2004 Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No.2

Never have been a fan of this vitola, whether it be the specific cigar or the size  itself.  There is a thin line I have for a comfort zone, I like medium-bodied cigars and do not prefer those above or below that in strength.  But I DO like smoking good "old" cigars, so I don't let that simple preference hold me back.  I pulled the cigar out of a cabinet of 50 that it now shares with PSD4s and RASS.  It was not remarkable in any way, although perfectly rolled and seemed the perfect weight in the hand. 

Loaded for bear this weekend with a PSD4 on deck.  That cigar would turn out to be unremarkable, but as it was 2009 vintage, I did not hold anything against it and buried the rest for a few years.  Getting back to the Epicure No.2, it lit fine and drew perfectly.  There was not much body to speak of, and the flavor initially was of straw and light tobacco.  If you had to rate it strictly as an example of the torcedore's art, this was a ten.  It was such a struggle in the head, at once giving the cigar top marks for the mechanical virtues, and panning it for it's weak character.  There was some creaminess once the cigar burned into it's strike zone, but all in all it was a boring smoke. 

You can see the perfect burn going, the ash held on for another inch before missing my bourbon by a half inch as it fell off.  The cigar was cut with a wedge, which I always do with a robusto, because they are nearly always rolled far too airily to be cut in the standard fashion.  Smoking an airy cigar does not enhance the burn.  Being forced to pull a bit for some smoke usually leads to a razor straight burn in a robusto. 

You can see in the last photo that I DID slide the band up to enjoy the cigar a little more than usual, and that does speak to some type of enjoyment.  It is not uncommon for me to leave half of a short cigar unsmoked.  This one I burned down to an inch long.  It was simply a salute to the perfect construction and the beautiful burn.  The Epicure was also undemanding, I could smoke it and watch TV or type blog entries with the cigar being there for entertainment without giving me trouble or forcing me to focus too intently on flavor. 

All in all, the cigar failed me in flavor as almost all of it's brethren have over the years.  But that is the wonder of the Habanos catalogue, there is something for everybody if you have the patience to wait for the odd miracle cigar that comes your way from time to time.  Usually you have to find the real enjoyment, it's sad to say, in the allure of the cigar, and for US smokers, in the excitement of forbidden fruit.  I am playing out the string on this cabinet, I keep them around strictly for the hope I hold out that I may find a few nuggets in there.  Make no mistake, these cigars can be excellent.  A better palate than mine can find much more to enjoy in them without finding that unicorn in the box.  But it's what I do, I smoke and rate cigars.  A disappointing 75, and a lot of that score is performance under "fire".

And now the irony.  A much better performance will be seen tomorrow, in a cigar from the Dominican Republic. 

Why I only smoked one cigar in New Orleans

Cohiba007 was shocked that I only smoked one cigar in New Orleans, but there is of course a reason for that.  Most of the cigars you see reviewed here are smoked in my house with a window open and a fan blowing out.  In New Orleans I was staying in a condo that was not my own, and the first night it was chilly with a 30 mile an hour wind.  The second night I got home after dark and was beat, and I don't usually take pics in the dark.  I know, the camera comes with a flash, but the pics don't look good to me.  The third night I didn't feel like smoking and the fourth night the people next door were using the porch.  For a cigar blogger I don't smoke all that much apparently.  I also had plans to visit more cigar bars than the none I DID visit.  I checked out where they all were, and just never went out at night.  We had originally had plans to go out one or two nights, but this was not a partying trip to begin with, and frankly all the old people were tired at night and the one who wasn't tired was underage.  You see, it's a consipiracy.

The trip was designed to be a sightseeing and walking trip, and we likely logged about 6-12 miles a day.  Considering the youngest adult was 48, it wadn't purty.  When I got home I never even thought about going out again to listen to music and drink.  THAT'S why I took the Margaritaville Machine.  All of the drinks, none of the drive, lol.

Fonseca No.4 Edicion Regional (Benelux)

I was gifted one of these cigars by a good BOTL a few months ago and it has tried to be smoked several times, and it was in the lineup for my trip to New Orleans and I smoked only one cigar there.  So tonight I realized it was time to burn her down. 

It lit up fast and even and unlike any Fonseca I ever had, it was kind of medium-full in strength.  There was a full blast of Tea flavors and some good creamy body.  However, the flavor quickly disappeared after 3/4 of an inch and it was just smoke.  The burn and draw were both excellent, it just lost the great flavors.  I find that the regionals tend to be great or bland with not much in between. 


