Best Of MetaFilter

Cooking authentic Pad Thai in Bangkok by ToastyKen (cc by)

People think they want authentic Thai food until they're eating unrefrigerated squirrel gristle salad made with partially rotted paddy crabs and fermented fish sauce. All of a sudden the gentrified stuff seems pretty appetizing. Eat what you enjoy!

Fascinating insights from telf on Thai nationalism, Pad Thai, the question of authenticity and "the concept of Thainess" in smoke's interesting post about the history of Pad Thai.

'Luna' (1997) by Quint Buchholz by Plum leaves (cc by)

For the bookishly inclined ...

From Mefi: Sue Halpern writes In Praise of Public Libraries for The New York Review of Books | Extraordinary 500-year-old library catalogue discovered | When Zora and Langston Took a Road Trip | Lost-children stories and Australia's uneasy mythology

On Fanfare: Hugo Nominated Short Stories, and 2019 Hugo Nominee for Best Graphic Story, On a Sunbeam, (more Hugo awards discussion here)

Popular on Ask Me: Looking for mystery and crime fiction that feature an Asian protagonist or a predominantly Asian cast of characters | Looking for post-post-collapse fiction | What to read after The Goblin Emperor? | What's next after Middlemarch? | Where to start with Lois McMaster Bujold?

The Library of Congress - Reading Room by Glyn Lowe Photoworks (cc by)

Right now I am reading about how to make Mrs. Harriet Hubbard's Recamier Moth and Freckle Lotion. — jessamyn

A vast black hole of text waiting to suck you in, never to be seen again. Bye! — njohnson23

If you haven't explored it yet, don't miss A Random Walk Through The Library of Congress: LOC Serendipity, a fun discovery project by Mefi's own metasunday.

Filthy light thief made a great post about Denise Murrell's student thesis that became "a groundbreaking show about how black people have been pictured across art history," and which is now an exhibit at Musée d'Orsay in Paris, where French masterpieces are renamed after black subjects.

WindowFrog 002 by cygnus921 (cc by)

Verstegan has a great answer for nebulawindphone's question about how biblical Egypt's plague of frogs came to be imagined by many as a "rain" of frogs.

e-werk_1996-09 by saintsebastion (cc by)

... Unlike the stereotype, we were all straight-edge kids. No drugs. No alcohol, even. We just showed up at the club before 9pm for free entry, drank water all night, and then drove home. The only money out of pockets might be a slice of greasy pizza at 3am. It was a fantastic way to be young for a while. — bl1nk

Mefites reminisce in the Rave Flyer Archive thread.

politician. by boulanger.IE (cc by)

A great thread on Alberta and it's apparent singular lack of rats, plus everything you didn't know that you really, really wanted to know about Warfarin.

Robots at the Science Museum by p_a_h (cc by)

Robot History; Cannibal Robots; Wakey-wakey, Roverbot; Robot Taxi; Robot Fears; Injury Bot; Roboraptor vs Puppies; shittyrobots tag; Bite my shiny metal asp; Space Robots for everyone; Robot playlist for kiddo.

Baba Yaga by Lady Orlando (cc by)

Listing the greatest songs by 21st century women; acquiring Artemesia Gentileschi; remembering activist Maria L. de Hernandez; applauding Therese Okoumou, shero for liberty; celebrating Kate Bush & Emily Brontë; & Emily Brontë; & Emily Carr, Canadian art pioneer; energizing recognition for women of science; peeking at Parker Posy's memoir; enjoying Nahre Sol's Pocket Pieces compositions; feeling good with Summery Lesbian Movies for Summer Lesbianing.

IMG_1697 by FrancescaV.com (cc by)

Recently on Mefi, people and places around the world, enchanting, mysterious and magnetic:

40 years of Shenzhen, from market village to SEZ

Breaking the Ice, rare Icelandic funk- and soul-inspired music

Central Station, stories from cattle stations in the Australian outback

Georgia Has a Coast? Photos by drone of the Georgia coast that fills his soul

Women's Worlds in Qajar Iran: looking at the lives of women during the Qajar dynasty (1796-1925)

La Scarzuola: deep in Italy, one man’s surrealist mini-city sleeps

Arundhati Roy on the politics of language and translation in India

Beyond 'Florida Man': The problem with writing about Florida

Figures In The Stars: comparing 28 different sky cultures

Exclusive OR of timing by shikeroku (cc by)

Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, emote.

The Queen Attacks by malias (cc by)

Queens, Queens, Queen, Spider, Spider Queen.

One of the dozens of pins now available for viewing at Paud's Pins

This is a thread about what my friend found in her attic...

Fascinating post from MartinWisse about the discovery, sorting, and disposition of a treasure trove of pamphlets, copies of Gay Comix and other LGBT literature, as well as several dozen buttons for various political and lgbt campaigns from a crucial period for the LGBTQI+ movement.

an assemblage of artifacts at belowthesurface.amsterdam

Amsterdam drained a canal and put everything they found online, piece by piece, chronologically, and you can see it all ... mygothlaundry's "Under Amsterdam" post is spectacular.

Eat by Thomas Hawk (cc by-nc)

Recently served on Mefi:

Making 4,000-year-old stew | Wiki-Food and (mostly) Women | Let's Cook History vids | Epicurious asked 50 people to do some basic kitchen prep work and filmed the mayhem | Thinking about Chicken tenders | Donug‽ | The popular Budget Bytes recipe collection / blog | Bowl food | A Taste of South Sudan | The Weird and Wavy History of Wine Coolers | Feelings about cottage cheese