Turkey-Jalapeño Sandwiches

Week two hundred. I didn't know I was counting until Lily pointed out—she's been tracking them in her notes because she's been using excerpts from the journal—and I looked up the math and she was right. Nearly four years of writing. Starting the week of July 2020. Two hundred weeks of whatever this is.

What this is: a record of one life in one place, built around the food that connects the place to its people and the people to each other. That's smaller than I might have thought when I started and also much larger. A pot of bean bread feeds a room. A room full of people fed together is a community intact. A community intact carries language and knowledge and practice forward through time. It starts with a pot of bean bread. It starts, much further back, with the seeds.

I made something special for the two hundredth week: a meal with no single origin, drawing from everything I know. Cherokee bean bread. Wild turkey braised with sumac and cedar berry. A corn cake sweetened with the sorghum from the Kenwood roadside stand. Fresh persimmons from the food forest trees on the land—the first actual fruit, small but real, meaning the trees were producing already ahead of schedule. That last item made me stop for a moment at the kitchen counter.

The persimmons I planted in March 2023 produced this October. Kai planted them when he was ten. He's ten and a half. He ate one off the tree and said it tasted like the land. I said yes. I said now you know why we planted them.

Two hundred weeks. Good conditions to keep working from.

Turkey was at the center of the week-two-hundred meal for a reason — it’s a bird tied to this land and to the relationships I’ve been writing about for nearly four years, and braising it with sumac felt like the right ceremony. But if you’re looking to carry that same honoring energy into a weeknight kitchen, this turkey-jalapeño sandwich is where I’d point you: bold, a little fire, and built around a protein that earns its place on the plate. It won’t be wild-harvested or cedar-smoked, but made with intention it can still mean something.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 30 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb ground turkey
2 jalapeños, seeded and finely diced
1/2 medium onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/4 cup chicken broth
4 sturdy sandwich rolls or hoagie buns, toasted
4 slices pepper jack cheese (optional)
Lettuce, tomato slices, and sliced avocado for serving

Instructions

Sweat the aromatics. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and jalapeño and cook 4–5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly golden. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Brown the turkey. Add ground turkey to the skillet, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon. Cook 6–8 minutes until no pink remains and the meat has a little color on it.
Season and simmer. Stir in cumin, smoked paprika, chili powder, salt, pepper, and tomato paste. Pour in chicken broth and stir to combine. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 3–4 minutes until the mixture tightens slightly and flavors come together.
Melt the cheese (optional). If using pepper jack, lay slices over the turkey mixture in the pan, cover with a lid for 1 minute, and let melt.
Build the sandwiches. Spoon the turkey mixture generously onto the toasted rolls. Top with lettuce, tomato, and avocado. Serve immediately while the filling is hot.

Nutrition (per serving)

Turkey-Jalapeño Sandwiches — The Bird That Brought Week Two Hundred Home