Last Sunday, in a tiny but prominent retail and community space on Myrtle Avenue, an embodiment of the prosaic and practical in New York City politics came up against one of its chief avatars of gonzo creativity and unbridled idealism. The match between these two wildly contrasting mayoral candidates — former Department of Sanitation head Kathryn Garcia and rapper/activist Paperboy Love Prince – was entirely friendly, but both nonetheless ended up with an eyeful of whip cream for their troubles.

This sort of whimsy isn’t something you might associate with a nuts-and-bolts operative like Garcia, and yet there she was this weekend, dressed sensibly in black skirt and pink jacket, grinding with steely-eyed gusto an aluminum pie tin brimming with frothy miracle whip into Prince’s grinning face.

Helping draw a longtime bureaucrat with Garcia’s experience and gravitas to the event — aside from her stint at the DOS, she was the Interim Chair of the NYC Housing Authority and, before resigning to run for mayor, had been appointed ‘food czar’ last year by Mayor DeBlasio — was its fundraising angle. Money raised from the event went into the coffers of Black Chef Movement, a food aid organization which gained visibility last summer via the feeding of BLM protestors.