Of course, I have only had a few, so chalk that up to the usual 'me talking about stuff I know nothing about'.  But I wanted this to be better, especially because it was a gift.  It's not cool to say bad things about a gift.  It didn't taste sick, there was too much presence in the body for that.  If I had more to try (not a mooch) I could tell more about it.  So under the circumstances I will just say it was bordering on sick and should be held in the dark for a year for the best results.  Your mileage may definitely vary, but if they were mine, I'd hold em for a time before wasting any more.

 There is definitely a lot of tobacco in there with some power and in time I think that it will marry well and get to the types of floral and perfumed qualities that the marque is known for.  But again, no R.E. ever really tries that hard to live up to the traditions of it's supposed marque.  But with the tea and creamy character it showed at the outset, I figure it will all work out.

Oak Fatigue and the Locke-Breaux Oak

As I look back on a fantastic week in New Orleans I was struck by how quickly I found it possible to coin the phrase "Oak Fatigue".   I saw so many centuries-old oaks draped in luxuriant Spanish Moss that I could no longer generate a respectful admiration for just what I was seeing.  To be fair I will only post my own photos in this entry.  I have to thank Cam for contributing unknowingly and so heavily to my New Orleans series.  He takes such fine photos it was very difficult not to post his best shots just to show off the skill he has developed.  But that is for HIM to do.  I personally think he should develop a photoblog, though the internet is littered with the corpses of such endeavors. 

Here are a few photos of great trees, plus some photos I am posting for the 100 Oaks Project of the Live Oak Societies FIRST and founding president, the grand Locke-Breaux Oak that once grew at Taft, Louisiana.  I had some pictures that my mother gave to me, and they deserve to be appreciated by as many people as possible.

Here are a few photos of the Locke-Breaux Oak that once reigned supreme over all other known Live Oak trees.  She was the biggest and the oldest, and over 300 people could eat lunch in the shade of her spreading arms.   Air and Water pollution from the newly forming chemical industry nearby killed her deader than dead.  I am not sure how many people have photos of her in their family albums, there could be thousands of pictures out there.  During her time along the river, people often came upriver from New Orleans to visit the grounds of the dairy on who's property she found herself, and hundreds of people were invited to eat supper at the main house there.  Surely they took photos and brought them home to their families.  Surely other people living nearby had photos as well.  But you can look all over the internet and only find the old postcard photos.  That changes today.  I have posted these to fulfill a promise I made to a blogger who has a blog (the 100 Oaks Project) promoting the trees of the Live Oak Society.  I hope you can use them. 

The best food in the City of New Orleans

On our last day in New Orleans, we headed down magazine Street for the Fete' Francaise, put together by a bilingual school in the Uptown area.  We had a little Brunch, I think Cam had Duck and Sausage Gumbo and the ladies had lighter fare.  I had nothing, in honor of my fat ass.  Cam and I got into another photo contest, this time with his camera, and we worked on our PEOPLE shots.  I explained to him that when you see a great photo that has a person in it, you have to steel yourself for rejection and ask if their permission to take a few photos.  He had explained to me that he did not like to ask people to take their pictures, and I reminded him that some of the best photos ever taken are pictures of PEOPLE.  I am not above stealing a distant shot, like the shot below:

But sometimes you have to ask for permission, just out of respect, and for other reasons. 

This lady was watching the show developing across the street from her home and I told Cam to practice asking permission by asking her if he might take her photograph.  She cheerfully obliged, making it quite worthwhile as a confidence builder for the future.

She had lived in the house all her life.  Once we took the photo and left, she disappeared inside her home, but she talked with us for ten minutes about the neighborhood and her life.  New Orleans people like to talk and are recognized worldwide as being quite friendly.  We had a chance to take a few more photos up the street, and then pointed the car up the river to the great plantation homes. 

We passed many beautiful homes, both plain old family houses and historic plantation homes on the way up the west bank of the Mississippi river on The Great River Road.  But we finally pulled over for Oak Alley.  I had been at the foot of the famous avenue of oaks more than a dozen times and never pulled around to the back of the house.  My sister and her son would pay the price to enter the grounds.  My mother and I took in a bit of breeze and shade near the parking lot and enjoyed ourselves almost as much.  Here are a few of the stunning photos Cam took.

The house.....

