Keeping It Simple – Cuba November 2019

5 Dec

The more I travel to Cuba the more I concentrate on things, places, friends and experiences that are important to me now that I’ve seen enough to evaluate what is and is not of interest. There’s a saying in Spanish : A veces perdiendo se gana …. As a good friend was not able to Read more…

Meeting The Great Roller Maritza Acuña Again

29 Sep

I  have known Maritza now for 15 years and have met her frequently in Havana at the H.Upmann factory where she leads the 60 best Category 9 rollers of that factory. In fact she gave us in the Portmann group a class in rolling cigars at that factory back in 2007 … I have met Read more…

Happy Days With Niki – Leuven With Frank

26 Sep

Niki had asked me what he and his friends should see and do in Brussels – I told him very honestly : Get out of there, Belgium has nicer cities than that … 🙂 So on the day before their departure back to Taiwan, after visiting Ghent and Bruges they took the train from Brussels Read more…

Havana May 2019 – Hole In The Wall – Bistro La Fourchette

10 Jun

This is a recently opened small Bistro located on the corner of 1st Ave and 24th St. in Miramar. It is run by Enrique Suarez, the chef and owner at Tocamadera, a superb small Paladar also located in Miramar. That alone guarantees fresh, organic natural market cuisine. The concept as he explained it is that Read more…

Cuba May 2019 – Visiting the Farms Or Back To The Roots

9 Jun

The cover picture of this report means a lot to me. It is from February 2010 and we had just arrived at Pancho Cuba’s tobacco farm an hour after a torrential rainstorm and strong wind gusts had destroyed most of the Tapado or covered wrapper harvest crop. The guajiros were desperate, the harvest was basically Read more…

Havana May 2019 – Less Of The Same

8 Jun

I had promised myself not to fly to Havana in the summer again ( which has not started yet ) and it was as predicted : hot, humid and rainy. But I was to meet my good buddies Charlie and Jody so it was worth the pain. Pain which was reduced tremendously by flying up Read more…

Shanghai, Pharmacy, Portmann – Mr Plastic’s Road Trip

19 Apr

Let’s clarify first – of course it wasn’t a road trip from Shanghai to Frankfurt, Web used the classic Lufthansa B-747-400 for that … and why is Web called Mr Plastic – well, being a big city boy he is used to whip out his credit card ( or mobile phone ) to pay for Read more…