Friday seems to come around so fast every week and yet takes forever at the same time. I hope you are all well, wherever you are right now.
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
This Guardian series of essays about the year 2020 called Fire, Flood and Plague continues to impress. I’m very much looking forward to buying the book when it is published later this week.
Read about the forthcoming documentary on Maria Ressa, called A Thousand Cuts. Can’t wait to watch.
The Milk Tea Alliance of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Thailand is growing stronger by the day.
How the world’s largest garbage dump, located in New York, was turned into a green oasis.
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most outspoken opposition activist, has reportedly been poisoned. He recently wrote that the revolution happening in Belarus could soon happen in Russia.
Watch and listen
Dirty Linen is a podcast I only discovered a couple of weeks ago. It’s about the restaurant industry and what really happens behind the scenes. In yesterday’s episode, host Dani Valent spoke to Jade George of Kalei cafe in Beirut, Lebanon; their discussion was fascinating, putting the recent blast into context and talking about what it’s like to run a cafe in a country where many people are struggling to put food on the table.
I listened to an old episode of Longform podcast this week that featured Rebecca Traister. She talked about her book, Good and Mad, and how she ended up writing about women in politics despite not at all wanting to do so at first.
Australian indie dance band Cut Copy have a new album out called Freeze, Melt. The first single, ‘Love is All We Share’, is surprisingly delightful in how relaxing it is. Brodie Lancaster interviewed them for The Guardian and talked about the future of dance music in a world where there are no clubs, gigs, or festivals.
Cook
Madhur Jaffrey’s masaledar sem (spicy green beans with tomatoes) is a delicious accompaniment for many Indian dishes. We had it as a side to a chicken pulao the other night and I remembered how much I enjoy these beans.
We made bún chả Hà Nội (grilled pork patties with vermicelli and fresh herbs) last night, complete with delicious broth. One of my favourite parts was the pickled carrot and daikon. The recipe we used was from Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey.