Behind the bar at a small-town, American-casual restaurant were the five bottles of red wines that the restaurant served by the glass. A couple of them were 750-ml bottles, and three were 1500-ml. All were open and corked with the original cork. I asked Janine, the bar manager who was also a student at a nearby college, how long the bottles had been open.

“We go through a lot of the Cab, Malbec and the Pinot, so those are probably, at the most, a couple days old,” she said as she lifted each bottle. “The Sangiovese and Merlot... I have no idea how old those are.”

Are they stored on the counter all the time, I asked.

“Ummm... yes, why?” was her reply.

Wine is fruit juice and it spoils when it is exposed to oxygen. Just like the spoiling of fruit is delayed when it is chilled, so is the spoiling of wine.

Put open wine bottles in the fridge every night with an impermeable cork, a vacuum sealed plastic cork, or best case, a nitrogen system.

Take reds out of the fridge when the staff shows up for pre-shift work. They’ll warm up in time to serve your customers.

In addition, every day a key bartender or manager should pour a small taste of each of the open wines to ensure they are still fresh enough to serve the guests. 

I'm completely addicted to my morning bowl of Quaker Oats oatmeal. I actually wake up thinking about it like I wake up craving caffeine. I went on a trip recently and actually considered how I could pack some with me... and I was going to a bed & BREAKFAST in Napa. 

I used to avoid it, or anything that resembled it, like Cream of Wheat or grits. It looked like a sticky, gooey, bowl of wallpaper paste.  Really, I think it was the consistency that stopped me.

But one morning last fall changed all that. I was having a cup of tea at a meeting with a peer mentor at a local bookstore/coffee shop and I was starving. I had worked out and hadn't had a chance to eat before the meeting. My friend had in front of her what this shop calls a "Buddha Bowl", which is oatmeal, toasted, brown-sugared walnuts, dried cranberries, a titch of honey and a swirl of almond milk. She loved this breakfast and had told me how good it was, repeatedly. Apparently I was desperate enough to take a spoonful.

I was blown away. The consistency of the oatmeal was the perfect, chewy background for the toasty, crunchy nuts and the soft sweet and tart dried cranberries. The almond milk and honey added other textures. I became a raving fan.

I vary my morning bowl now, sometimes deleting the cranberries in order to add a banana, and I really don't need the honey, because the balance of flavors is so great. My daughter is a little weirded out that I have oatmeal now every morning.

I answer, "I love it and I'm not sick of it yet!"  She rolls her eyes and says it looks gross. 

I smile, understanding how she feels, yet at the same time, a little happy that there is no competition in the family for my precious oatmeal supply.