The front yard:

The back yard:

A stunning panorama:

No matter how you look at it, this home is unbelievable.  I am glad that I got to see the photos, I knew the home looked good from the River Road, but the grounds are much more spectacular than this view has ever hinted at.  The home is so over the top that there was but one way to end the day, and by simple mathematics and the passage of time, end the week.  A trip back toward the city up Highway 90 to the edge of the swamp that marks the first civilization of Jefferson Parish at Avondale led us to the doorstep of the most unassuming vinyl-sided house.  I pause here to think twice about naming the restaurant, for fear that too many people will find the out-of-the-way hiding place of the finest meal you can find in the "city".  Ironic that perhaps the best food available in New Orleans is not even in the city.  Barely NEAR it, even.  Again, at the risk of starting a stampede, I will post only one shot of the Mosca's experience.  This is Cam's plate consisting of portions of two larger plates, Shrimp Mosca and Chicken a la Grande.

I have to qualify my statement "best food in NO".  I have eaten in exactly zero restaurants that likely compete for the honor.  I am only a person who likes delicious food and furthermore, OLD family recipes.  Most of the dishes my mother made for me as a child were SOMEBODY'S ancient family recipes.  This meal was the sheer highlight of my trip, at a restaurant that is open but four hours a day for the 5 days she is open.  If you intend to try it, you had better have a wad of cash, because if the warnings on the menu do not alert you to the fact, finding yourself with only credit cards or checks after enjoying your meal will have you in a very dangerous position.  VERY dangerous indeed.

New Orleans Week of Awesomeness continues.

My newphew was allowed to pretty much review the city's virtues for a month or two and collate that with the stories he had heard all of his life and plan for this trip well in advance.  He decided that this third day of my being with our two mothers would be spent at City Park.  This is a very old park built in the part of the city that followed the high ground that extended from the river's natural levees that held the young city of New Orleans, to the bayou that connected Lake Pontchartrain to the river, Bayou St. John.

Eons of over-topping it's banks had built up silted high ground near the Mississippi and it's tributaries and estuaries, and this is where New Orleans was constructed.  What they say is true...New Orleans is in a bowl, and way below sea level, but the old city was reasonably safe from catastrophic flooding, although there were flood waters each year.  However those floodwaters could simply run through the relatively high ground of the old city and settle in the low-lying areas.  Much of what plagues the city today results from pumping oil and water out of the ground, causing OVERALL subsidence, and it's made ever worse by the channeling with levees of all that good silt that flows down the river from the heartland.  The only place the river builds land today is at it's mouth where it does almost no one any good.   At the downriver end of the Vieux Carre', Esplanade Avenue follows the other high ground in the city, The Esplanade Ridge to Bayou St. John, which lazily flows through the city to Lake Pontchartrain and roughly forms the Eastern Boundary of City Park.   City Park is a huge 1300 acre park.  A quick tidbit that helps bring it into scale:  there are 4 18-hole public golf courses within the park, and they take up only half of it's area.  There is a wonderful area for kids that has been there as long as I can remember, Storyland, which features playable and display-only structures which depict nursery rhyme characters and stories.  There is a kid's amusement park, and a 13 acre Botanic Garden, both of which we would visit on day three of my time there.

The place is the bomb for kids, and lives on in the memories of all but the hardest ones.  There are things about the city you just don't forget.  But we didn't go inside.  We should have, just for the pictures, anyway.  So into the Botanic, or Botanical Garden.   To me it's like "Historic Home"  Why say Historical Home?  But the sign says Botanical Garden, and they should know.  Not a lot of people outside the city know this, but basically the entire plant collection at this facility was lost to Hurricane Katrina.  And I can say after seeing it, that was some rebirth.

It should be noted that we visited this garden a few days after a series of ridiculous, torrential rainstorms that led to not just the flooding of many streets throughout the city and the surrounding parishes, but to tearing down utility poles, spawning tornadoes and obviously battering the recently emerged blossoms on every bush and tree.  What it must have been like to see it the day before the storms. 

My mother has always had a love for plants and shrubs, our home upriver from New Orleans was surrounded by plants that she loved or found and transplanted.  We had a 12 foot tall Poinsettia "tree" that was once a tiny cutting.  We had the most fragrant of gardenia bushes which took some of the pain away from sweltering summer evenings.  We had a 4 foot tall or better compost pile tucked away at a hidden corner of the back yard.  We almost always kept a garden.  Our Satsuma trees were towering and well over-burdened each year.  So I knew that this was a highlight of our trip for her.  And there was a lot to be in awe of within the walls of this garden.

