biden said he would "try very hard" to keep the focus on health care, the struggling economy and foreign policy.

Joe Biden said 'Palin has some very extreme views.'

GREEN BAY, Wisconsin (CNN) – Joe Biden said Monday that vice presidential opponent Sarah Palin seems to have "some very extreme views."

Speaking to a union crowd in Wisconsin, Biden also said he hasn't heard enough specifics from the Alaska governor, and that he's hoping to learn more about her positions before the two debate October 2.

"Hopefully by the time the debate takes place, we’ll have a better sense of her other than some of what she says and what appear to be some very extreme views," Biden said.

Watch: Palin hits the campaign trail

"I’m assuming that she shares John McCain’s views on most of the issues. And she even says, if the press is correct — and I’m not ready, prepared to make a judgment [on this] — her views on everything from global warming to other things, if they are as presented, they’re pretty far out there."

Biden Joked about Palin's sharpshooting Monday.

KALISPELL, Montana (CNN) – Joe Biden joked Sunday that GOP nominee Sarah Palin should be held to the same standard as other candidates for the White House—except in one area where she’s clearly got the edge. “It's not whether Sarah Palin can aim an assault rifle and hit dead target — which she probably can, and I hope it's not me,” he joked at a campaign event in Montana.

Palin’s speech to the Republican National Convention was peppered with references to her rural Alaskan upbringing, including time spent fishing and snowmobiling.

But Biden said she needed to talk more about issues. At a media availability, Biden cited Palin’s noticeable absence from the Sunday morning talk shows earlier that day. Biden, Barack Obama and John McCain all gave sit-down interviews.

Biden said Palin should do the same.

“Somewhere along the line…she will start to stand before the nation and the public and you know, determine whether or not her views, her breadth of knowledge, her record, is one that people say ‘yeah I want that person as vice president, a heartbeat away from being president,’” Biden said.

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Reporters traveling wtih Sen. Biden brought this cut-out of Sen. McCain onto the Biden campaign plane Saturday morning.

WILMINGTON, Delaware (CNN) – So far, Sen. Joe Biden has declined to question opponent Sarah Palin's record, but a gag by the press corps traveling in Biden's plane gave the senator's staff an opportunity to take aim at Palin for ducking the media and being "more of the same."

A group of reporters covering the vice presidential nominee brought a cardboard cut-out of Sen. John McCain aboard Biden's plane–an irreverent reference to the Democrat's tendency to cite John McCain as "my friend" and tell voters a variation of this story he told in West Palm Beach, Fla. last week: "If John McCain picked up the phone today and said, Joe, I need you to get in a plane and fly out to Missoula, I can't tell you why, I'd get in a plane and I'd go. And I believe he'd do it for me."

Before Biden's campaign plane taxied to the runway, headed for Montana, Biden spokesman David Wade responded to the joke with a jab at Palin. "You realize you could've made history," Wade said. "If you'd found a cardboard cut-out of Governor Palin, that's the closest she would've been to taking tough questions from the national media since she was selected…Yet another way that McCain-Palin is more of the same."

The McCain camp has fired back. “This is probably a great day for Joe Biden,” Ben Porritt, a spokesman for McCain-Palin 2008, told CNN. “He’s never been shy about wanting to campaign on the same ticket as John McCain.”

Palin was the only of the four nominees not to make an appearance on a news talk show Sunday. The Alaska governor has been making a western swing with John McCain this week, and drawing crowds in the tens of thousands.

Despite his campaign schedule, Joe Biden is still teaching his law school class.

WILMINGTON, Delaware (CNN) — Joe Biden may be a vice presidential nominee during the week, but on Saturdays he's still trying to keep his old schedule.

After a week of criss-crossing the country, Biden returned home to Wilmington Friday evening in time to teach his law school class the next morning. Since 1991, the senator has taught "Current Topics in Constitutional Law" to a small seminar of students at Widener School of Law in Wilmington.

This is the only class the Democratic running mate has been able to helm so far this year. The first class was scheduled for the day after Barack Obama tapped Biden for his vp pick.

A spokesman for the university says he expects this to be Biden's last time teaching this semester.
The popular course is capped at 18 students, and there is a waiting list to register.

Sen. Biden said Thursday that Republicans are distorting Sen. Obama's record.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (CNN) — Joe Biden warned supporters Thursday not to expect him to unleash “one-line zingers” in his debates with GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin — even if she does.

“I will be unrelenting in my debate with governor, the governor of Alaska in terms of the positions she has taken,” Biden said. “But I will not do what she is able to do so well, and many others–not bad. I am not good at the one-line zingers that go at, you know, that’s not my deal. So if that is going to be the measure of how these debates go, then I’m not going to do very well.”

Palin attacked the Democratic ticket in her speech to the Republican National Convention Wednesday, belittling Obama’s experience and charging he cares more about his career than about achieving victory in Iraq.

Biden broadly condemned “distortions” from Republican opponents at a campaign event Thursday, but took only a veiled swipe at Palin.

