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James
@jlambro
amateur
Massachusetts
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James
@jlambro
James
@jlambro
amateur
Massachusetts
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Recommendations
22w
Ward Eight cocktail
•••
The only pre-prohibition classic cocktail from Boston gets a bad rap as a boring whisky sour with grenadine. And sure, if you use that corn-syrup/Red-40 trash, I guess you’d be right. But as usual with home cocktails, if you make sure to use fresh citrus juices, and take a minute to make real pomegranate syrup, this is actually a unique, tart take on a “boring” whisky sour.
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22w
Tillamook Dark Chocolate Cookies & Cream Ice Cream
•••
As far as national-brand freezer-section ice cream goes, Tillamook is undefeated in this household. The custard-like texture and just the right amount of cookie crunch are a step above.
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22w
Shi Feng Dragonwell (2026 1st Picking), Verdant
•••
Biased as I am towards oxidation and deeper flavors, this was one of my earliest revelations with green tea. It showed me that delicate, grassy greens could pack a flavor punch. Ordering from the upcoming harvest is like a rite of spring for me now.
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1
22w
Marquee Moon, by Television
•••
It’s a bridge from punk towards what would become alternative, with guitar tones and vocal stylings that you’d eventually hear in U2, REM, the Pixies, Radiohead, the Strokes—so it obviously hit me pretty hard.
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7
22w
Lee's Burgers, Newton Centre
•••
Don’t mess with any of the signature options—the classic bacon cheeseburger is the platonic ideal of a fast food burger. The place is small, maybe a little grimy, and one time out of five it might be kind of mid. But I’ll take 80% from a local neighborhood joint over anything from those soulless national chains.
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22w
Golden Buds Milk Oolong, MEM Tea
•••
One of my favorite teas from my favorite local tea shop. A nice oolong that fully lives up to its name: it has a creamy mouthfeel I’ve never really experienced before, and tastes like a nutty buttered popcorn. It’s great.
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3
22w
All the President’s Men, dir. Alan J. Pakula
•••
Sure, it is slow in spots, but the cast is phenomenal, the tension and paranoia in the Deep Throat meetings are chilling, and that last shot of our boys just typing away—perfect. Maybe the best process-focused workplace drama ever put to film?
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3
22w
Hundreds of Beavers, dir. Mike Cheslik
•••
Pure, stupid joy.
1
23w
Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, by TV on the Radio
•••
This is a record I should have been listening to, and obsessed with, at the time of release, but somehow missed. I got on board the TVOTR train eventually, but this one is just so fucking good, a rich blend of new wave and punk and soul and synth pop and electronic and jazz and emo and rock—it’s what I’d hoped the future would sound like.
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3
1
23w
Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
•••
A novel about AI and gene editing, about class and meritocracy, about service and labor, about love and loneliness, loss and prayer. Like other Ishiguro, it is warm, melancholic, and sinister.
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3
23w
There's Always This Year, by Hanif Abdurraqib
•••
Love and grief, basketball and growing up, prose and poetry. It's about living in a place, and staying in a place, that outsiders look down on, because it’s the place you and your people have made your home, and you love it, and why would you want to leave that, why should you be expected to want to leave that?
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2
23w
Toronto cocktail
•••
When you’ve gotten too old for late-night shots of Fernet, best to put it in what’s basically an enhanced Old Fashioned. I usually double-up to 0.5 oz Fernet.
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1
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