21 Greenpoint in Brooklyn, New York has a special dinner service on Sundays.

For $21 per person, you get anywhere from five to eight surprise courses, including items like mushroom pesto flatbread pizza and seafood stew.

And every dish is made with ingredients leftover from the week.

The goal of the Sunday service is to reduce the restaurant's food waste, according to owner Homer Murray (son of Bill). Nationwide, about50% of all produce in the US is thrown away, which adds up to some 60 million tons (or $160 billion) worth of produce annually.

"We're concerned with the idea of food waste — all the stuff that gets thrown away," Murray says. "It seems like a crime against humanity, to see this food being tossed out."

We decided to try it last weekend. Check out our visit below.

SEE ALSO: Dairy companies are fighting with soy milk producers over what can be called milk

21 Greenpoint is located on the waterfront of Greenpoint, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. You can see the East River from the entrance.

Owner Homer Murray (who has a famous dad named Bill) says he realized food was his passion at 19, when he started cooking at Murray Brothers, his family's restaurant in Myrtle Beach, Florida. He made simple things like salsa and shrimp cocktail. "It was an excuse to meet girls," he says.

When asked what Bill thinks of the food, Homer says, “I bet he would tell you it’s his favorite restaurant in Brooklyn, and he wouldn’t be lying.”

The kitchen staff wears red beanies as an homage to "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," a 2004 Bill Murray film. Homer has one, too.

“The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah recently bought a duplex penthouse in New York City, the South African comedian's new home, for $10 million.

Noah's 3,596-square-foot apartment occupies the 17th and 18th floors of a building in midtown Manhattan. Before he bought the penthouse, Noah was renting a two-bedroom unit in the same building, where his rent was $15,000 a month. 

The two-floor apartment has gorgeous views, minimal and modern design, and tons of space, especially for a city like New York.

But it seems like location was the biggest factor in Noah’s decision: The building is only four blocks away from “The Daily Show” studio on 11th avenue. 

SEE ALSO: Inside Drake's $8 million mansion with a pool that puts Hugh Hefner to shame

The penthouse is located in Stella Tower, a former telephone building in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan.

The Art Deco tower was designed by Ralph Walker in 1927. 

It’s got dynamite views of midtown Manhattan, including the Empire State Building.

It has three bedrooms, three full baths, and two half-baths.

Ben Midgley, CEO of Crunch Fitness Franchise, has a packed schedule, but he always makes time for a workout.

"First thing in the morning, after you get up early, you get the kids to school, you work out, and then you go to work," he told Business Insider.

If the workout doesn't happen in the morning, it doesn't happen at all, he said. So he wakes up at 5 a.m. every day to fit it all in.

Along with a few cups of coffee, he eats "a quick breakfast, some non-fat yogurt, some fresh fruit, some granola," he said. "You got your protein, your low fat, your carbs, and you're good."

"Eating is so boring for me — I almost eat the same thing everyday," he continued. "I purely look at food as nutritional value."

After that, the 47-year-old gets his three kids ready for school before starting his workout.

Midgley has a 2,500-square-foot gym in his basement, and a 300-pound tire in the front yard that he and his kids lift "for fun." He tries to keep the kids active, he said. "I do all of my routines at or around the house."

Why is the morning workout so important? "It's a natural stress reliever," he said, that boosts endorphins and has benefits for many aspects of your body and health. Midgley also associated working out with increased productivity and cultivating a positive perspective.

"The more you can attribute to a positive frame of mind, whether that's good work-life balance or just exercising and feeling good, it's all invoking your outlook, and it all affects your productivity," he said.

SEE ALSO: Terry Crews explains how intermittent fasting keeps him in shape

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Asking for a "good value" wine probably won't get you a good price.

That's according to sommelier Mark Oldman, who writes in "How to Drink Like a Billionaire" that he himself used to try and dance around the issue of price when ordering wine in a restaurant, using phrases like "a good value" or "a fair price," or a bottle "easy on the wallet."

