Sufyan Katariwala, the son of Pakistani immigrants from St. Louis, voted for Donald Trump in 2016 because he calls himself a proud American nationalist, though he had doubts almost immediately and the pandemic has sealed his regret.

Now based in Toronto, he says he is constantly trying to explain his country’s dysfunctional politics to a confused Canadian audience.

“I never felt that I would have to assume this role … answering [the question] in all these discussions: ‘Jeez, what is going on, you guys?’” he says. “I’m fairly certain that, prior to 2016, if you were an American in many parts of the world, people would have been like, ‘That’s a cool place. I want to go there.’ Now it’s just like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ Like there’s pity.”

The reputation of the United States has faded across the globe this year, in large part thanks to the country’s failure to contain the coronavirus, and now sits at a record low in some countries, according to a global survey by the Pew Research Center.

For Americans overseas – estimated at 5 million – that image is more than the subject of an abstract poll. It is part of their daily lives, as they see America through the lens of co-workers, curious neighbors, and complete strangers.

“An American in Paris”

The American expat has enjoyed a storied position in culture and literature. In France, the role has been romanticized from Gene Kelly tap dancing his way through “An American in Paris” to Ernest Hemingway’s Paris-set “A Moveable Feast,” where he wrote, “There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris.”

Numbering around 250,000, Americans in France tend to lean Democratic and enjoy elite status, says Oleg Kobtzeff, an associate professor of international and comparative politics at the American University of Paris. “So Americans in France are themselves examples of soft power.”

It’s not that they’ve been universally loved. Former President George W. Bush’s war on terror, including the Iraq War of 2003 that many allies condemned, made him as unpopular in France as President Trump is today.

But disdain has been replaced with a new, distinct sentiment that Ursuline Kairson, a Chicago-born jazz singer who has lived in Paris for over 20 years, sums up succinctly: “Now they feel sorry for us.”

Americans are now banned from visiting many countries around the globe because of the coronavirus. The U.S.-Canada border, the world’s longest undefended frontier, has been closed to nonessential travel for seven months.

That closure is symbolic of how frayed America’s relationships have become. Canadians have arguably been the strongest U.S. ally in modern times. “The Canadians were always the first to arrive for us,” says Bruce Heyman, a former United States ambassador to Canada under Barack Obama. He says that ties became strained under Mr. Trump, who imposed trade tariffs on national security grounds and called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “two-faced.” “I think Donald Trump’s done more damage to the U.S.-Canada relationship than any other single person maybe in the history of our two countries.”

When Alyssa Johnston lived in Jordan and Egypt teaching English prior to moving to Canada in 2011, she was used to hostilities towards Americans. “When I was living overseas, America, even with Obama, didn’t have a good reputation, mainly as a holdover from Bush,” she says. “In the Middle East, my American passport didn’t help me. It hindered me.”

Now in some ways even though she is much closer to home, the cultural similarities that bind Americans and Canadians needs more interpretation. “The question that I get the most from Canadians is just like, how is this happening? Can you explain this to me? They feel like they’re missing something or they don’t understand some part of culture or politics to explain better what’s happening,” she says. “When I’m kind of faced with the fact of how ridiculous it is and I have to answer those questions or be the voice of the American, of this country that they’re looking at being a dumpster fire, it does kind of create some anxiety.”

In Canada today, the favorability rating of Mr. Trump is at 20%, its lowest measured for a U.S. president. It was 83% for Mr. Obama, according to Pew data.

“I felt safer being in this part of the world”

The election of Mr. Obama was, for many around the world, a reset after damage done on the international stage under the globally unpopular Bush presidency. As the son of a Kenyan father, the American president personified the “American dream” for many around the world.

“I stand before you as a proud American. I also stand before you as the son of an African,” Mr. Obama said at a speech at the African Union in Addis Ababa in 2015. In South Africa, a country whose own history of segregation was still fresh, the moment felt especially poignant. “South Africans claimed Obama as one of their own, just like we did,” says Stella Nkomo, an American and a professor of human resources management at the University of Pretoria. “There was a fierce sense of identification with the U.S. for electing an African president.”

“It was always like America had a halo around it,” Dr. Nkomo adds.

But Mr. Trump has repeatedly demeaned Africa, using a harsh scatological obscenity about developing nations and complaining to aides that Nigerian migrants would never “go back to their huts” in Africa once they had seen America.