“[You’re] seeing distortions from opponents — this thing of 'country first,' this awful line about Barack Obama being more concerned about his career than winning a war,” Biden said. “I thought we were beyond that.”

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Biden has been on the road defending Obama's record.

(CNN) — Sen. Joe Biden on Wednesday defended criticism of running mate Barack Obama’s Senate record while campaigning in the crucial battleground state of Florida.

“Barack has real experience,” the Democratic VP candidate said. “This guy could have written his ticket to go anywhere. Anywhere at all.”

Biden was speaking at a campaign event focused on the economy in Fort Myers, Florida and discuessed Obama’s stance on the war in Iraq, his work on ethics reform in the Senate, and his proposals on solving the energy crisis. Biden also explicitly dismissed Senator John McCain’s experience in the Senate.

“30 years of bad experience ain’t worthwhile experience,” he said. “You’re not going to take your car—you’re not going to take your car back to a mechanic who for 30 years in a row has screwed it up.”

Biden himself has spent 36 years in the Senate. McCain has worked in Congress since 1982, serving in the Senate since 1987.

Biden was specifically responding to comments McCain aide Rick Davis made to The Washington Post earlier this week when he predicted that this election will come down to each candidates' personas.

"This election is not about issues," Davis said to The Post. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

Biden sharply criticized that statement, citing the country's economic woes.

“Not about issues?” Biden said. “Well, let me tell you, that means to them this election is not about you being able to scrape up the tuition money to send your kid off to college this September. It's not about whether or not you're going to fill up your gas tank.”

DEERFIELD BEACH, Florida (CNN) – Joe Biden gave a fiery speech designed to reassure Jewish voters of Barack Obama’s support of Israel.

“I give you my word as a Biden, I would not have given up (my) job to be Barack Obama's vice president if I didn't in my gut and in my heart and in my head know that Barack Obama is exactly where I am on Israel,” he said.

On an earlier trip to Boca Raton, Florida, Obama himself confronted Internet rumors that he is Muslim and anti-Israel. Obama is a Christian.

“I want to just repeat this because I know that there’s a lot of rumor mongering going around. People have been getting e-mails non-stop,” Obama told a crowd at a synagogue in May.

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Watch Sen. Biden's comments about Gov. Palin and her family in Florida Tuesday.

DEERFIELD BEACH, Florida (CNN) — Joe Biden responded to questions on the news that GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s daughter is pregnant by telling voters “children are off-limits,” just as running mate Barack Obama has done.

Biden was speaking at a Florida town hall meeting when an audience member asked what he really thought about the 17-year-old’s pregnancy.

Watch: 'Children are off limits,' says Biden

“With regard to the stuff that you’re talking about, I have a simple proposition: children are off limits,” he said. “We’ve all been through things with our children, and it’s about common decency. Just treat people with common decency.”

The audience, a group of retired residents of Deerfield Century Village East, met the answer with resounding applause.

Democrats have begun assailing Palin for what they call insufficient executive and foreign policy experience, but Biden refused the opportunity to bite.

“I don’t know the governor,” he said. “Everything I know about her, there’s no reason not to respect her and believe she’s qualified to be the vice president. I’m not going to make that judgment. That’s the people – for you all to make.”

He also echoed Obama’s comment that Palin is a “compelling” person, and he said he takes her “on face value.”

“She’s the governor, that’s no mean feat, and she seems to have a strong personal story,” he said.

Sens. Biden and Obama campaigned together in Michigan Sunday.

(CNN) – If Sen. Joe Biden was hurt that Republican operative Karl Rove called him a “big blowhard doofus” at an event in Minneapolis Monday, he didn’t show it.

On hearing the news, Biden grinned and said “he’s a great American.”

The blog Politicker ME reports that at a Maine delegate breakfast at the Republican National Convention, Rove, the so-called “architect” of the Bush administration, called Biden a “big blowhard doofus.” Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, is notorious in Washington for being talkative at Senate hearings.

Later, in response to a different question, Rove is reported to have asked "Is there press in this room?"

Biden addressed the criticism during a flight on his campaign plane Monday evening. A reporter asked if the senator would now answer to “Senator Doofus.”

“You can call me anything you want,” he said. “I learned a long time ago you can call me anything you want.”

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PITTSBURGH, Pennslyvania (CNN) – Hurricane Gustav is having an impact on both sides of the aisle: hours after prompting Republican John McCain to scale back the GOP convention schedule, the storm is affecting the plans of his Democratic counterparts as well.

Citing the dire situation along the Gulf Coast, Senator Joe Biden cancelled his plans to march in Pittsburgh's annual Labor Day parade Monday. Instead, Biden was to give a statement on the hurricane at 10:30 a.m. ET.

Watch: Biden reacts to Gustav

The campaign still planned to hold two afternoon events in Scranton, Pennsylvania, including a discussion on jobs and the economy at Biden's childhood home.