Shar Redour
Author, Healer, Cupcake Baker, Narrator, Editor, Mom, EarthWarrior
working for gender, class, race, queer equality
Call For Materials Queer Family Reunion Cookbook
Released October 8, 2021
Contact: Shar Rednour
1990s. Memories. Food.
Queer Family Reunion Cookbook
Edited and compiled by Shar Rednour and friends
Were you an out queer in the 1990s, or BFFs with one of us? Were we friends? Dating the same person? Snapping at the same performance art? Screaming at the same riot? Writer colleagues or piercing partners? Did you eschew “going home for the (straight) holidays” for bonfires on the beach instead? Do you remember people, places and things? You don’t have to know me, or be my friend, but you need to have your own chosen family and community of rebels, activists, lovers, and most importantly, queer chosen family—and a penchant for reminiscing.
We are having a reunion and it’s starts with this cookbook. I love and collect those spiral bound, local cookbooks that are compiled by groups that want to fundraise for their church, rotary club, Women’s Auxiliary, etc. These are so interesting to read—putting you into a time, specific place and group.
We are subverting this “normal” tradition for our queer sensibilities while, at the same time, we are embracing this cookbook format because it’s letting us celebrate our LQBTQIA history, memories, values, and community. We’ve had so much death and sadness around us lately, and in the 90s we had a mixture of pain and hope as well.
We need our queer bad-assery back! You never lost it? Ok great—remind the rest of us because those wild tales and visceral memories are needed.This project is here for all of us.
As queers we know friends are the precious, cherished treasure that is, and always has been, our strength. Our love was outlawed so just a loving story is a rebel tale as well. What did you eat after back alley fuckfests, glam photo shoots, or fights? Great recipes welcome as well as the semi-homemade. Intellectual to emotional, from Klubstitute to Carefree, Product to Faster Pussycat, AIDS foundation to Frameline, On Our Backs to The Lesbian Connection and on and on!
Were you around in the 1990s ? I want you to submit.
We will donate big portions of the proceeds to organizations that truly help us; once the project is underway, we will vote on who those recipients will be.
This project is very close to my heart and I think it will be to yours too. I see it as a legacy item for us to share, use and celebrate now and to leave to future queers as well.
For call for submissions guidelines write to me at QueerFamilyReunion@gmail.com.
Yours Totally,
Shar Rednour
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
QUEER FAMILY REUNION COOKBOOK
Submit to Shar Rednour at QueerFamilyReunion@gmail.com.
I will respond with a “got it” email within 1-3 days.
Programs/Apps Accepted: You may just write this in an email to me, google docs, Pages, or ms word accepted (word not preferred).
INCLUDE
Name & Current Contact Information
City/town where you lived **in the 90s** when you used/created/cooked the recipe
Introducing words: In a couple of sentences on up to 300 words, tell us a little about where you were, what you were doing, why this recipe or meal is important or why it is important to that time period. Who was there? Or who taught it to you? Little details such as where you shopped—from the civic center farmer’s market to a specific neighborhood corner store, time of day/night, etc. Don’t load it down with these unnaturally but if it’s a part of your memory/ story then please include it.
RECIPE
1) Category: Appetizers, Breads and Rolls, Soups and Stews, Side Dishes, Main Dishes, Desserts. These might end up being detailed even more like Seafood, Pasta, etc.
2) Ingredients (put in order that they are used)
3) Directions on how to prepare the dish
4) Number of servings (from your experience if you can remember).
IMPORTANT READ THESE NOTES:
** If you really want to contribute and tell us a good 90s memory but are worried about the recipe aspect please contact me. We will make it work together and have fun doing so.
** If you have a good recipe and story BUT indeed don’t remember the name of something you’d like to include—no worries, everyone loves to join in to jog a memory.
DEADLINE I’m a rebel. I am not posting a deadline but DECEMBER 1 or before is best. Submit to the project as soon as you can in a way that makes you satisfied in doing so. Feel free to let me know you intend to submit as well.
Shar Rednour
About Shar
Editor and writer Shar Rednour is also a spoken word performer, radio host and Audible author.
With sexologist Dr. Carol Queen, Shar co-authored the cradle-to-grave (and everything in between) how-to book on human sexuality called THE Sex & Pleasure Book.
Shar wrote the empowering, hilarious whole-life anthem for queer femmes of most ages and all genders: The Femme’s Guide to the Universe, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. Her passionate work on the feminist reclaiming of virginity began with an essay in The Last Sex: Feminism & Its Outlaw Bodies (Editors Marilouise & Arthur Kroker)—the resulting collision of condemnation and applause led to her two anthologies Virgin Territory 1 and 2. She also edited the ‘zine and book Starf*cker, nominated for an ABA award. Now as a mom, she is eternally writing Sharlene Rednour’s Fabulous Guide to Parenting inspired from her short piece, "How Great Sex Made Me A Good Mom."
She’s toured nationally with spoken-word troupe Sister Spit and has been an invited speaker at NYU, Brown, Mills College, Wesleyan, SFU, UC Berkeley and other Universities. Shar hosted a biographical podcast called The Deeper Truth (recorded at Catalyst Con), and hosted radio/TV segments in the Bay Area including Love, Life & Sex under Michelle Meow’s fabulous production company.
She was proud to be selected to narrate the biography Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown by Jennifer Scanlon.
Shar Rednour worked at the original On Our Backs Magazine/Fatale Media both as an editor/writer and in video production. In 1998 she co-founded her own production company with her wife Jackie. Their explicit education films were best-selling and critically acclaimed and include the cult classic Bend Over Boyfriend. Shar co-directed, produced and co-wrote the film project Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma featuring Staci Haines.
Shar’s been a featured interview subject in award-winner Ken Swartz’s historical documentary San Francisco: Sex and The City, among others including HBO’s Pornucopia and Hot and Bothered: Feminist Pornography, directed by Becky Goldberg.