There were plants I had never seen before, and colors and textures I had to commit to photos or lose them forever.  

We spent a few lazy hours there and then headed off to the lakefront for PoBoys from Deannie's and a shady covered shelter near the seawall.  He took the only pics we had from the stop, so my apologies to Cam again for biting his shots.

The lakefront was our favorite place to cruise when we were in high school.  But as always happens, the owners of large homes there, even despite a 40 foot levee and a hundred yards between them and the cars cruising, put their foot down and stopped the party long ago.  It was a great place to fish, to catch blue crabs and to just hang out with a book or have a family picnic.  The best part of the entire scene, though, had to be Pontchartrain Beach Amusement Park, which closed in the early 80s.  This area took a hell of a beating during and after Katrina.  But on this trip, it was a great place to have a picnic.  Cam had a Crawfish poboy, my sister had Shrimp, and my mother and I split a half a Softshell Crab and half a Oyster poboy.  Mama Mia.

Tomorrow, the last installment...We hit City Park for a few more highlights and head upriver to stunningly beautiful Oak Alley Plantation, and return for the LAST and easily BEST treat we would have all week.  Can a dumpy looking plain house with vinyl siding really hold the treasure of New Orleans' Best Meal?  Find out tomorrow.

A week of pure bliss

There's a lot about New Orleans to want to leave behind.  But for me it's just the intense 6 month summer heat and humidity.  The rest is great, but tough to see positively in the context of the heat.  I spent 15 straight years there and have been back at least twice a year for the past 30.  But outside of a few funerals, I have not spent a single week there with family in that entire 30 years.   Last week my sister invited me to spend a week there with her and her son, as well as our mother.  Her son has been there before, but only as an infant.  Infants could care less where they are, as long as they are satisfied in every way.  Over the past dozen or so years, the young man has had to hear about how great it was to grow up there, how horrible it was, how great the food was, all the great things to see and do.  Well all that came to a head this past week as we did everything imaginable.  We did everything we could fit into the week and vowed to keep it non-touristy.  What that means is that we did everything we could think of that was within our time and financial budget, as far from the French Quarter as possible, and age appropriate.  What we failed in was the non-touristy part.  But we did it without being touristy, I hope.

We did NOT make it to Frenchmen St. for evening entertainment.  Although the young man was 17, New Orleans is pretty laissez faire about age in bars, provided the child doesn't drink and is accompanied by a parent.  But we were just beat in the evenings anyway.  We did NOT make it to Rock and Bowl.  Those are the two regrets.  The rest was a bucket list of sorts for a Americajun family spread across the southeast and longing for New Orleans.  They were there for a day and a half before I arrived, I work for a living, haha.  I arrived on Tuesday night after most had gone to bed.  The next day we had our breakfast at Camelia Grill after riding uptown on the streetcar. 

Then we did what we all said we would not do, we headed all the way back downtown on the streetcar and walked across Canal St. to the French Quarter with the sole purpose of taking in the Musee Conti', better known as the New Orleans Wax Museum.  Not your average tourist attraction, but we had all done it as kids on field trips and it was surprisingly interesting, and fun besides.  You will not find Marilyn Monroe or Marilyn Manson there, more like Napoleon and the Sieur de Bienville.  There is also a chamber of horrors based on works by Poe and Hugo.  All I remember clearly was a gorilla stuffing a woman up a chimney.  However, I was not to see Napoleon in his bathtub this year, as the MC was closed on Wednesdays.  We browsed the French Market, but even more depressing than missing the wax version of the Battle of New Orleans was the fact that the ICONIC smell of every fruit mixed with every vegetable stirred in with the odor of 80 different kinds of people was NOT in evidence.  And that's simply because that aroma depends on three important factors, none of which were present that morning.  You need to be deeper into the growing season, it needs to be over 90 degrees and the humidity should be over 85%.  But missing that smell is a small price to pay for NOT having the 3 factors hitting at once on that day.   A walk up the Moonwalk got us back to Canal and the streetcar stop.  Never knew why it was called the Moonwalk, maybe the Riverwalk was taken.  We made it back to the house and I smoked the Montecristo Sublime I had been threatening to smoke for a month or two.