Dr. Nkomo stumbled as she tried to explain how the same country could have two presidents that saw the continent so differently in such swift succession. It’s telling, she says, that “as an American I felt safer being in this part of the world than I would have in the U.S. during this pandemic.”

For other Americans overseas, the disillusionment in America is just as stark, but goes back longer.

In China, when American James McGregor visited on a backpacking trip in 1985, most Chinese people he encountered were enthralled with his homeland. “The Chinese people I met believed that America was almost this heavenly place,” says Mr. McGregor, who moved to China as a newspaper correspondent in 1990 and is now chairman for the China region of APCO Worldwide, a global consulting firm.

Courtesy of James McGregor

James McGregor visits with Chinese children in a village in the vicinity of Yan'an, Shaanxi Province, in 1993, when he was a Beijing-based reporter for The Wall Street Journal. He says that he finds the Chinese much less enthralled with the U.S. today.

In the last decade though, the Communist Party’s powerful propaganda apparatus has asserted Washington’s goal is to keep China poor and weak. The trend has been amplified amid Mr. Trump’s trade war with China and blaming Beijing for the coronavirus. “The Chinese people are looking at this president and saying you can see American decline in full technicolor,” says Mr. McGregor.

As an executive today, Mr. McGregor has had to grapple with the shift in power as Chinese companies grew smarter, more advanced, and more powerful relative to their U.S. counterparts. “The Chinese know the power is on their side now, and they believe that America needs China more than China needs America.”

Loss of respect for the American people?

In the Middle East, for the better part of two decades, the U.S. has been embroiled in war and political brokering, projecting hard power that left few in doubt as to who was the global superpower. For Americans residing in the region, that meant constant questions from family or friends in the U.S., who were worried about their safety in a place depicted as unstable and rife with ancient hatreds.

Now, amid the pandemic and the presidency of Donald Trump, whose leadership has polarized the U.S., many American expats are asking themselves questions about safety – that of their family and friends back home.

“My students and friends in Morocco could not believe the images of Americans waiting in lines at food banks this April were real,” says Jessi Rose, a New York City native who has spent the past five years teaching English in Casablanca. “Right now, from media and social media, America looks violent. It looks like there is conflict all over the place.”

Cole Phillips, a World Bank consultant in Jordan, says when he first arrived in 2014, people would always ask him how to secure a visa to America.

“Now, I actually hear people say that they do not want to go to America because of what they see as xenophobic tendencies by the Trump administration and a wider hostility to migrants and people who look different,” he says.

Americans abroad are uncomfortably familiar with foreigners’ views of America’s stature in the world in a way that Americans at home are not. And Jen Natoli says she fears that disdain for American politics is starting to bleed into disdain for the American people, who had previously always been seen as distinct from their leaders.

Ms. Natoli, a union organizer originally from New York now living in New Zealand, says this trend “was highlighted by us pulling out of the Iran deal and Paris accord, but perhaps most starkly in our COVID response,” she says.

“Not only did we not contribute to the world efforts to fight the pandemic, but the Trump administration has encouraged the American people to reject science and public health measures. This means the loss of respect globally has expanded to the American people, not just the government.”

• This story included reporting from Ann Scott Tyson in Seattle; Ryan Lenora Brown in Johannesburg; and Miriam Bell in Auckland, New Zealand.

Forged together by Saudi government repression and forced to act in exile, an unlikely coalition of opposition factions has launched a campaign hitting the regime where it hurts the most: Washington.

An advocacy group founded by slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi filed a suit against Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in U.S. federal court this week, even as Saudi opposition activists – united in a new party – began mapping out their goal of a democratically elected government.

These were among the first in a flurry of moves designed to scuttle Saudi Arabia’s ties with the West and provide a platform for the voices of the kingdom’s increasingly frustrated citizens.

While dismissed by some observers and analysts as merely the latest in a line of Middle Eastern exile groups, the activists and dissidents say they have risen above internal differences and are set to prove that the road to change in Riyadh runs through Washington.

Pushed together by crackdowns, repression, and the harassment and arrests of their family members, disparate groups from Saudi Arabia’s long-fractured civil society are uniting in opposition to the crown prince, who is often referred to as MBS.

Just weeks old, the National Assembly Party – its acronym NAAS the transliteration of the Arabic word for “people” – began organizing as the first opposition party for a kingdom that lacks a constitution, bans political parties, and targets families as retribution for criticism of the state.

