I spent yesterday morning at the zoo with my nephew for his third birthday. I feel uneasy about zoos sometimes (a lot of the time); I love animals and can’t decide if zoos are good (conservation! breeding programs!) or bad (animal welfare!). Either way, I saw a beautiful fluffy red panda climbing about in the trees and had to clamp my jaw shut to stop squealing too much.
As always, if you’re enjoying Solidaritas, paid subscriptions are available for US$5/month or much much cheaper at US$40/year. Have a lovely weekend!
-Kate
Read
I was totally absorbed by this ProPublica longread, entitled ‘Where Will Everyone Go?’ It’s about climate change-induced migration, focusing on the Americas.
Twitter’s debates over how to best cook rice led me to a Gastro Obscura piece about the invention of the rice cooker and how it liberated Japanese women from slaving over wood-fired stoves for literally hours every day just to cook rice.
Jane Rawson asked where can we be safe in this world? The resulting piece tore me apart.
A family tried to use restorative justice principles towards the man who killed their mother. Sadly, it didn’t work out.
Stephanie Clifford followed Makeda Davis, a woman in the US after she was released from prison after seven years. It’s a really great look out how hard it is for former prisoners to get back on track.
Kue lapis is an impressive (and delicious) traditional layered Southeast Asian cake, but I had no idea that kek lapis Sarawak was even more amazing. Look at all these geometric patterns!
Watch and listen
An eight-minute video from South China Morning Post about Hong Kong’s ‘McRefugees’ - homeless people who take shelter in 24-hour restaurants like McDonalds - and how they’re coping during restricted service hours due to COVID-19.
The Guardian made a list of 12 food-related podcasts and there’s a whole bunch I hadn’t heard of. Great, even more things for me to never get around to listening to! I did manage to fit in a couple of episodes of Take a Bao this week though and I loved this one on Chinese tea.
Unladylike did a couple of episodes on prison abolition, defunding the police, and how to incorporate this advocacy into our feminism.
Cook
We made this pan-fried gnocchi with roast pumpkin and baby spinach a couple of days ago and it was scrumptious.