He writes:

"I have discovered that such barely disguised innuendo would often yield distressingly pricey recommendations, because ... even expensive wines are good value if they drink like an even costlier wine."

When Oldman visits a restaurant now, he writes, he first asks "Who here knows the most about the wine?" 

"It smokes out the wine mind while avoiding giving the waiter the impression he did not look polished enough to be the sommelier," Oldman writes.

Then, when the sommelier or other expert arrives, Oldman asks, "This is a great list, but a lot of it is unfamiliar. Can I get your help?"

Finally, he gives the house sommelier some guidelines to work with:

•  Color
• Weight
• Price

For the last, he recommends giving an explicit price point, like "I'd like to spend up to $50 tonight," or pointing to a price on the list if you're embarrassed to say in front of your tablemates.

If you want to get more advanced, you can add a preferred style (like light-bodied white or full-bodied red) or quality (like earthy, oaky, or smooth).

He says that any good sommelier should be happy to help you with those guidelines without steering you to the most expensive offerings on the list. "The willingness to downsell may be the single greatest indicator of a special sommelier," he writes, "since it demonstrates with crystalline clarity that she has prioritized your interests over hers."

SEE ALSO: A sommelier explains why you should buy the cheapest bottle on the wine list

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NOW WATCH: Why aggressively paying your student loans may be the wrong financial move

• Daybreaker is a sober morning dance party that starts with an optional yoga class.
• Research suggests that working out first thing in the morning may help speed weight loss.
• The benefits appear to be connected to two factors: working out on an empty stomach and aligning our body clocks with daylight.

In 16 cities across the globe, people are waking up at the crack of dawn to get their dance and fitness on. And they're doing it stone-cold sober.

Daybreaker, a 3-hour morning party thrown in cities including San Francisco, New York, London, and Tokyo, is part of what its creators call a "movement." The sunrise soirée involves no alcohol or drugs and starts with an optional hour-long yoga class.

Unlike normal raves, one of Daybreaker's central tenets is health. And research suggests all these early bird party-goers might actually be onto something.

"That feeling of accomplishment waking up in the morning is really good for you," Daybreaker's co-founder, 38-year-old Radha Agrawal, told Business Insider. "And then there's the runner's high you get from sweating and working out."

There's quite a bit of research that suggests that early morning workouts — as opposed to afternoon or late-night ones — may help speed weight loss and boost energy levels by priming the body for all-day fat burn. The benefits appear to be connected to two main things: working out on an empty stomach and aligning our body clocks with daylight.

The no-snooze payoff

As I danced around with my fellow Daybreakers, I noticed that many of us (myself included) were decked out in colorful workout clothing. A few people wore dresses or nice pants, and some others arrived in costumes, but at least half of the attendees sported yoga or running gear.

Clearly, people were ready to get their fitness on.

Working out first thing in the morning appears to push the body to tap into its fat reserves for fuel, as opposed to simply "burning off" our most recent snack or meal. For that reason, it might help us lose weight — or at least keep us from gaining it.

Of course, you don't need to go to a sober rave to reap these benefits — all you have to do is get moving first thing in the morning.

In one study, 28 young, healthy men spent six weeks eating a hefty diet involving 30% more calories and 50% more fat than they'd been eating before. All of them were assigned to one of two groups — the first barely exercised, while the second was put on a daily morning workout regimen. Of those who worked out, half did so on an empty stomach, then ate a high-carb breakfast after hitting the gym. The other half did the same workout, but ate the high-carb breakfast before exercising.

Not surprisingly, at the end of the six-week experiment, the men who hadn't worked out had gained an average of about 6 pounds. But the two groups of men who did exercise didn't see the same results. Those who ate breakfast first then hit the gym gained about 3 pounds each. But the men who waited to eat until after their workouts didn't gain any weight at all — despite having been eating all that extra food.

