Thanks! Don't worry letting go of the cigs will come with time I'm sure. Everyone is different, it certainly wasn't easy for me but I knew the sooner I put the cancer sticks down the better I would feel.
Cooking actually was not in my "life plan", four years ago I was an IT/Tech Support guy. Working my nine to five, eating bad, smoking too much, sleeping too little, and never having very much job security due to our countries willingness to outsource jobs to third world countries.
My father was a chef and I had always dabbled in the restaurant industry to make a little cash tossing pizza and holding down a kitchen line without much ambition in taking the next step. I did love to cook, then during a vacation/ family reunion my uncle took me to his pub that he just opened up that was in serious need of attention/ direction. I mentioned that I had been learning how to BBQ for the last few years and was probably going home to yet another layoff situation. A month later I was unemployed and he called me with a promising offer. I was on a plane a week later with a duffle bag and the rest is history. Four years and I'm 75 pounds lighter, I still don't sleep enough, and now I'm off the smokes!
As far as an ADV goes I'm still not sure what I'm looking for. At the local vape stores I was able to test a ton of flavors and all the tobaccos tasted artificial to me. I was a camel smoker and would often switch between lights and menthols for more throat hit. The tobacco and menthol ejuice flavors just made me want a smoke more. At first I was put off by fruit flavors but took a liking to breakfast, coffee, and some sweeter flavors. I read that vapor chef does those well.
I always tell people that I learned to cook because I like to EAT -- and that's not totally a joke; when I would show up in the kitchen round 6pm asking mom the usual 'what's for dinner, and WHEN! is dinner?' she just told me if I wanted to eat sooner, I could damn well HELP! So I learned the prep-cook stuff probably from the time I was in double-digits. My mom and grandmother were both at one time really excellent *southern* cooks, which means lots of butter, along with all the other good seasoning, and of course lots of butter means OBESITY! So I had to learn a whole new way of cooking yummy stuff that wouldn't first make you fat, then kill you.
When you have a husband with HBP, and also a son you want to teach to eat correctly so he doesn't get fat later in life, learning to cook stuff that's both really yummy and really good for you is about the only thing you can do -- I'm so tired of people equating "good for you" with "tastes like crap" -- it does NOT, if you know what you're doing!!
The only tobacco I've tasted that might taste alright to a former Camel smoker is the Halo Turkish; at first I thought it was ok because it was not sweet at all, but it's too heavy for me; it made me feel like I'd been smoking a really potent pipe, then it made me nauseated, so I haven't touched it since the first night. I guess I might save it for my son, who's out of state, and though presently a non-smoker, he used to smoke Camels, and anytime he's around me he gets this yearning look on his face, like he'd really love a smoke but isn't sure he wants to, but wants to anyway... you know what I mean. I figure when he gets back home, if he seems inclined to take up smoking again, I'll introduce him to vaping, and I bet by then that Turkish will have "steeped" into something he'd find really yummy, loving Camels as he did.
If you wanted to try a lighter, more subtle tobacco flavor (I detect a very,
very faint note of cinnamon, I'm pretty sure -- my taste buds may be shot, but my nose definitely is NOT), I highly recommend the "Virginia", from myfreedomsmokes.com, and their prices are very reasonable too, just $4.99 for a 10mL; it's absolutely the best tobacco I've found, the closest to my VA Slims, so for me I guess this is *my* "ADV". I have no clue if it's made from real tobacco, "naturally extracted tobacco," or any of that, but I suspect not, since a) it's so inexpensive, and b) it doesn't have that smoky, dirty taste that so many of the "real" tobacco e-liquids seem to have, which taste ok to me at first, but wind up just making me ill, they're so smelly. They really do call it stinkweed for a reason!
The 6mg I'm using has a much better throat-hit than my actual ultra-light cigarettes; probably more like the "Light" version; so I'm sure that higher-nic levels would make an even stronger TH, more like the "Regular" version.
Andria