Its founding members include former members of the military, liberals, Islamists, Sunnis, Shiites, and tribes of different regions, who rarely shared a table. The party is now quietly expanding its membership base for the common goals of democracy, an independent judiciary, and an elected government.

Break with the past

NAAS says it has learned from previous reform movements that fractured along Islamist-liberal, Shiite-Sunni, geographical and tribal lines – divisions that were reinforced by state-sponsored divide-and-conquer-tactics.

“At this moment we agreed that this was a time to rise above all the divisions that have weakened Saudi civil society in the past, despite our different orientations and ideologies,” says Madawi al-Rasheed, a social anthropologist and NAAS founding member and spokeswoman, based in London.

“The ability of all these small disparate groups to form a party attests to the really bad situation that has gripped the country the last five years,” she says. “Everyone agreed that democracy was the only way out.”

NAAS’s public demand for democracy also breaks with the previous reform movements in Saudi Arabia, including nationalists and liberal princes in the 1960s, political Islamists in the 1980s, and a liberal reformist movement in the early 1990s.

Those movements accepted the Saudi monarchy and social contract as legitimate; criticism remained internal. Reformers posted “petitions” and “letters” to monarchs politely requesting political reform.

But growing frustration over increased repression and a deteriorating economic situation at home is driving Saudi citizens and activists to become bolder with their demands.

“The repression has become so pervasive that if you are a feminist, if you are an Islamist, if you are a professional, or just a citizen criticizing the government, you are a target and your family is a target,” says Dr. Rasheed.

NAAS says it is focusing on broader issues appealing to Saudi citizens, namely democracy, the economy, perceived corruption by members of the royal family, and ending the costly war in Yemen.

Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) is a think-tank and advocacy group founded by Mr. Khashoggi, who was assassinated in October 2018 by Saudi agents at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Based in Washington, DAWN pushes for human rights and democracy in the Arab world by holding regimes – and their enablers in the West – accountable for their abuses.

DAWN says dissenting figures within the Saudi government are providing it with support and leaked documentation, a sign, it says, of a “huge amount of anger” within the Saudi state.

“Logically, when you alienate the Shiite minority, attack liberals, jail prominent religious scholars, antagonize tribes, provoke your own royal family, and make it difficult for businesspeople to work with a politicized anti-corruption campaign, you can expect a wide amount of anger,” says Abdullah Alaoudh, research director for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at DAWN. “This is giving us a lot of allies.”

His father, Sheikh Salman al-Odah, is one of dozens of reformers in Saudi jails and is currently facing the death penalty.

Trouble in Washington

The activists in exile, unable to organize or call for protests at home, admit that their scope is limited within Saudi Arabia – where observers are skeptical whether DAWN and NAAS could make ripples.

But the Saudi dissenters say their main focus is abroad as a gateway for change back home.

DAWN is embarking on a strategy naming the various officials, rulers, and mid-level civil servants and judges who carry out oppression and repression in Arab states, detailing their crimes and pressuring Western governments not to host them.

The group is focusing on “specific authoritarian countries like Saudi Arabia that depend on American policy and protection for their own stability and security,” says Mr. Alaoudh. “We are using this reliance on the U.S. as leverage and their network of interests against them.”

Considering Crown Prince Mohammed’s close alliance with the Trump administration, which he relies on for political cover to continue a costly war in Yemen and embark on campaigns of repression at home, Saudi dissenters and activists say they are now targeting this very relationship as a pressure point.

In what they vow to be the first of many legal cases, DAWN named Mohammed bin Salman and 20 co-conspirators in a civil lawsuit in Washington federal court Oct. 20 over Mr. Khashoggi’s murder, in a bid to officially link the Saudi ruler to the crime.

DAWN is already building further legal cases against other Saudi officials involved in abuses, targeting Saudi assets and financial interests in the U.S.

Targeting Congress

In some cases, DAWN says it will campaign for Congress to invoke the Magnitsky Act, which authorizes the U.S. government to sanction those it sees as human rights offenders, to target certain officials and ban their entry to the U.S.

The organization is also working to expose the K Street think tanks, public relations firms, and other institutions that take Saudi money to bolster the country’s image and gloss over its abuses.

DAWN is also actively campaigning to urge the American business community to refrain from doing business with a Saudi government many believe is attempting to whitewash its image.

