Welcome to the thirty-eighth edition of The Rec Room, a biweekly lounge-meets-newsletter from your friend John A. Paradiso. A big thank you to everyone who’s subscribed so far. And, if you haven’t, hit that big ol’ subscribe button now!
If you have no idea what’s going on, no problem!
Every other Friday, I’ll be sending out an email with five recommendations from either a friend with fantastic taste or yours truly. Then, we’ll end the email with a game to add to our Rec Room Game Collection.
This week’s guest is my good friend Caleb Durham.
Caleb is an extremely talented graphic and web designer based in Raleigh, NC. He also runs Yonder Coffee, one of my favorite coffee subscription services. Every month, Caleb selects a different roastery from around the world and sources coffee for the members of Yonder Coffee. This month’s pick is actually a roastery from Lviv, Ukraine and I’m thrilled to get a chance to try their coffee. And for a sneak peek at the next few months, I’ll turn to Caleb: “Next month on Yonder, we’re bringing in Trunk Coffee, one of my favorite Japanese roasters. And our 2021 harvest of coffees from West Java, Indonesia just arrived this past week, so a number of roasters across the US and Canada should be releasing our coffees in the coming weeks (follow along on insta if you’re curious to try them).”
Caleb and I met through the beautiful intersection of craft beer and coffee. For years we’ve actually shared visions of opening brick-and-mortar locations and, as it turns out, we’ll actually be working together on a very exciting project.
This summer (*fingers crossed*) I’ll be opening The Daily Beer Bar in downtown Durham. While we’ll be cooking up sandwiches and pouring beer, wine, and cocktails in the evening - Caleb and the Yonder team will be serving exceptional coffee at our coffee counter. I’m so excited to bring this idea to life and to be working with Caleb. (He even designed the website for The Daily!) If you’re ever in Durham and need a damn fine cup of coffee, you know where to go.
So, it was an easy decision to ask Caleb to join me for The Rec Room. And he nailed it with his picks! And I definitely need to order some of those soup dumplings. Sit back, relax, and enjoy The Rec Room.
The Recs
Petite Maman
A lot of good movies have come out in recent weeks. I’m gonna cheat and mention all the ones you should see. Everything Everywhere All at Once was everything I hoped it’d be—mindbending, heartbreaking, and just the right number of raccoons. Nic Cage’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent and Macedonian folktale You Won’t Be Alone both stuck with me in ways I really didn’t expect. But Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman, her first film since Portrait of a Lady on Fire, just captured my imagination like almost nothing has in a long time. I got to attend an early screening of it last week, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Honestly, I’d recommend knowing as little as you can before watching (like maybe avoid watching the trailer). All I knew going in is that it’s a film from a director I like with a runtime I love (just 73 minutes) and that it is the story of two young girls. From the first scene, I was won over by the incredible child actors who lead the cast. Heartwarming and heart-wrenching, fantastical and grounded, Petite Maman is unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and I will be watching it several more times on its theater run.
Alamo Season Pass
Actually speaking of theaters, I think my second recommendation has to be the Alamo Season Pass. I know a lot of theaters have created their own version of movie pass, but most of those theaters don’t have Alamo Drafthouse’s very solid food and bev menu or their range of screenings. If I don’t have any meetings midday, I may be having lunch while watching an old Studio Ghibli movie. They paused the program for the pandemic and let us opt back in as we were ready. I held off a long time, just to be safe, but having the movies back has been really good for my soul.
Lugmapata Anaerobic Sidra
I’ve always got a few coffee recs ready to go. Most recently Lugmapata Anaerobic Sidra. Ecuador is sort of a hidden gem in the coffee world and anytime I find an Ecuador lot on a cafe menu, I’m pretty sure my eyes actually shine. Sidra (a super sugar-dense hybrid of Typica and Bourbon varietals) beans are similarly rare and delicious, so when my friends at Black and White mentioned this coffee, I got very excited. I’d definitely recommend clicking through to that coffee, if only to read about the care and precision put into the processing. I had my first cup of it today, and I can’t say enough about it.
Xiao Chi Jie Soup Dumplings
I got back into the country at the beginning of March 2020 and haven’t been overseas since. I spent the pandemic trying to learn to make some of my favorite foods from all the places I missed, and I’d facetime with friends in that country while I ate. This became one of my favorite parts of the last few years. But soup dumplings just kept being too much for me. I could never get them just right. I recently tried Xiao Chi Jie and honestly couldn’t believe how good they are and how easy they are to prepare. They make the xiao long bao and ship them frozen to you. You take out however many you want to eat (pro-tip: 2 or 3 make a really good late-night snack) and steam them for 10 minutes. Please try them. I like all their XLB and the sauces are pretty solid as well.
Sketchbook (and other TV shows)
I can’t not talk about TV, but I’ve been struggling to narrow down one recommendation. In the running? Severance, Station Eleven, Somebody Somewhere, Our Flag Means Death, Tokyo Vice, Moonknight, and probably a few others (very glad to have The Flight Attendant and Barry back). But yesterday Sketchbook on Disney+ caught my eye and I found it really charming. Disney illustrators talk about character design and specifically how to draw a different iconic character every week. It’s like Behind the Music but about Simba. Really good interviews, and a lot of fun to draw along with.
Rec Room Game Collection
Pokémon Legends: Arceus
I’ve been slowly making my way through Pokémon Legends Arceus on the switch. It’s my first open-world game and I’m enjoying it a lot.