Number 185 Spring 2021 • $11.95 QUEERING THE DIETIssue 186 / Summer 2021 SUMMER OF SLEAZE II Submission Deadline: April 21, 2021 www.rfdmag.org/upload Let’s face it –life’s been a humdinger in the past year–especially due to this pandemic that’s taken lives, loves, jobs, and our very ability to congregate socially, in community, or in ritual. We’ve been severely limited in our ability to give or receive physical touch. Even public face–masking, a public health recommendation (requirement?), has fucked with our ability to cruise! We’ve become a mystery to each other, hiding behind our masks and/or our politics. We fear we will never regain the erotic camaraderie that connects us to each other at the soul level. It’s time to let our hair down, spread our legs wide, and let the power of Eros restore our humanity–at least in print! We call for a Summer of Sleaze issue to respond to the pinched expressions of this moment. Bring on the salacious in your words and images; excite our imaginations with the sexiest, nay–the sleaziest offerings you can conjure. Dare to expose us to what others would not print–or even imagine seeing? Make your prose smell like funk, your images cause us to drool, your poems leak with pre-cum. May our deepest desires erupt into a fantasy of sexual delights of all kinds! May Eros lead us into a happier future. BRING IT!!! Photograph by Leo Herrera. RFD 185 Spring 2021 1 Reciprocal Food Dynamics Vol 47 No 3 #185 Spring 2021 Between the Lines In this issue we asked you to cook up some ideas about how being who you are relates to food, diet and eating. We got a wide spectrum of responses which we think readers will enjoy. During this time of uncertainty during the coronavirus pandemic, we are all hunkering down, settling in and hopefully staying well and eating healthy. In that spirit we share with you stories and poem and visuals which reflect upon the ways which food is a playful necessary part of our lives, a way to ground us to our queer or local community, establish memories from family chosen and biological, as well as teaching us methods of cooperation with each other, with the Earth and with the elements and seasons which affect our ability to sustain ourselves. Some contributors also wanted to reflect ways in which our diet was a way of reflecting ethical choices in our consumption of food, the idea of community as “food” for us and our need to give back, how gardening and growing food can be a fun and useful part of our lives and lead us to share our resources and skills with others. An- other aspect of skill sharing was recipes—learning to cook, cherished cookbooks, old family recipes or traditional meals. We also have folks wanted to look at how food as a “commodity” can be a metaphor for other topics worth pondering during these days of being isolated – so looking for instance at our “digital diet” or exploring through parody how our queerness can also not be compartmentalized easily. We also wanted to share recent books that have been released one from poet, Jeff Oaks, and one from photographer, Richard Price. Both are worthy of your exploration. Looking out a currently sunny window, pondering lunch…we hope you’ll enjoy YUM! —The RFD Collective 2 RFD 185 Spring 2021 RFD is a reader-written journal for gay people which focuses on country living and encourages alternative life- styles. We foster community building and networking, explore the diverse expressions of our sexuality, care for the environment, Radical Faerie consciousness, and nature-centered spirituality, and share experiences of our lives. RFD is produced by volun- teers. We welcome your participation. The business and general production are coordinated by a collective. Features and entire issues are prepared by different groups in various places. RFD (ISSN# 0149-709X) is published quarterly for $25 a year by RFD Press, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302. Postmaster: Send address changes to RFD, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302. Non-profit tax exempt #62-1723644, a function of RFD Press with office of registration at 231 Ten Penny Rd., Woodbury, TN 37190. RFD Cover Price: $11.95. A regular subscription is the least expensive way to receive it four times a year. First class mailed issues will be forwarded. Others will not. Send address changes to submissions@rfdmag.org or to our Hadley, MA address. Copyright © RFD Press. The records required by Title 18 U.S.D. Section 2257 and as- sociated with respect to this magazine (and all graphic material associated therewith on which this label appears) are kept by the custodian of records at the following location: RFD Press, 85 N Main St, Ste 200, White River Junction, VT 05001. On the Covers Front: Photograph by Keystone Back: Photograph by Dick E. Mitchell Production Managing Editor: Bambi Gauthier Production Editor: Matt Bucy Submission Deadlines Summer—April 21, 2021 Fall—July 21, 2021 See inside covers for themes and specifics. For advertising, subscriptions, back issues and other information visit www.rfdmag.org. To read online visit www.issuu.com/rfmag . Visual Contributors in this Issue Images or pieces not directly associated with an article. Keystone ...........................Front Cover Dick E. Mitchell .....................Back Cover Blootgesteld Andy ..........................49 Chris Moody. ................................13 Eric Lanuit ...................2, 15, 16, 27, 29, 47 Richard Vyse. ................................52 Photography by Eric Lanuit. RFD 185 Spring 2021 3 CONTENTS Gatherings In Times of Covid-19 .................................................4 Guerilla Gardening— A Qweer Response to Covid ............Roside Delicious .......................5 Baking at the Wolf Creek 2016 Sprititual Gathering for Radical Faeries ...Keystone ............................10 If Pantries Could Talk Ruminations on Intentions and Impacts ..wildRose and Acorn ..................11 May We Never Hunger ....................robinhood ...........................17 Food, Food, Food .........................Streetcandy (aka David Wright) ........20 Heat & Serve .............................Elias Ramer ..........................23 The Upstate Faerie Herbal Collective. . . . . . . .Photos