NAAS and DAWN say they are already finding sympathetic ears in Congress, and are hopeful to further pressure the Saudi government on its human rights record under a potential President Joe Biden. As a candidate the former vice president has said he would treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah.”

It couldn’t come at a worse time for the Saudi palace.

Riyadh is actively trying to rebuild its image in the West in the wake of the Khashoggi murder, the humanitarian toll of its disastrous Yemen war, and the ongoing detention and alleged torture of rights activists.

The Saudi public relations push has gained new impetus not only due to rising hostility in Congress, but also the prospect that President Donald Trump might lose.

American companies are seen as critical to Saudi efforts to attract foreign direct investment to jumpstart a struggling economy and realize the crown prince’s Vision 2030 plan to create a post-oil economy.

DAWN and NAAS say they are determined to make Saudi Arabia’s Capitol Hill charm offensive an uphill battle.

Says F. Gregory Gause, a longtime Saudi observer and head of the International Affairs Department at Texas A&M: “They will advocate and push policy types in Washington, and they will complicate MBS’s efforts to build and maintain good relations with the U.S., the U.K., and even the EU at a time when they are badly needed.”

Mark Baker/AP

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, (left), talks with colleagues at a cafe in Auckland, New Zealand, on Oct. 18, 2020. Ms. Ardern won a second term in office in an election landslide, based on the popularity of her leadership during the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s been a long, fiercely contested election campaign, inevitably dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic. And we already know the result.

No, not the campaign for November’s election in America, but last Saturday’s vote in the Pacific island nation of New Zealand. There, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern won a landslide of historic proportions. And her victory offered a critically important lesson for leaders worldwide on politics in the time of the coronavirus.

A series of lessons in fact: Leadership matters. The kind of leadership matters. And while even the right kind can’t save every life, nor avert deep economic and social pain, it will, in the end, be rewarded with understanding and support from most citizens.

Ms. Ardern, who led her Labour Party to its highest vote share in five decades, is the clearest example. But there are others: Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany, for instance; K.K. Shailaja, the health minister in the southwest Indian state of Kerala; or individual governors in the United States such as New York’s Andrew Cuomo.

The course of the pandemic has differed from place to place. Germany and Kerala, though suffering far lower losses than their neighbors, are now dealing with a further wave of infections. New York isn’t entirely out of the woods either. But their leaders have taken a broadly similar approach to Ms. Ardern’s.

You could call it the “three C’s”: clarity, coherence, and – a quality that seems almost quaint in today’s political atmosphere – compassion.

First, clarity. Clarity of message, calmly and consistently delivered. Prime Minister Ardern and the others essentially told their citizens: This virus spreads from person to person. The only way to confront it is to stay away from one another, even locking down as necessary. That’s going to be tough. It’s going to be painful, for all of us. But I need you, and we need one another, to do this together.

Then, coherence: adopting specific measures – ranging from social distancing and wearing masks, testing and tracking, to lockdowns – and sticking with them even if people get impatient and start demanding that the rules be relaxed.

Which is partly why so much depends upon compassion, leaders’ ability to convey a sense that their people are facing a shared challenge in pursuit of a singular aim: protecting family and friends, neighbors and fellow citizens. Saving lives.

In some places that has come over as something closer to tough love. Kerala’s Health Minister Shailaja hasn’t minced her words in recent days when decrying the “huge laxity” shown by the public during an August religious festival, as well as a series of political rallies, which are threatening a new wave of cases.

But when it comes to Ms. Shailaja, a former high school science teacher, her underlying humanity has never been in doubt. She won national fame managing another virus two years ago – by personally visiting terrified villagers at the start of the outbreak to reassuringly explain the threat and how it could be turned back.

In Germany, Chancellor Merkel has always seemed slightly uncomfortable with public displays of emotion. Still, her political nickname – Mutti, German for “mom” – points to the calming, maternal influence she enjoys with the public.

As social gatherings among young people feed a potential second wave of COVID-19, she addressed them directly last week: “Isn’t it worth being a bit patient now?” she asked. “Everything will come back – partying, going out, fun without coronavirus rules. But right now, something else matters most: being mindful of one another, and sticking together.”

Governor Cuomo’s daily news briefings, at the height of the pandemic in New York earlier this year, did project the need for people to stay tough – “New York Tough.” But on more than one occasion he reminded his audience that part of being strong was the capacity to show fellow-feeling, to care.

