I'll have to write a few entries on my recent stay in Canfield, Ohio. First of all, Canfield is right outside Youngstown. It's near Boardman, Struthers, and a few more even smaller towns. And these are small towns, people. My colleagues and I never back down from a challenge, though, so first day of work, requests were made. "Where do we find cigars?"

And did we get answers. "You go to Plaza Smokes, that's what you do." "Well, isn't there one over by...?" "Naw, that closed down years ago. Go to Plaza." So we went. We had dinner at the Ohio chain Rockne's, which was good -- great sandwiches, plus Great Lakes Dortmunder on draft -- and then we headed for the cigars.

Now, I don't smoke. Anything. But this was my first visit to a cigar shop, and it was pretty cool. It smelled really nice, of course: the coffee bar plus the cigars? Yeah. There were magazines in the back but we never made it past all the cigar cases.

My colleagues tried to give me a crash course. The man of the shop, Nicholas, looked about fifteen but was closer to thirty, and he really knew his stuff. He advised the cigar-smoker to try the Flor de Oliva. The pipe-smoker was given a Natural Drew Estate, among others. They showed me the tequila cigars and the Maker's Mark cigars and even the cognac cigars, but I was steadfast.

Tempted? Yeah. But I'd rather enjoy the smell of my friends' smokes. And since they enjoyed their cigars, and we all truly enjoyed sitting in the shop until closing time, I'd say the outing was a resounding success.

I even found a cigar-dedicated blog: