Oven cleaner & Sylvania 30 Watt 120VAC bulb (LED?)

Everybody's needs are different. I had a Costco membership for a few years. Everytime I'd go in there, I'd come out with one item. Nothing else suited my needs.

Their prices are not that good. I'm organized enough to wait for things to go on sale at my regular store.

I was thinking more of Danny Deckchair, based on the content. He was always looking for shortcuts to get around doing actual maintenance on his stuff. Wasn't he the guy whose exhaust hood caught on fire because he never cleaned it?

We prefer to learn as we go. Otherwise we'd be eating fish sticks, just as we did when we were children.

I can't remember anything before Vatican II. I can't remember what we ate on Fridays, so maybe it wasn't anything special. We were a house full of heathens. I do remember going to the occasional Lenten fish fry.

Come to think of it, Tuesday was our day to eat fish. Grandma had the day off work, so she went to the fishmonger, bought some sort of white lake fish, breaded it in cornflake crumbs and pan fried it until it was dry as dust. Thus began my tartar sauce addiction, which I was able to conquer in adulthood.

And paychecks were much smaller. Food (in general) takes a smaller percentage of one's income nowadays. In 1900, it was 40% of income; in 1950, it was 30%. In 2022, it was 11.3%.

Oven cleaner (and some drain cleaners) is typically the cheaper strong solution of sodium hydroxide sometimes in a gel formulation to make it easier to handle.

Any strong alkali will turn fats and grease into water miscible soaps. Household ammonia is probably the least effective of them.

Just make sure you isolate the right circuit before working on it. A pair of pointed nose pliers will get the screw fitting out most times.

I prefer gripping it with pointed nose pliers.

Ammonia is strictly ammonium hydroxide and makes ammonium soaps from the fats, sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide would work as well or possibly better. Sodium hydroxide is the cheapest option.

Any oven cleaner is exceptionally bad corrosive in contact with bare skin or eyes so always wear strong waterproof gloves and eye protection.

Costo hasn't sold cigarettes for a decade.

Gas doesn't count towards the executive rebate, however.

I find their fruit to be fresher and cosmetically pleasing when compared to the grocery stores. Particulary cherries (in season), grapes and blueberries are generally superior.

Meat and fish are generally of high quality. The rotisserie chicken is a steal (half again as large as the grocery store chickens and still 4.99 each).

They are the only source of Morning Summit breakfast cereal.

The pizza kits are excellent (both full sized with four crusts and four sauce packets and the small

My grocery store has excellent produce. I don't buy much fruit: bananas and apples usually. I buy frozen cherries because I never know when I'm going to want them.

I can get high-quality meat and fish at the grocery store. Or the butcher shop. Or the fishmonger.

I wouldn't use a rotisserie chicken if it were free.

Plain oatmeal does it for me.

I prefer to make my own crusts from scratch, and I don't put sauce on my pizza. Garlic, olive oil, provolone, fresh tomatoes, sometimes broccoli, and--when it's out of the oven--minced basil and parsley.

it's been ages but I had a thing for McDonald's Filet-O-Fish to the extent of rolling my own, one of the few times I deep fried anything.

I was a high school junior when it got rolling. 'American Graffiti' resonates with me. I was a happy heathen up to 7 or 8 and had worked out my own animistic world view. Then one Boy Scout week when they were talking about going to church with your parents I asked the fatal question 'What is this church thing?" and it was off to the races, with 'religious instruction' on Wednesday. When a little old Irish nun asked me to recite one of the commandments and realized I didn't know there were ten of them let alone any specifics, she called me a little heathen. She didn't know how right she was.

In general my extended family didn't pay too much attention to religion and excessive religiosity was viewed as mental illness. Most kids were baptized Catholic just in case. The theology didn't stick but there is a cultural Catholic thing. My wife was raised Methodist but tended to go church shopping based on the community and other factors I couldn't understand. At least back then the Catholic Church was like McDonalds. If you were on vacation and went to Mass in East Moosenuts Missouri it was going to be the same liturgy, same vestments, same readings, and, please, no spontaneous outbursts or singing. There might be a choir at High Mass; please do not join in with the people who can actually sing.