Thursday we were back to the Camelia Grill;  when a cliche' offers waffles like that and the only breakfast sausage I ever found acceptable, you gotta go twice.  Then we headed to Audubon Zoo, which never fails to amaze me when I remember back to what it was 30 years ago.  You need to rent the movie "Cat People" to really get the full depressing effect in color.

Granted, this is just the Big Cats area, but almost all of the displays were of this style and size.
Here are a few black and whites to give you the idea.  In the first frame, you get a shot of the cages for the more active monkeys and Chimpanzees.  They had the most room of any animals back then, even the really lucky ones who were 'marooned' on Monkey Island with actual grass (dirt) under their feet.  Kind of like the difference between Orleans Parish Prison and Angola Prison Farm.  My memory is not great on this layout, but the second frame appears to be what I think of as the front of the zoo, which could have been anywhere actually, but I think of it as the front.  I think this was the display for Hippos, camels and something else there, and behind the viewer out of frame left would have been the flamingoes and another pen for the Galapogos Tortoises.

Granted, there were few zoos back then that were forward-thinking, you just crammed as many animals as you could into the space you had.  But New Orleans' Audubon Zoo, as great as the WPA labor-built buildings were, was especially bleak.  Now it seems as if they are determined to go as far the other way as possible, and the facility is incredible, based as it is on the elegance and beauty of the century old oaks which cover the grounds.  I told my mother about Zoo Tycoon, where they tell you that to keep visitors happy, you should make grand entrances.  It sure makes em walk a long way to get to the animals, but apparently the Audubon Zoo is built with this in mind.

That's my nephew taking pictures.  We had a serious competition going on the entire week, where I playfully jabbed at his 'inferior camera' and skills.  Obviously he has great skills, better than me when I am at my best, way better when I am just my regular self.  His eye for light and composition is always on, where I remember to think about it about half the time.  And his camera is 3 times better than mine if not more.  Here is a shot that demonstrates only the fact that he shot what I forgot to, not his great skills.  It's to show that the entrance is just over-the-top grand.

And don't get me started on the canvas they have to paint on at the Audobon Institute.  The entire grounds including the park across Magazine St. are strewn with 100+ year old Live Oak trees.  Everytime they make a new exhibit, they have so much more to work with in terms of ambience and that 'lived-in' look.  Thanks to Cam for this nice photo.  Doesn't it make you want to go to Audubon Zoo as soon as possible?

We crossed the river for supper since my family was crazy enough to allow ME a shot at calling a meal.  I chose a blast from my past, a popular westbank haunt called Perino's Boiling Pot.  The exterior is some kind of reclaimed Comfort Inn or some other kind of used motel.  Inside there are dozens of long tables for eating the messiest food a cajun can eat, crabs, shrimp and crawfish.  Rolls of paper towels are available and necessary.  Thank goodness my nephew likes to photograph food on trips.  Here is more of his work.

The prices were crazy high, thanks BP!  You know, it's hard to 'shout' in caps lock at a company that is so evil and forever damned when just writing their name is all caps.  Oh wait.  THANKS BRITISH PETROLEUM!  Jerks.  The oil spill did not necessarily go into the adult crustacea, but it seems to have killed off a lot of the larval stage organisms that keep the circle going.  Seafood is available now, but expensive for a time.  On the good side, the crabs were FULL!!  That's coon-ass for packed with meat and heavy.  The crawfish I had were also excellently boiled and tasty.  Again, thanks to Cam for the shots.  The seafood is most definitely still ON in NO. 

Two excellent days out and about in the City that Care Forgot and the best was yet to come over the coming days.  That afternoon we took a long walk around Audubon Park proper, and if anything is more impressive than the Zoo across the street, it's that park.  Bounded on the other end by Tulane and Loyola University, the park contains a nice public golf course and beautiful walking and biking paths and the most beautiful views in the Deep South.  As luck would have it, Cam was the only one with batteries again.  His work is again used without permission, lol.  And the boy does have chops.  He makes calendars with his favorite shots of the long list of places he has been that you would pay cash money to hang in your various vertical spaces.  Keep in mind however that these are just pics that show the park as described and are not to be considered his best work. 

In the coming days, we'll visit the City's other major park, the sprawling City Park, including the beautiful Botanical Gardens.  Then we head up to the Lake for a trip back in time as well as one of my best old cruising memories, the lakefront of Lake Pontchartrain.   There were no hot rods and young kids there on our visit, but it was still a treat.