“At the end of the day, my friends, even if it is a long day, love wins,” he told a press conference in March. “And it will win again, through this virus.”

Still, it is Ms. Ardern who provides the most dramatic example of clear, coherent, and compassionate leadership showing results. Only 25 lives have been lost to the pandemic in New Zealand.

From early February – the day after a man in the Philippines became the first COVID-19 fatality outside China – she announced a steadily tightening series of limits on foreign visitors, along with a quarantine system for arrivals. By late March she had imposed a national lockdown, even though New Zealand had by then registered only a hundred cases and no deaths.

The prime minister herself delivered regular video messages offering explanation and empathy: on one occasion she spoke from a bedroom in her family home. Though restrictions were looser by June, a resurgence of cases prompted a second, three-week lockdown in August. Yet by the election, everyday life was back to normal after three weeks without a new infection. 

One case was reported that day, a port worker, who was immediately placed in isolation along with his family members. This week, two of the man’s work and social contacts also tested positive, as did a number of fishing-crew workers arriving on a flight from Moscow – all sent to be housed in government-run quarantine quarters.

Despite her success in limiting the spread of COVID-19, Ms. Ardern now faces other challenges, above all dealing with the pandemic’s severe economic costs. The economy, particularly dependent on tourism, is now in recession. Rising numbers of people are claiming state benefits.

The early signs suggest she will seek to tackle those challenges the same way she responded to the pandemic. If a victory-night speech emphasizing the importance of respecting opponents’ views is any indication, she will seek to build consensus. With compassion.

As is traditional, a slew of congratulatory messages flowed in on election night from around the world. But one stood out. It was from the Dalai Lama, who praised her “courage, wisdom and leadership.”

He added that he also admired “the calm, compassion and respect for others she has shown in these challenging times.”

Chileans are set to vote Oct. 25 on whether to rewrite the nation’s constitution, which dates back to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Can a new take curtail widespread protests and frustration with a government many say doesn’t give enough voice to citizens?

Why now?

In October 2019, Chile was overwhelmed by nationwide, anti-government protests, initially sparked by an increase in subway fares. But protesters’ frustration snowballed as other complaints emerged, including low pensions, poor public education, and subpar public health care. On Nov. 15, 2019, President Sebastián Piñera’s conservative government came to an agreement with the opposition to explore the possibility of a new constitution.

The referendum was initially scheduled for last April, but was postponed as the new coronavirus swept the globe, leading to lockdowns and public health crises across the Americas. In the vote, Chileans will decide not only if the constitution will be rewritten, but also by whom: a newly elected Constitutional Assembly, or a commission made up of existing members of Congress. and new delegates, who would be elected next April.

The commission would have a year to create a new document that would require two-thirds majority approval for each article. Ratification would take place through another referendum vote at some point in early 2022.

What is the vote on?

Chile’s current constitution was approved in a controversial referendum in 1980, the height of a right-wing dictatorship responsible for thousands of deaths and defined by violence and political impunity. Those demanding a new constitution say the fact that the current document was drawn up under a dictator should nullify its legitimacy. The constitution was reformed in 1989 and 2005, but critics feel the large congressional majority needed to change laws makes it too easy for small, fringe parties to stand in the way of citizen demands. There’s more emphasis put on protecting private property and business interests than on rights like public health, education, and social security, critics say.

For those against the idea of a constitutional rewrite, the idea of changing a document that has delivered three decades of steady economic growth – making Chile an “oasis” in Latin America, according to President Piñera – is a dangerous gamble. The peso’s recovery stalled in the third quarter of this year, as the referendum drew closer. Others fear the process will be too nitpicky and drawn out, creating further impetus for protesters to take to the streets while COVID-19 is still spreading.

Polls show about 70% of Chileans support a new constitution, with just over 90% saying they want rights to education and health care guaranteed under law.

What’s at stake?

Trust in democracy, for one. The decision to hold a referendum on the constitution in response to public protest was a big one, particularly in a region where trust in government fell from 45% in 2010 to 22% in 2018, according to the latest results from the Latinobarómetro public opinion poll. Satisfaction with democracy has been on the decline in Latin America for the past decade, as violence and perceptions of corruption increase. The public health concerns delaying the initial vote were valid, but any further speed bumps could feed protesters’ perceptions that the government isn’t concerned with their demands.