Jean's Ready To Eat specialized in takeout fried fish so my mother left it to the pros. Sometimes there would be a pan fried selection of stuff we caught, perch, sunfish, bullheads, and so forth. I liked fishing but didn't care for much of the catch except the bullheads.

Salmon pea wiggle on toast came up regularly and was pretty good.

I don't remember my mother ever making it but 'pasta fazoo' was another popular Friday selection or if push came to shove corn fritters or pancakes.

My father somehow came up with a hundred dollar bill and it was an object of wonderment. I don't often use credit cards for local purchases and most often use 20s from the ATM but I think there are 3 or 4 hundreds in my wallet just in case.

Both my parents worked and I remember my father bringing home about $100 a week in the '50s and my mother getting about the same. They owned their own home, ate well including going out to fairly fancy restaurants occasionally, bought new cars regularly, took vacations sometimes renting cottages in Maine or Cape Cod for a week or two and so forth. There were some sketchy periods like during the Eisenhower recession but I never felt deprived or that the family was on the edge of disaster.

I can't speak for the average blue collar family today.

They look so good, but the 3 times I've cracked and bought one, they were dry, overcooked. What else, after sitting there.

It doesn't? That's how much attention I pay to stuff like that.

The specialty cheese selection is good and less expensive than at the local version of Whole Foods. Bean coffee is cheaper along with canned tuna or salmon.

I'm no fashion plate so the clothing section is handy for jeans, shirts, and so forth.

There are a couple of Kirkland branded protein bars I prefer to the ones available in the supermarkets.

Like Cindy said tastes differ. When it first opened here I was skeptical that the membership was worth it. One year the company gave out CostCo gift cards at Christmas and I got hooked. Besides, it's a quarter mile from where I work so it's as convenient as any of the other markets in town.

The local CostCo remodeled a couple of years ago. I wasn't paying attention and planned to order a pair of glasses after checking out only to find optical is now on the other side of the checkout. The food court is still outside the perimeter. The pharmacy always was inside.

Obviously you've never had one from CostCo. Bring plenty of napkins to wipe up the juice running down your chin.

I will admit to some skepticism at first. A friend who was a programmer for a large Northwest grocery chain alleged the chickens that made it to the rotisserie were a bit past their sell date to put it lightly.

I'm also wary of the conveniently pre-seasoned meats I see in the stores.

I can't imagine they can sell chickens cooked to a temperature that enables the white meat to be juicy.

And yet, people who work in grocery stores can tell you that's not true.

Same here. For one thing: how damned much sugar did they put in there?

Overall the chicken is juicy. As far as I'm concerned the white meat is never juicy no matter how you prepare it. At one point boneless, skinless chicken breasts were cheap and I ate a lot of them baked. Now they cause a gag reflex. Usually I get the boneless, skinless thighs. They have some taste at least. If I do get white meat it's for stir fry, curry, or something else that adds some flavor.

Opinions vary. I can produce a juicy grilled skinless, boneless chicken breast on the gas grill.

I don't eat dark meat. Thighs have a slimy mouthfeel that makes me gag.

White meat has plenty of flavor. The only thing that has no flavor is distilled water.

You should try one. I agree with Bowman, they're nicely prepared.

And the carcass makes great broth.

Do you like breast meat? Or do you eat the thighs?

So, I should join Costco to buy a rotisserie chicken that I probably won't like and perhaps won't eat all of.

I roast my own chicken or turkey for broth. I don't need the shortcut.

I had a Costco membership for a few years. If I didn't try the rotisserie chicken then, I don't see why I should try it now.

The chickens are moist, but they have been brined or injected to be that way. I did, in a weak moment, but one a few years ago. I can do better myself.

I can make really good white meat in any variety of ways. The method is simple**, DON"T cook it too much. When I do it, it's even better than dark meat. **Complication is, don't cook it too little either.

It's not only grocery whole cooked chickens where the white meat is overdone, it's almost everywhere. I even went to Chick-fil-A once, because they were talked about so much and only have white meat, and they did okay, but not as good as I do.