After spending some 4 days in a big “liberated zone” that was managed by self-appointed leaders who announced “direct democracy” loudly on a microphone but didn’t actually let people autonomously self-govern, much less truly self-organize, it was tender indeed to be at the smallish, intentional, and highly participatory start of an outdoor solidarity space on the grassy quad at UNC-Asheville today.

What struck me was the way it lead with care—not pushing people past where they were ready to go, but engaging in lots of conversation, sharing, listening, and hearing. Knowing when to ask for support from others. Collectively wrestling with questions and co-education.

That care was especially evident, though, in the first two actions: setting up a free food and first-aid area; and spending hours reverently and beautifully chalking out the names of too many Palestinians murdered in Gaza, honoring the dead.

Who knows what will come of this relatively tiny solidarity space being opened up in a relatively tiny town. Yet as one student noted, they’re skilling up for the long haul.

#EducatingOurselvesForFreedom
#FoodNotFascism
#CareNotCops
#MourningOurDead
#MendingTheWorld

As if it didn’t already feel sweet enough to be part of @wrenawry’s edited anthology “Nourishing Resistance”—featuring two-dozen contributions on the many ways that food is mutualistic, collectively life-giving, and liberatory—it’s extra yummy to see the book paired with these scrumptious-looking, book-cover-matching bonbons!

So if you happen to be at the @americanbooksellers’ Winter Institute #WI2023 in Seattle this week, you can pick up an advanced copy of “Nourishing Resistance” along with a bonbon treat made by @sweetreleasechocolates. Visit the @pmpress tables in the "Meet the Presses" Room through this Thursday while they last.

For more info on this compelling collection—just as “addictive” as chocolate bonbons, meaning you’ll want to eagerly gobble up all the essays in it—go to pmpress.org.

And as added incentive to get yourself, or your infoshop or library, a copy, with or without sugary treats, here’s what @rebelgrrlraechel “blurbed” about this anthology:

“This beautiful and thought-provoking collection of essays brings together reflections on the role of food in Indigenous land defense, immigrant ritual, international social centers, queer belonging, and so much more. I finished the book reinvigorated to bring radical attention to the ways in which our meals truly make our movements. Nourishing Resistance reminds us that any project toward liberation has a common root: the need for nourishment.”

#FoodNotFascism
#CandyNotCops
#NourishingResistance
#KitchenSinkSolidarity

It is such a delicious treat to see my friend+writer/editor/baker/cook extraordinaire @wrenawry’s edited anthology #NourishingResistance (@pmpress) soon emerge in print. We can all use its stories of what Wren calls “kitchen sink solidarity.”

Yet it needs a little bit of solidarity to get there: preorders via Kickstarter, http://kck.st/3VAUzIb.

As my nudge, here’s an excerpt from the foreword I was delighted to pen for it:

“It might seem paradoxical for someone who can’t cook to write a foreword for a collection of pieces—a hearty stew, as it were—about food.

“I used to dread, for instance, as I suspect my housemates did too, when it was my turn to make dinner for an anarchist collective of some twenty people. I’m also that person at potlucks who brings an uninspired store-bought item, sneaking it onto the table out of embarrassment when no one’s looking, rather than a home-baked delight like a yummy vegan casserole with ingredients from one’s own garden or scrumptious seven-layer cake decorated with foraged edible flowers. And even when Wren, during the chilly days of the pandemic, warmly snail mailed me their ‘foolproof’ recipe for antifascist eggplant parm, handwritten on a notecard, the result of my kitchen labors was a gloppy, unappetizing mess.

“Yet as I read through the stories in ‘Nourishing Resistance,’ I realized that food, as rebelliously understood in this anthology, has little to do with whether one has culinary skills or not.

“It’s enough, say, to immerse one’s hands in soapy water and be that person, aka me, who gladly does the dishes, or leaps into setup and cleanup for big communal gatherings. It’s enough to scavenge for salvaged foodstuffs as part of a mutual aid project, or ladle out entrées at an outdoor Food Against Fascism share or pipeline encampment lunch, or leave jugs of water and cans of beans in the desert borderlands as gestures of hospitality as well as solidarity for undocumented travelers, or concoct the prefigurative spaces of collective care, autonomous community, and intimate connections that happen when we include the simple act of ‘breaking bread’ together. It’s enough to recognize that food is not only life; it is one of the key ingredients in us cooking up lives worth living.” …

#BreadNotBorders #FoodNotFascism