docj

Here's a link: Silver Sneakers And FWIW, it's not limited to big cities. Our primary participation is with with our local club in Rockport TX. Not big city by any definition.

If you wish, please ship some of that "sn stuff" South!! In South TX it's so warm that the tap water has become too hot to drink!

My radio has been modified to prevent it from broadcasting that kind of forecast! 😂 We were taught that the objective of full-timing was "to follow 70 degrees!" Although our winters in Rockport don't quite measure up to that, at least we don't have to deal with water in its frozen from.

We don't have anything fancy. Our Plan F supplemental plans through Humana have this benefit. Not all insurance companies provide it.

I don't know your age, but I suspect quite a few of us on this forum are old enough to qualify for "Silver Sneakers" through our Medicare supplemental programs. Silver Sneakers members can go to any participating gym facility in the US.

I'm not sure what you consider chilly, but we get a single day of frost every ~3-5 years or so. Most of the time wintertime daytime temps are in the mid 60's. Overnight temps are typically in the 50's. Average weather in Rockport Sure, we do wear mid-weight jackets in mid-winter but I'd hardly consider it a particularly chilly climate. JMO

You don't need an insurance agent located in SD in order to get SD insurance. We use Roxanne Sutton of the Miller Insurance company. Roxanne@millerrvinsurance.com

We routinely use our debit cards for all our small purchases, including groceries. I hate carrying cash.

I no longer care. I'm finally free of DirecTV. We're using YouTube TV and can watch all the channels we care about. I have a prepaid unlimited Verizon Jetpack (no longer available for new subscribers) and an AT&T unlimited hotspot through OTR Mobile. It all works pretty well and the YouTube TV user interface is easy to use.

I think that will depend heavily on what kind of meat you start with and how long you cook it. Several times we've cooked chuck roast in the sous vide (~24 hours) and it comes out so tender that you could tell your guests that it was prime rib and might well be able to fool quite a few of them. I think a lot of people use the shortest possible safe cooking time for their sous vide meals without considering that cooking a bit longer will make the final result more tender. For example, tonight I'm going to cook a ~1 pound pork tenderloin. It would probably be safe to eat after ~2 hours, but I will cook it at least 3 to get the tenderness we like.

I usually put rib rub on the meat before it goes into the bag. Once you have finished cooking you could sear the racks under a broiler or on a grill. Quite honestly, we usually eat them just the way they come out of the bag. They are so moist and tender they don't need anything else IMO. I used to use a slow cook oven recipe for ribs, but the sous vide results are more consistent and require absolutely no "fiddling" with anything.

Totally agree. We use the sous vide because it produces excellent results, not because it saves time. For example, I cook pork ribs for ~24 hours in the sous vide because they come out "falling off the bone tender and moist" every time, not because it saves me on cooking time.

I did sous vide a whole chicken one time just to see what it was like. In order to it and avoid the food safety issue you raised, the instructions are to fill the entire chicken cavity with broth. Essentially, you have a bag of broth and chicken immersed in the sous vide bath. It does result in a chicken that falls off the bone which is helpful if, for example, you want to make chicken salad. However, this approach does demonstrate that using sous vide for a stew shouldn't be a health hazard. The liquid in the bag equilibrates with the water in the cooking bath so everything cooks just fine. This discussion caught my curiosity so I did some additional searching. Here's a recipe for a stew, a Beef Bourguignonne sous vide, where you saute and brown the ingredients beforehand then everything goes into a sous vide bag for 16-24 hours. Sounds like a great way to make Monday's dinner on Sunday!

One other thing about bag sealing, I usually use one-gallon size bags regardless of what I'm cooking. They are large enough that usually the top extends up out of the water where I "clamp" it between the edge of the Rubbermaid container and its plastic lid. That way the zip-lock itself is not immersed in the water. Another important tip is that you should ALWAYS use some kind of trivet or rack on the bottom of the Rubbermaid container to ensure that there is water flow under the bag. If the bottom of the bag is scrunched against the bottom of the bucket the food there may not get enough heat transfer to cook properly. If you're looking for more info about the "mechanics" of sous vide cooking I recommend this: A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking

We've done just fine with our HEB brand bags, but one thing to note is that that cannot be the kind with a plastic "zipper." They have to be the kind you squeeze between your fingers to seal. The zipper type always have a small hole where they will leak.

In my experience, key personnel such as Miller will have contractual commitments that typically run 12-24 months. My presumption is that Miller sought the acquisition to create a personal exit plan. I would be surprised to see him stay any longer than his commitment.

And if you actually believe that this is a binding commitment, then IMO you haven't had much personal experience in corporate mergers and acquisitions.

I think most "regular folks" use ziplock bags to seal their sous vide items. We use "freezer grade" ziplocks.

The steak doesn't "come out of the water." The steak is sealed in a bag when it is in the water. We sear it on a grill or, more frequently, in a frying pan to cause the fat to caramelize and to raise the serving temperature. It's highly likely that you have eaten sous vide cooked chicken and steaks at quite a few restaurants without knowing it. The technique was invented by the restaurant industry more than 25 years ago. How do you think that large chain restaurants can offer so many different chicken dishes? The chicken breasts are sitting in a sous vide bath waiting for someone to order them. When ordered they are put in the appropriate sauce and served to the diner.

I suspect that you are referring to the Newmar Owners forum on IRV2. IMHO a significant percentage of the membership of that forum consists of folks who convinced themselves that some measure of their self-image was demonstrated by their purchase of the "best motorhomes" in the US. Now that their beloved Newmar will be "just another Winnebago" some of them are acting as if this is a blow to their egos. Similar posts were made when Thor purchased Entegra, but I don't think things changed all that much.

And, no doubt, this will be one of the first things that will be changed. I recall that Thor did something to restrict "special orders" at Entegra after its acquisition. Quite honestly the fact that "no two are alike" is anathema to a production facility. It makes QA/QC far more complicated.

Glad to hear that the "big stuff" appears to be OK. We dodged a bullet Tuesday morning when we decided to drive from Lufkin to Rockport by going west to Hearne to go around what, at that time, just appeared to be a normal rain storm. When we got home to Rockport we discovered that this little rain storm had become a tropical storm! Sometimes you get a lucky break!

I now use Defender instead of Kaspersky or Norton, but I still pay for Malwarebytes real time protection. I still think it blocks dangerous sites better than anything else. JMO

This week we tried something--using the sous vide cooker while traveling. We use our sous vide in a plastic Rubbermaid tub with a fitted top so splashing wasn't a concern. It fit into the larger of our two sinks bowls. We were running the generator so the roof A/Cs would be on so there was plenty of power. We knew we were going to be stopping later than usual, so around 3pm we put some steaks up. When we finally got to our destination around 8pm they were tender and tasty. Something we'll definitely try again!

Yet another recommendation! We've had ours for >6 years and it it rolls up well on our power reel.