hello friends

turducken 2.0

it has been over a year since coming on this platform. a sincere apologies to any loyal readers out there, and thank you for your patience in this message.

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spring has sprung - despite it being damp and grey as i write this from brooklyn - and it feels an appropriate time to consider birth and origin stories.

the first iteration of turducken came at the end of 2020, as i finished my last semester of my degree, remote and living in lockdown. my feminist-french-literature professor gave us the option to do a creative project instead of a final essay, and i patch worked together a digital zine, taking recipes from the internet and relating them to readings we had done in the class. think: duck confit will hide the flavor of poison, for the husband who beats you. satirical and lighthearted, it was a hit with the professor and the class - especially as i had spent the entire semester on zoom, camera on, cooking, and was often asked what was on the menu today. by the beginning of 2021, lockdown was easing, i had my degree, and the world was a new and confusing place. to uplift myself in a complicated time, and in the span of one day, i spontaneously wrote my first piece on this platform. as the post went live the following morning, my father called me - “so, what’s coming next week?”

and suddenly a project was born.

after three committed years of production calendars, dirty dishes, many grocery shops, and constant writing, editing, and cooking, turducken was thriving and i had reconnected with my passion for writing. in a similar fashion to its spontaneous and unplanned inception, my last post on here was also unplanned and unexpected. after many hairpin turns on a speeding highway of “life",” there suddenly wasn’t space for another full-time project, and production ended.

life is an endless journey in struggle and joy, and as those polarizing identities weave, ebb, flow, crest, and retreat, resilience breeds progress. coming out of a time in my adult life of new challenges, this spring feels lighter than ever. 2024 was transformative, and with fullness of heart, i am excited to enter a time of change, hope, and good.

it is time to reinvent how we (i) do things here. turducken was always intended to be a project in storytelling. as a means to explore the conversations that people have over food, and how food can in turn enhance what we talk about. art, history, literature, politics, humor, silliness, personal anecdotes, and non sequiturs are some of the areas that this newsletter has covered over its three-year tenure, and will continue to do so. but media is a changing sphere and long-form writing is not the best way for me to do what i want to do - and i just love a new challenge.

i invite you all to turducken 2.0! coming to instagram on april 7th.