(Cigar) Smoke Gets In My Eyes

I smoked my last cigar probably ten years ago. This past weekend I smoked two.
On Friday night, Mrs. Agricola and I kicked off the summer in style and finally set up the porch and invited our neighbors over for a drink.

We were drinking Italian and French Roses when our neighbor pulled out a couple of cigars -- Cubana Julianas (I think) that we smoked without delay. My parents had stopped in, after an evening out, and it was a very convivial time. The company was great, the wine was flowing and the smoke was floating. As I worked my way through the cigar I remembered why cigar smoking is so pleasurable -- especially when smoking terrific cigars and drinking good wine while sitting on a porch on a warm, late-spring night with great company.

The second cigar, a Macanudo, was smoked yesterday afternoon at a boil that we did with the same neighbors (Boil, Boiled, Fed). It sparked the appetite between rounds one and two of the feed. While it was not as delicious as the Friday-cigar, it was still pretty good. A weekend of good smoke, good times, and good food make for a difficult Monday transition.

Fed

Rd 2

Boiled

Boil

Mouth Wash Bum

While walking through Harvard Square the other evening we saw a mouthwash bum, the first one in a long time.

We're more likely to see some junkie on the nod nowadays than we are to see a bum hitting a bottle of mouthwash. But there he was, as bombed as could be on the corner of Mass Ave and Ellery St., carrying his bottle of golden mouthwash, CVS brand.

Rekindling An Old Flame

This past weekend, in the midst of starting the Christmas Season by decorating the house with lights and greenery, we created and knocked back a couple of delicious Martinis. In the past this was the defacto, winter drink of choice on the Quarter Acre. However, due to unknown reasons the Martini has not been agreeing with us and has fallen out of favor. Perhaps our body is telling us that ingesting three shots of Gin, one shot of Dry Vermouth and olives is not a great idea because even one Martini would leave us feeling less than delightful the following day.

Despite all of this, we mixed up two Martinis this weekend -- one on Saturday, the other on Sunday. They definitely agreed with us this weekend; and, as the Christmas season truly gets under way, an old flame has been rekindled. The turning point in this relationship happened about two weeks ago. While out to dinner we ordered a Martini and received instead a glass of chilled gin containing some olives. This irked us. Recipes are written for a reason and are meant to be followed. If we wished to drink chilled gin and olives we would order that.

The abominable drink that we received motivated us to try out our tried and true recipe (Thanks to DrinkBoy for being our guide and our high priest of classic and classically prepared cocktails) and give our preferred winter beverage a new chance. The old flame is back and burning brightly. Just in time we say, as the world enters the darkest time of year.

Drinking at Home

There's been something missing from the whole urban-suburban-transition, and that's been drinking. Now we're not talking about blackout-retch-through-your-nose-suffer-immobilizing- hangover-drinking. Rather we're talking about the sociable-and-civilized-sit-around-the-living- room-and-nurse-a-cocktail-pre-dinner-followed-by-wine-at-dinner-and-some-sort-of-post-prandial-libation-to-top-it-all-off-drinking. It's a lacuna with multiple sources.

First, the first-string drinking buddy is on the "unable to perform" list for 40 weeks -- though she is expected to return in time for New Years.

Second, the 'burbs seem quite a bit less social than the city -- perhaps it's the distances between people and the fact that any drinking must be followed by driving.

Third, everybody has kids, and kids and alcohol are not a great combo.

In our relatively alcohol-limited suburban existence we have formulated a thesis about drinking and place: our sense of place is largely determined by where we drink. It is through drinking that we place a claim on a space and make it our own. Note the phenomenon of the local -- it's a pub identified by the possessive, "our" ("Our local"), that tends to be in a neighborhood, or other place of importance.

When we drink somewhere we come to a know a place, its inhabitants and customs. Drinking in a house serves the same purpose -- just in a more intimate way. Perhaps this says something negative about our drinking habits, but truly it is around the rituals associated with drinking that we lay claim to a place, establish customs, know the inhabitants and become more familiar with the place. By way of example, if you are a drinker then you go out for drinks when you come to a new town, or have a drink when you visit someone's home in order to break down those barriers that separate us from new places, situations and people.

Drinking has been largely absent from our transition and as a result where we live does not feel like home. The other night, while enjoying a truly glorious, late summer night, we got crazy and drank wine together -- despite the 40 week proscription -- and sat on the porch and talked about things, both consequential and inconsequential. In that session of talking, and drinking, did feelings of true ownership, and true comfort begin to emerge. We finally began to feel at home. The transition from our formerly convivial, tipple-happy home in Brooklyn to a relatively, and involuntarily, dry house outside of Boston became less alien with a bottle of South African Sauvignon Blanc.