But if I don’t eat with the coffee, then the crap starts. And that is where I am right now. What the heck do I want to eat? Do I want to go get dressed and go out in public to purchase some food, or do I just make something from what I have here in the house? Such confusion, such angst over a little twinge of hunger….
What is a guy to do?

I love spring. But then again, who doesn’t? Even with the mild winter we had this year, the cold rain and the sleet were just too much to bear if you ask me. I just do not enjoy being cold. Time now to wake up the gardens and let the sun warm up the soil. Of course I do know that there is the distinct possibility of an onion snow yet. Though I am truly hoping that we have already received that. The idea of nothing but sunshine and a warm spring rain makes me a lot happier….

Love the spring….

And not being here other than the lame videos that I put up. Before I found out that you could add a video to FaceCrack through the YouTube site.

Silly me.

Well. I think that that is quite enough for today, don’t you?

L8R

Bite me, FaceCrack.

I always opt out for the cigars, because cigar accessories only get taken out for a few seconds and then get put away until the next time you need them. A good cigar can give me an hour of pure cigar smoking pleasure.

This first real accessory that you need is a cutter. You can’t bite the end off of a good cigar, no matter how cool you think it looks. It will mess up the wrapper, the binder, and the filler. And besides, what are you going to do with the cap in your mouth? You aren’t going to chew it up and swallow. It just doesn’t look that good to be spitting out a hunk of a good cigar.

There are lots of cutters out there from singel blades, to double blades, to cigar scissors, to wedge cutters. For my everyday use I have a single blade guillitine cutter. It is simple and easy to deal with. When I go to my favorite tobacconist, I use his wedge cutter. The wedge cutter is just so freaking cool. I just haven’t gotten around to justifying the purchase of one as of yet. Remember what I said, I invest my money in good cigars not in cigar accessories.

L8r

Today I bottled one of the partigyle brews I made with a friend a couple of weeks ago. It was the second running, as I want the first running, a Dopple Bock, to sit in the secondary for another week. I am not sure what to name this brew, as this was the first partgyle brew I have ever performed.

Regardless, sitting on the deck with this cigar is very relaxing. It is saving me from destroying my kitchen as I have managed to ruin two loaves of bread yet once again. I do not understand what it is with me and bread. Bread is supposed to be this simple recipe that anyone can make. I can’t make bread. It is either tasteless, gummy, over baked, under baked,or just gross. I follow the recipe. I talk to my friends who are chefs, and bakers. I write down what they tell me, and I still can’t make a loaf of bread to save my soul.

I don’t get it.

But I do get this cigar. It is a Punch Gran Puro. And is it good? Oh yes. It is fantastic. So I will sit here and finish it, ruminating on the remains of this day.

I buy my coffee currently in a grocery store, but I know that the beans that they sell bulk are most likely stale. I tend to buy the plastic containers. Why? Because even though the containers are months away from being ground, at least they tried to slow the process of the coffee going stale by sucking air out of the package. And that minimally helps. Minimally. What would improve the process even more would be if I learned how to roast my own beans. You see, green coffee beans will last for a long time in the green state. It is when you roast them that the process of them becoming stale begins. So if I could just roast what I want to use over the next couple of days, I could have fresh roasted coffee on a constant basis.

And I like that idea, because I love coffee. Remember? Anyway, there are a number of methods you can use to roast your own coffee beans. You can put them in the oven, you can use a frying pan, you can use an air popcorn maker, or you can go out and buy a drum roaster. Me, I am going to start with the oven method, and then decide how I want to improve from there.

Because I really love good, fresh coffee.

I do love a good cigar. That being said, a good cigar has to be stored properly to keep its flavor and ability to be smoked properly.

There really isn’t anything much better than a good cigar, and the time to smoke it. Given the time and the right cigar, I could enjoy one pretty much anywhere. But it has to be a good cigar, and a good cigar is one who has been stored under the right conditions

Cigars are a blend of specific tobaccos that have been stored at 70 degrees, at 70% humidity. This means that for each particular cigar, they will have had to have been held at those levels of temperature and humidity from the time of production to the time of enjoyment. That sounds a lot easier than it really is. Once a cigar has been rolled, it is at the mercy of whatever human handles it. And that is as ominous as it sounds. Cigars go from roller to storage, to shipping, to storage yet once again until they are purchases. And it is the retail storage that is the most dicey.

Not all retailers store their cigars as well as they should. Not all retailers have the facilities to store the cigars that you intend to purchase. That being said, you as the cigar purchaser can hedge your bet. And that is where a humidor comes into play. Cigars that lose their humidity lose the flavor they were meant to have. They will burn to hot, and too fast. The outside wrappers might very well separate from the filler.

Humidors are constructed to keep the temperature steady, along with the humidity. This is taken care of by either an internal electric powered humidifier, or by a sponge-like device where once soaked in distilled water the water evaporates in the humidor keeping your cigars at an optimum level of humidity and temperature.

I know I keep harping on those two variables, but they will make or break your cigar storage and your cigar enjoyment. Humidity at 70%, and temperature at 70 degrees. Keep them stable and your stable of good cigars will be there waiting for you to have the time to enjoy them properly.