Putting an ajax call results into a variable that can be manipulated as a div

I'm making an ajax call and get results back.

  $.get('/page.html',function(data){

      var myData = data;

    });

Is there a way that i can store the results in a variable and then manipulate that variable as if it was a container? If i make a change, something like this:

$('#myData ul').remove()

Now the myData variable still has the information but now with the ul removed?