May all my ignorance be this blissful

I don't remember exactly when I read that mayonnaise does not need to be refrigerated. 

Huh? 

Didn't everyone grow up learning that potato salad or cole slaw left out turned to ptomaine within an hour after the picnic basket was opened? 

Turns out that, if we're talking commercial mayo vs. homemade, the only reason to refrigerate is to extend the shelf life. 

That's not the reason I refrigerate my mayo. I just do it because the thought of unrefrigerated mayo makes my stomach roil. So my jar of Hellman's shelf life, once the jar is opened, happens on a shelf in the fridge, next to the ketchup and the mustard(s). The last thing I want sitting around in my cabinets - let alone on my counters - are a jar of French's Mustard, a jar of Gulden's, a jar of Maille Grainy Mustard (the best kind), and a squeeze bottle of Heinz Ketchup. (At least the squeeze bottle doesn't get grotty and crusty like the long-necked glass bottles of your.)

So, I will continue to happily keep my mayo in the fridge.

Tomatoes, too. Mostly.

Summer tomatoes from the farmer's market. Hydroponic tomatoes that smell like summer tomatoes from the farmer's market. Sometimes, I leave them on a counter in a hammered aluminum bowl that I inherited from my mother. I think it was a shower or wedding gift (1945). Retro. Coolly retro.

But the cherry tomatoes I always have on hand to throw into salads?

I've been buying Cherubs for years. How is it that I just this very week noticed the little plea on the lid: Please don't refrigerate. It's too cold in there! I'm doing a bit of experiment here. I've left them out on the counter. But I'm not noticing that they taste any different, one way or the other. 

So, meh on that bit of advice.

And besides, the Cherubs' container is nowhere near as charming as the vintage hammered aluminum bowl holding normal, not midget, tomatoes. So they're going back in the fridge. Where they will keep company in the veggie bin with peppers, cukes, scallions, and (once they soften up after their stint in the vintage hammered aluminum bowl) avocados. 

And then I saw that nuts are supposed to be refrigerated. 

Well, I never...

But "it" says that nuts that aren't refrigerated are prone to going rancid.

At this very moment, I have in a kitchen cabinet, glass jars holding walnuts, almonds, pecans, and pistachios. 

I love nuts. I snack on 'em. Throw them in salads (next to those mini, refrigerated tomatoes). Bake occasionally using them. (Last week I made barmbrack with walnuts.) 

Maybe I go through them too rapidly, but I am racking my brain trying to come up with any instance where one of my nutty buddies has gone rancid on me. (Which is not to say that I haven't once in a while bitten into a rotten peanut. But I rarely buy peanuts, other than at the ballpark.)

Anyway, I'm not about to start refrigerating my nuts. (Nuts to that, as they say.)

And don't get me going on the recommendation that your refrigerate your flour.

I'm just going to keep on keeping on what's been working for me throughout a long and, when it comes to food storage, an uneventful life in terms of mayo, tomatoes, nuts or flour betraying my trust and going bad on me.

May all my ignorance be this blissful.