That suggests that working out first thing on an empty stomach might be more powerful than doing so after eating, wrote Peter Hespel, the lead author of the study and a professor of exercise physiology at the University of Leuven in Belgium.

It's possible that these benefits could also be accomplished by working out after fasting at another time of day. But doing it first thing in the morning is likely the easiest way to hit the gym on an empty stomach.

Another study helps point out why timing could be so important. In it, two groups of men ran on treadmills until they burned 400 calories (about the equivalent of a small meal, or three to four pieces of bread). While one group ran on an empty stomach, the other ate a 400-calorie oatmeal breakfast about an hour before their workout.

All of the runners burned fat during their workouts and remained in a heightened fat-burning state after they had gotten off the treadmills. But the results were more intense for the runners who had skipped the pre-workout oatmeal. In other words, exercising after a long period of not eating could set us up for a longer, more intense fat burn, noted Eric Doucet, the lead author on the study and a professor of kinesiology at the University of Ottowa.

Set your clocks

Another component of the early-morning workout regimen that might help with weight loss is daylight.

Research suggests that aligning our internal clocks, or circadian rhythms, with the natural world doesn't just make us feel better — it may help give our metabolisms a boost. One recent study showed that people who basked in bright sunlight within two hours after waking tended to be thinner and better able to manage their weight than people who didn't get any natural light, regardless of what they ate throughout the day.

By encouraging people to get up before dawn and catch the early-morning light, Daybreaker makes sunshine a key component of its model (intentionally or not).

"Our goal was to create a safe space where people could sweat and express themselves," says Agrawal. "We said let's replace all the negative, dark stuff about nightclubs with light, positive stuff."

So next time you think about hitting snooze, remember this: An early-morning workout might just give you a bigger health boost than those extra minutes of shut-eye.

SEE ALSO: I woke up at dawn to dance sober for 3 hours before work — and I've already signed up to do it again

DON'T MISS: We tried the science-backed 7-minute fitness routine that's going viral, and it actually works

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NOW WATCH: A neuroscientist explains why working out in the morning is best for your brain

March 2017 marks the six-year anniversary of Japan's Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, a series of hydrogen explosions that were the worst since Chernobyl.  

Though the nuclear disaster itself killed no one, the string of devastating events left more than 18,000 people dead, and over 100,000 people had to be evacuated from the area around the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. 

Below are 10 before-and-after images, taken in 2011 and in 2016, of the areas affected by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the resulting tsunami, and the power plant accident. The images shown on one side were taken shortly after the earthquake and tsunami, while those on the other were taken more recently, after five years of cleanup.

SEE ALSO: Haunting photos show the residents who dared to go back to a ghost town created by nuclear disaster Fukushima

The earthquake started at 2:46 p.m. local time on March 11, 2011. The city of Kesennuma was completely wrecked by the resulting tsunami, bringing many large fishing boats ashore.

It was less than an hour after the earthquake that the tsunami began wrecking havoc on the coast.

Source: Live Science

The city of Natori in Miyagi prefecture was one of the worst-hit cities. Although Japan's scientists had forecast a smaller quake, there were no predictions made of a tsunami to follow.

Source: Live Science

Michael Royzen, a 17-year-old high school student living in Seattle, has been coding since he was 12 and loves it so much, he's certain that he's going to do it for a living one day.

He's off to a good start. He was part of a team of kids that won the 2015 TechGLOBAL Civic Hackathon for an app called VoicePedia, which reads Wikipedia entries aloud for the visually impaired. It's available on Apple's App Store.

The second app of his to be accepted into the App Store was a derivative called RecipeReadr, which reads your recipes aloud. It cost $1.99 and has had a couple thousand downloads, so far, Royzen tells us.

That was enough of a commercial success to land him a scholarship to Apple's 2016 Worldwide Developer's Conference teen program, where he briefly met Apple CEO Tim Cook and Apple's famed senior vice president of Software Engineering Craig Federighi in what he describes as a "life changing" event.

