This song is connected only vaguely to the rest of today’s issue— find the the link, in fact, and you may be mildly irritated— but what a way to start out the week. “Yale” is the headliner of a collaborative EP from the London band Penya and the Tanzanian Gogo musician Msafiri Zawose. Zawose’s dad, Hukwe Zawose, popularized Gogo on the global stage by performing with Peter Gabriel, and now Msafiri is carrying forth the legacy through his own international collaborations. Penya, a genreless, orchestral ensemble, applies electronic production to “folkloric rhythms and club culture motifs,” which creates a handy canvas for linking up with folk musicians. The work with Zawose might be their finest yet— dive in and you’ll find a mighty danceable production.

I’m proud to tell you that last week I made a cabbage curry. Proud not because I cooked— that is a thing I do— but because I seem to have used this year’s “it” green. Ever since brussels sprouts took over 2008, we’ve gotten a new cult vegetable every few years, and now that kale is a sweatshirt and big brands are making cauli crust, it’s time for something new. Cabbage is almost certainly the next big one— it’s appearing “melted,” steaked, and vinaigretted on menus and in recipe books, and conveniently, under a very small price tag in every grocery store. Not to mention, it’s cruciferous, so you get the nice savory bits the way you do with every other it-veg to date. Now, if only we could avoid making it into a parody of itself.

What did I do with the half head of cabbage left over from my curry? Make soup, the other hot food item of the new year, according to Manrepeller. While the cabbage thing seems real, the hard evidence for soup-as-fad is thus far scant— our Manrepeller proof points are “the stew!” (that was last year); “baby yoda!” (evidently he eats soup); and “everybody wants ramen.” We are a pro-broth crowd over here, but perhaps it’s just winter.

Something both cabbage and soup have going for them is that they’re made largely of water, which is the true hot item of 2020. In case you’d forgotten, water solves all your problems, according to the people in charge. Sick? Drink water. Hungry? Water. Need better skin? Hydrate, goddamnit. And while brands know you’re all about the agua, they also know you’re buying less of it bottled as you consider your impact on the environment. So they’re going to trick you into thinking bottled is ok. Exhibit A: Dasani, which is rolling out a single-use aluminum water bottle (think: beer can) that, well, at least isn’t plastic. VitaCoco’s water brand Ever and Ever is doing the same, touting that recycled aluminum takes less energy to produce than PET. And let’s not forget Liquid Death, which appears to have canned their water as an act of subversion more than advocacy. Anyway, if you really want to make an impact, you know what to do: get after that tap.