“The stakes have gotten higher” since the vote was postponed, says Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House, an international affairs think tank. Citizen frustrations over the quality of public services like health care or transportation, or access to formal jobs with benefits and pensions, have only been exacerbated during the pandemic, he says.

There are also economic concerns. The length of the entire process, including the likelihood of disagreement on how best to move forward after the October vote, could lead to months of uncertainty for international investors.

Although Mr. Sabatini is skeptical a change in the constitution will deliver the structural, systemic change citizens are clamoring for, he is hopeful the nation will navigate its way through this tense moment, given its track record for stability and a culture of adhering to norms and rules. “If any country is equipped to deal with this in a fashion that’s constructive, it’s Chile.”

Karen Norris/Staff

It’s an open secret that many people would rather read a cookbook and order takeout than actually try new recipes. But lockdowns have provided more time to be patient and courageous in the kitchen. And with restaurants closing or serving meals only outdoors, more cupboard doors at home are swinging open these days. Social media feeds have been filled with images of “pandemic baking” – beautiful round loaves of sourdough, elaborately styled finger foods for grazing, and dinners for the family proudly made by teenagers. On cue, here comes a harvest of new cookbooks. There may be no sourdough recipes in this roundup, but there are plenty of invitations to experiment with flavors and transcend the confines of your kitchen.

Meals from pantry staples

Stocking the pantry seems simple enough, but what to make with all of those cans of chickpeas and boxes of pasta? Emily Stephenson offers a friendly guide in “Pantry to Plate: Kitchen Staples for Simple and Easy Cooking” with her recommended 50 staple ingredients and 70 recipes that mix and match only those ingredients. She suggests a pared-down protein list: eggs, bone-in chicken thighs, tuna, Italian sausage, and tofu. But there is plenty here to please the vegetarian cook, too.

Chronicle Books

“Pantry to Plate: Kitchen Staples for Simple and Easy Cooking” by Emily Stephenson, Chronicle Books, 208 pp.

Easy-to-follow recipes are grouped into chapters by meal type, including nine recipes that move eggs out of a scrambled rut. Stephenson also curates the recipes for meal planning on the go with categories such as quick weeknight meals, family-friendly, vegan, make ahead, and even dishes to impress dinner guests. If you are a beginner cook or just looking for fresh ideas, this collection will help take the stress out of mealtimes.

Irresistible baked goods 

Advance your pandemic baking repertoire beyond yeasty loaves of bread with Kelly Fields and Kate Heddings’ “The Good Book of Southern Baking: A Revival of Biscuits, Cakes, and Cornbread.” Fields, a James Beard Award-winning pastry chef and owner of New Orleans bakery Willa Jean, reimagines quick breads, muffins, biscuits, cookies, and every kind of pie and tart in such mouthwatering ways you’ll be reaching for those baking pans before turning the last page.

Lorena Jones Books

“The Good Book of Southern Baking: A Revival of Biscuits, Cakes, and Cornbread” by Kelly Fields and Kate Heddings, Lorena Jones Books, 336 pp.

Think chocolate chip cookies can’t be improved? Fields spent two years perfecting her Willa Jean recipe with three kinds of coarsely chopped chocolate and finished with sea salt. She breaks down old favorites like pumpkin pie and builds them back stronger: pumpkin pie with roasted white chocolate cream. See? You can’t resist. Roll up those sleeves and set the oven to preheat. Fields, with her humorous, no-nonsense talk about the best flours, flavors, and strategies will soon have you laughing and baking “ALL the pies.” As she says, baking should be simple and fun.

Cooking by color

Asha Gomez grew up along the beaches of southwest India and today navigates the bountiful displays of the international farmers markets in Atlanta. In “I Cook in Color: Bright Flavors From My Kitchen and Around the World,” by Gomez and Martha Hall Foose, the focus is on color in selecting ingredients and preparing meals. Gomez provides a wide palette of Southeast Asian cuisine, American South comfort food, and classic European dishes, plus lots of colorful vegetable dishes such as roasted butternut squash with tomato-ginger gravy or rainbow chard and kabocha pumpkin bean soup.

Running Press Adult

“I Cook in Color: Bright Flavors From My Kitchen and Around the World” by Asha Gomez and Martha Hall Foose, Running Press Adult, 224 pp.