A few years ago, Apple didn't allow teen programmers into its conferences at all. As we previously reported, one of the most famous Apple teen coders was John Meyer who invented the flashlight app Just Light for the iPhone 4 (before Apple integrated a flashlight feature into iOS). He followed that up with a hugely successful app called Perfect Shot.

When Mayer was 16, he had to sneak into WWDC, getting his father to get a pass for him. (Meyer is now in his early 20's and running his own citizen journalism startup, Fresco News.)

Today, however, Apple welcomes young programmers with open arms via its WWDC scholarship program. Apple gives about 400 kids a free pass to the conference (and will even help pay for travel for a handful of them). They attend special programming where they can meet other kid programmers and get feedback on their work from Apple employees.

Apple just opened up applications for its 2017 scholarship program.

Hands-on inspiration

Tim Cook always makes an appearance with the teen scholarship winners at WWDC. When Royzen met him, he was both star struck and inspired, he says. "I felt so much appreciation. This is the man who makes my work possible. I asked him to sign my iPhone. I look at the signature to push myself harder as a developer and even as a human."

But it was an interaction with Federighi that really influenced him. The head of software spent a few minutes talking to Royzen about his work and some of Apple's new dev tools.

The result is Royzen's latest app called Ryde, which will helps you manage your daily commute so you always arrive on time. Royzen built it because he noticed that some days it took him longer to get to school than other days, he said.

While iOS and Google Now will both tell you when to leave for an appointment in your calendar, that doesn't work for stuff you don't put into your calendar like your daily commute or your trips to the gym, your kid's daycare center, etc. 

This app checks traffic, tells you when to leave and also the fastest route to get there each time. 

"It uses some of the new Maps APIs that were released and the new design language that was announced," Royzen says. "I built it using the inspiration I got from Craig Federighi and Tim Cook."

Ryde hasn't gone crazy with downloads yet, but it's gotten some nice reviews.

More importantly, Royzen's experience represents how far Apple has come in its encouragement of kid coders.

The interaction with Federighi was a particular highlight, because the exec talked one-on-one with them.

"Having that short conversation, I could tell how passionate he was about his work and how dedicated he was to building high quality products," Royzen said.

He was also left with the sense that these two powerful men were not just smart, they were also "humble," he said and left this young programmer with "a burning desire to do more."

Given all the recent news of bad behavior among some techies, which makes all of Silicon Valley sound like a frat house, Royzen's simple ambition to work hard and be humble is a breath of fresh air. 

SEE ALSO: Programmers in the Valley are pressuring their friends to quit working at Uber

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NOW WATCH: Here's what fruits and vegetables looked like before we domesticated them

When it comes to convenience stores, many believe Sheetz has no equal. 

The chain has been locked in fierce rivalry with Wawa for decades, with no signs of letting up as the two premium gas station brands bring out all the stops to win customers over. 

Looking for answers, we decided to visit Sheetz country and came to a vastly different conclusion than its most fervent defenders. 

Here's how Sheetz fails to live up to its lofty reputation:

SEE ALSO: We visited convenience-store rivals Wawa and Sheetz to see which does it better — and the winner is clear

We arrived at a Sheetz location in Easton, Pennsylvania, intrigued by the reputation that precedes it, yet skeptical nonetheless.

Walking inside, we were immediately impressed by the cleanly glitz and glamour. Sheetz is bright, colorful, organized, and supersized.

Suddenly we're seeing why this chain with more than 500 locations in six states is seen as a worthy adversary to Wawa. The store is expansive and has an indoor dining area, something most Wawas don't have.

See story here.

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In his inaugural address on January 20, President Donald Trump highlighted the goal to "buy American" as one of the central tenets of his administration.  

"Buy American" is not a new idea, however. It's one with a long history involving global conflicts and several different industries.

The good news for Trump: historically these initiatives have worked, at least when it comes to getting Americans to buy more US-made clothing.