donated by Richard Price .......24 Is Our Demand for Fancy Foods Killing Us? ................c. huilo c. ............................25 Vegetarian is Good: A Food Parable for Difficult Times .......Pink Jimmie ..........................28 A Queer’s Food Journey ..................Bambi Gauthier ......................30 Brush Brook Community Farm .............Dick E. Mitchell ......................38 Building Up An Appetite ..................delian ...............................46 Chocolate Ghazal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andre Le Mont Wilson ................48 Tortillas .................................Andre Le Mont Wilson ................48 Liars, and Cyber and Mayors, Oh My: Feasting on the Internet ................Ryan Patrick .........................50 A Fruit Salad Celebrating Homoerotic Affection and Gender Diversity ..........David Hatfield Sparks and Randy P. Conner 52 Little What, Poems by Jeff Oaks, Reviewed ..Steven Riel ...........................54 At War with Grandma’s Biscuits ............Spriggan Radfae ......................56 The 21st Century Book of Faeries ...........Richard Price ........................57 The Backstory of RFD #5 ..................Robert Perry. . ........................604 RFD 185 Spring 2021 Since there is so a shifting landscape to whether gatherings can be scheduled or who is allowed to travel, we are fore- going our usual annual gathering calen- dar but instead urge folks to instead visit the various websites of the communities to keep in touch. Many are hosting on- line events, Zoom meetings or holding other events to keep in touch. The main listing site is www.radfae. org where you can find the majority of Radical Faerie community listings. It lists upcoming online gatherings and Zoom events. Another resource is faenet.org which also lists gatherings, online events but also acts as a Faerie version of social media site like Face- book where you can create your own account and add listings. Meanwhile, we encourage everyone to stay safe and consider ways of sup- porting each other and the sanctuaries and communities they call home even if seem remote at the moment. We’re going through extraordinary events and the communities we’ve helped support and build over decades need our sup- port to sustain themselves until they can reopen. Gatherings In Times of Covid-19 YOOOoooo-HOOOOoooooo “Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change with- in our world, rather than merely settling for a shift of characters in the same weary drama.” Audre Lorde Sex as Sanctuary Coming Spring 2021 Visit sex-as-sanctuary.com RFD 185 Spring 2021 5 B ecoming a guerilla gardener was an unexpected response to the Covid-19 lockdown beginning mid-March last year. During that time, unable to go swimming at my YMCA in Manhattan, I’d go on extended walks around Harsimus Cove, the neigh- borhood I’d been living in with our dear Donald Gallagher since December 2016. These walks-about allowed me to become much more aware of our environs as previously I was more apt to just hustle to the PATH train, to enjoy the delights NYC had on offer. Now that that was shut down, walking locally was my only source of exercise, besides the at-home calisthenics. Given that casual sex felt dangerous, I decided I’d “take my cock” for a walk = slipping on my heavy metal ring and wearing tight jeans gave me a sexy edge to my stroll. As I walked around local parks I noticed and then began harvesting chickweed, which grew in thick clumps along the edges of these greenways— there is so much to be found on the edges, a queer truism brought to life—wild-crafting edible weeds greatly enhanced my diet. It was a chilly, wet Spring, allowing the chickweed to remain lush and not bolt too quickly. I reveled every time I came home with a bag full of this vitamin and mineral rich free food; we still have containers of chickweed pesto in the freezer as I write. Whilst walking along a greenway next to a three- story tall railroad trestle embarkment in early May, I noticed a fellow digging with a trowel. Upon inquiry I learned that folks had been gardening on these strips of grass for years, mostly planting flowers, though an older local man used to have an extensive vegetable garden, including a stand of corn that had to be cut down at the corner as it had blocked drivers’ visibility. “Go ahead, make a garden!” he enjoined through his mask, his eyes beckoning. I’d been hankering to garden since April, so I leapt at this invitation. The soil was thin and stony thus I’d have to raise a garden bed. Weirdly, almost providentially, I’d been seeing materials to create a garden bed the previous weeks: the leaf and grass clippings discard pile at Liberty Science Center (LSC) where I’d been hanging out to get some sun and fresh air; a layer of composted leaves, pine nee- dles and bird seed husks from our back yard; bags of dirt from the garden at Donald’s church; even dis- carded potted plants added to this newly rising bed. I made repeated visits to that LSC discard pile, dig- ging deeper to find half-composted materials filled with worms. It felt strange at first gathering what others discarded—but I knew this was gold and that creating rich, loamy soil, the foundation for this new garden, was the most essential and necessary act if I were to succeed. It felt very queer taking bags full of compost in a granny cart on the local light rail—or in a huge backpack on my bike—but it was nothing but pure pleasure and great exercise! I continued my cock ring wearing—so there was a private erotic enjoyment to all this effort. When I was constructing the initial garden bed, layering composted materials with soil, I decided to dedicate the garden to the memory of my mother, who had died the previous August, and had taught me so much about gardening. My hands were deep in the bag of soil from the church yard as I made this dedication and out came a black stone that, upon inspection—looked like the remains of the torso of an ancient goddess figurine. This unexpected find gave Guerilla Gardening—A Qweer Response to Covid by Roside Delicious Photographs courtesy of the author.6 RFD 185 Spring 2021 RFD 185 Spring 2021 7 Photographs courtesy of the author.Next >