But what’s particularly tantalizing is the chapter on “Colorful Drinks to Sip and Savor,” which features concoctions like a soothing warm turmeric milk sweetened with honey and sprinkled with cardamom, and a fruity mint tea with peach ice cubes. Gomez has created a feast for the eyes and a how-to for the world traveler who likes to cook at home.

Kitchen-armchair traveling 

Traveling offers the rewards of not only exciting new vistas, but also unfamiliar tastes and smells. What if you were ushered into the kitchen of a friendly grandma who wanted to teach you her favorite dishes? You would relax, absorb, and enjoy. That’s the experience of “In Bibi’s Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers From the Eight African Countries That Touch the Indian Ocean,” by Hawa Hassan, a Somali chef, and Julia Turshen, a cookbook author. The two present 75 recipes and stories gathered from “bibis” from South Africa, Mozambique, Madagascar, Comoros, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, and Eritrea.

Ten Speed Press

“In Bibi’s Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers From the Eight African Countries That Touch the Indian Ocean” by Hawa Hassan and Julia Turshen, Ten Speed Press, 288 pp.

These are recipes from home cooks whose priority is to please their loved ones with good food. No fancy equipment is required, but you’ll learn about the widely used berbere spice mix (made up of dried chiles and warm spices) and how to make flatbreads in a skillet. And there are a few surprises, too, such as the appearance of Italian-influenced dishes like lasagna. The storytelling and gorgeous photos emanate hospitality and warmth, bringing these global neighbors one step closer.

Pan-African influences on Black cooking

Celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson delivers his seventh cookbook hot off the press of current events: a pandemic that has strained the food industry and waves of Black Lives Matter protests. Samuelsson, an Ethiopian-born, Swedish-raised chef and American restaurant owner, strives to lift up the profiles of Black chefs in “The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food” by sharing their recipes and stories. African and Caribbean culinary influences run throughout, as do classic Southern approaches.

Voracious

“The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food” by Marcus Samuelsson, Voracious, 336 pp.

Because these recipes are from chefs, prepare to up your game and get curious about spicy heat and flavors. (Fermented shrimp paste appears with surprising regularity.) Samuelsson also peppers in commentary from culinary historians, podcasters, and authors about the meaning of food in the Black community. The cumulative effect moves the conversation beyond the stereotype of “soul food” and into a creative, adaptable, and dynamic portfolio of emerging American recipes.

Reuters

Thailand's Royal Army Chief General Narongpan Jitkaewthae participates in a Sept. 29 ceremony in Bangkok to become the new head of the military.

A good reason to track the protests in Thailand is that they reflect how much the world has let go of a belief that military officers know best how to run a country. In the past century, no other country has had more attempted or successful coups (19) than Thailand. It is one of the few places where generals still see civilian rule and civic equality as dangerous.

On Thursday, protesters in Bangkok appeared closer to winning their struggle to have the country run by ballots and not bullets and to send the military back to the barracks. The current ruler, former army chief and coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha, was forced to lift a week-old emergency declaration that allowed security forces to quash the protests with violence. Ever agile in organizing pop-up protests via social media, the demonstrators did not flinch. They surrounded the seat of government.

Other countries where generals wield a strong hand are probably watching these events closely. Scholars say the success rate of coup attempts has fallen in the past couple of decades. Today’s military-controlled governments feel greater international pressure to hold elections, even if rigged, in order to create a democratic facade and a minimum of legitimacy.

In Pakistan, an alliance of 11 political parties is demanding that the military stay out of politics. In Sudan, after last year’s protests ousted a longtime military ruler, the country is on the path to civilian rule in two years. Similar protests in Algeria have the military scrambling to stay in power. And in Mali, a recent coup was partially rolled back this month under pressure from the 55-nation African Union. Coup leaders have appointed a civilian prime minister and promised elections.

In many countries, the armed forces often display a hubris of superiority, believing they can run government better because of their discipline, organization, and moral duty to save the nation. Yet they also often fail in the messy tasks of running an economy and social programs or in reining in corruption.

In Thailand, the people have slowly awakened to the identity of being equal citizens and to the need for a democracy based on individual self-governance. As a coercive arm of the state, the Thai military, like militaries everywhere, must by its nature be controlled by civilians.

With fewer coups around the world these days, countries continue to realize that power does not lie in guns but in democratic ideals, reflected through the will of the people. That trend is playing out on the streets of Bangkok, where coups could soon be history.