The drive to buy American-made apparel dates all the way back to the time of the 13 colonies, when the imperative to purchase only things made on the western side of the Atlantic was seen as part of a greater rejection of Britain.

"When we [got] into the conflict with the mother country, we [realized] pretty quickly the dependence we [had] on them," Deirdre Clemente, an apparel historian and professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told Business Insider. "Out of that comes a 'buy American textiles, reject British textiles' phenomenon as a protest."

In the 20th century, especially in the '20s and '30s, we saw a new call for the purchasing of American apparel amid the strengthening of the US fashion industry. This time, however, it was more about rejecting European ideas and styles in favor of the US doing it its own way.

"It was like: 'Buy American ideas and American-made products.' We sort of didn't want to tie ourselves culturally to [Europeans]," Clemente said. "By buying American, you're inherently rejecting Parisian dictates. By buying American-made clothes you're supporting our own country."

The campaign seems to have worked. In a 1925 Women's Wear Daily article, a reporter wrote their observations of a store in Baltimore: "In contradiction to the idea that people imperatively wanted 'imported' written on garments, for which they paid a high price, many expensive garments — 'made in USA' — were sold right from the window." 

This culminated in the February 1938 issue of Vogue magazine, known as "the American issue," which cemented the US fashion industry as a force to be reckoned with. The cover bore an illustration of the Vogue girl riding an eagle over the Manhattan skyline, carrying ribbons of red, white, and blue.

The 1960s is when the US apparel industry started shifting much of its manufacturing overseas, where the work could be done much more cheaply. This did some damage to apparel-making regions like Los Angeles, which Clemente says has never really recovered from the change. 

After a few decades of this, the new millennium brought along a new focus on buying American-clothing. This time it wasn't about style, but about boosting the economy and encouraging ethically run businesses.

After some of the poor working conditions of the Asian factories making the clothing Americans wear was publicized, retailers like American Apparel came into existence. The company touted its clothing as "sweatshop-free" and made in LA.

"People want to feel good about the clothes they buy," Clemente said. "Ever since we started looking critically at the offshoring of the fashion industry, we feel guilty, and we're wearing guilt on our bodies."

Trump has focused more on the economic side of things, emphasizing the boost that an increase in manufacturing jobs by the apparel sector would bring back to the US.

It'll take appealing to both of these sensibilities to bring manufacturing back to the US, Clemente says.

"All of these 'buy American things,' historically, have been PR campaigns," she said. "This is the power of social media. Get Kim Kardashian to make her clothing line in the US and say 'I only buy American,' and you'll see this is all a big PR campaign. "

Clemente is optimistic that it can be done, provided consumers are receptive.

"Americans are fluid consumers. Given the option to buy American, I think more people would," Clemente said. "The problem is the options aren't there."

Historically, it's "the consumer that decides" where they prefer things to be made, according to Clemente. In the free market, consumers have chosen cheap merchandise over American-made products, but they may not do so when they realize the impact of their choices. 

"Look at the success of American Apparel in its prime," Clemente said. "I think their concept still resonates. There's something in the American psyche when it comes to clothing. There's something about playing to our patriotism and our need to be different that other countries that might help this buy American movement get some oomph behind it."

SEE ALSO: Here's what 'Made in USA' actually means

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CULVER CITY, California — We recently had the opportunity to visit the set of "Jeopardy!" on a taping day and got to talk to the iconic host of the show, Alex Trebek. 

Trebek allowed us to chronicle his entire daily routine, from his morning production meeting with the "Jeopardy!" staff, to sitting in the makeup chair, to the actual taping of the shows. Five episodes are filmed on each taping day, and there are approximately six taping days every month. 

We got to interview Trebek in a few different settings, but we also got to record his interaction with the studio audience. During each commercial break, Trebek takes questions from the audience. It's during these segments that you'll get to see a side of the iconic host that you rarely see on the show itself. 

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Gallup interviewed nearly 175,000 residents across the country in 2016 to determine how religious people were in each state. Over 480 interviews were conducted in each state with more than 1,000 interviews in most states. Based on the interviews, people were classified as "very religious," "moderately religious," and "nonreligious." 

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NOW WATCH: A $2.5 trillion asset manager just put a statue of a defiant girl in front of the Wall Street bull

One of the great things about Netflix is that it has brought thoughtful, compelling documentaries to a much wider audience — something filmmakers could only dream of a decade ago.

And with binge-worthy titles like "Amanda Knox" or "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster" a click away, you can get a lot of great nonfiction viewing any night of the week. You'll learn a lot more about the world, but don't worry — you'll also be entertained.

Here are 33 documentaries we think you should stream right away on Netflix.

Note: Numerous Netflix titles drop off the streaming service monthly, so the availability of titles below may change.

SEE ALSO: All the 'Avengers' and Marvel fans who nailed their cosplay at Comic-Con

1. "13th"

Director Ava DuVernay looks at the history of the US prison system and how it relates to the nation's history of racial inequality.

2. "Amanda Knox"

The murder trial in Italy of the American exchange student Amanda Knox, who is now free, captivated the world in the early 2000s. This Netflix original looks back at the case and gets the perspective of Knox and others closely involved.

3. "The Battered Bastards of Baseball"

In a fascinating look at one of the more colorful stories in baseball lore, directors Chapman and Maclain Way follow the Portland Mavericks, an independent baseball team owned by the movie star Bing Russell (Kurt Russell's father) who threw out all the conventions of the national pastime to build a regional sensation in the late 1970s.

Take a bite out of a VeganBurg burger and you might be surprised to find that it tastes about as exciting as a fast-food burger. The plant-based patty's texture is reminiscent of a McDonald's item — nothing special. But that's kind of what San Francisco's vegan burger joint is going for.

These days, fast-food burgers run the gamut from the classic McDonald's Big Mac to Jack In The Box's Hella-Peño Burger Munchie Meal, which is filled with cheesy jalapeño poppers. There aren't many quick-service burger options for vegetarians, let alone vegans.

Then there's VeganBurg, a plant-based burger restaurant that got its start in Singapore. The chain opened its first US location in San Francisco's earthy-crunchy Haight neighborhood in December 2015. Take a look inside to see if VeganBurg "meats" the hype.

SEE ALSO: A little-known Mexican-food chain run by a former Chipotle exec is crushing it

In 2015, VeganBurg opened its first restaurant in the US on San Francisco's bustling and quirky Haight Street. It's more than 8,600 miles from the flagship location in Singapore.

Tables made from wood palettes, hardwood flooring, and potted plants create an industrial, "safari-chic" vibe, according to VeganBurg founder, Alex Tan.

AstroTurf blankets the dining stools, just like at VeganBurg in Singapore.

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NOW WATCH: A top New York City chef shows how to make the perfect burger

Manhattan has the largest population density of any city in the US, and its K-12 schools serve more than 1 million students.

Yet, there is only one boarding school on the entire island: Léman Manhattan Preparatory School. Léman is an elite private school located in the southernmost part of the city. It educates more than 700 students in grades pre-kindergarten through 12, and is home to about 100 students who board from all over the world.

Its price tag for tuition, room, and board is $79,000 a year, nearly $16,000 more than Harvard. And boarding students enjoy perks likely unheard of even at the collegiate level, like full-service concierge and luxury apartment buildings.

So when Léman invited Business Insider to take a tour of the school, we jumped at the opportunity to see just how unique the facilities and course offerings really are. Paige Murphy, the director of admissions at Léman, was our tour guide for the day.

Here's what it's like to attend Léman as a high school boarding student.

SEE ALSO: A student at UPenn's Wharton School negotiated almost $50,000 off his yearly tuition — here's how he did it

We arrived in the Financial District of New York City on a sunny February day to start our tour of Léman and its surrounding neighborhood. The first thing we saw was popular tourist attraction Charging Bull, the 7,000 pound bronze sculpture and Wall Street icon.

Turning the corner, we found the Léman entrance on the quieter Morris Street. Léman opened its doors in 2005 starting with just 54 students. Twelve years later it has more than 700 students, about 100 of whom are boarders.

"You think of the American boarding school experience and you think more New England, rural, fields, not in the heart of the biggest capital city and financial center of the world," head of admissions Paige Murphy said.

Rural it is not. The Financial District (FiDi) is a bustling part of the city, especially during work hours. Goldman Sachs, The New York Stock Exchange, and Deutsche Bank are just some of the financial companies with offices in FiDi.

Murphy said students and families attracted to Léman tend to be those who want an urban environment and access to business internships and the city's top arts programs, that the school can help provide.

Léman recently added squash to its sports offerings. "Squash is very hot right now," Murphy said.

"It's really competitive for university admissions. A lot of the top tier schools, the Ivy Leagues, are looking for squash players," Murphy continued. Léman currently has three students nationally ranked in the top 50 for junior squash players.

Long after the initial effects of a drug wear off, its byproducts can linger in our blood, urine, and hair. And contrary to what many advertised drug tests might promise, not all substances leave a chemical signature in the body for the same amount of time.

Here's how long various drugs, from alcohol to morphine, stay in the body:

SEE ALSO: What marijuana does to your body and brain

DON'T MISS: I woke up at dawn to dance sober for 3 hours before work — and I've already signed up to do it again

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Wine can get expensive.

The bottles are just the start. Once you've procured some bottles, you'll need a $200 "advanced lever" corkscrew to open them up, a $50 carafe to aerate them, and maybe even a $300 Coravin wine system to bypass the cork entirely. There are entire websites full of nifty gadgets billed as essential to your comfort and happiness as a collector.

Sommelier Mark Oldman takes a different approach.

In his book "How to Drink Like a Billionaire," Oldman writes that you can buy all the wine tools you need for $15.

While he admits that he boasts a shiny, costly, enjoyable collection of accoutrements himself, "the sober truth, however, is that none of these gizmos, nor any other of the infinite number of wine tools on the market, are essential to appreciate even the finest wine."

All you really need, he says, is:

A corkscrew. A plain old $3-$8 "waiter's friend" corkscrew is "perfectly fine," says Oldman. "Look for ones with a Teflon-coated spiral, for easy drilling, and a little serrated blade to cut the foil off the bottleneck."

A pitcher. Also known as a "decanting vessel." You can buy a crystal decanter for hundreds of dollars, says Oldman, or "be advised that a simple glass pitcher in your kitchen will suffice. In fact, I know a club of happy connoisseurs who are fine with using a Tupperware pitcher to decant their priceless bottles."

And there's no need to get crazy with your glasses, either. "Despite the fact that Riedel and other glassware purveyors decree that varietal-specific glasses can make a difference," Oldman writes, "I join many insiders in contending that the considerable expense of these glasses (and the heartache experienced when they inevitably shatter into glittering nonexistence) aren't worth the slight improvement they may make in the enjoyment of the wine."

Again, you can shell out hundreds of dollars for stunning, delicate stemware ... or you can follow Oldman's lead and "think of glassware like you would a graham cracker: thin, big, and cheap."

He writes:

"Your wineglass should be slender because you want to taste the wine — not the glass — with a wide bowl that holds at least twenty-two ounces so you have plenty of room to swirl and sniff your wine. Choose inexpensive glasses because glasses break as inevitably as earphones, smartphone screens, and the hearts of Chicago Cubs fans. Use that one glass type for your white, red, dessert, and sparkling wines, and reinvest your savings in a closet full of daily Prosecco."

SEE ALSO: A sommelier explains how to ask your waiter for wine you can afford without looking unsophisticated

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NOW WATCH: Why aggressively paying your student loans may be the wrong financial move