My favorite things I created and enjoyed in 2024
Don't call it a recap, call it a dopamine boost for your inbox
Welcome to another edition of Love, Peace, and Tacos, a weekly newsletter where I share what I’m currently feeling, loving, and eating. New episodes of my podcast We’re Never Doing This Again will return next week, so stay tuned!
When I started writing this, my intention was that it would be easy and breezy, like a family update letter tucked inside a belated holiday card (travel! surfing! cute life lessons with just the right amount of gravitas!) Instead, 2025 seems intent on doing the absolute most.
To know me is to know how much I love Los Angeles. I don’t live there but some of my favorite people do, so it feels like coming home whenever I visit. Fortunately, all of my friends are safe & didn’t lose their homes but still my heart aches for the city.
If you have the means to donate, this spreadsheet put together by LA Mutual Aid Network is a great resource & shows which organizations are accepting monetary and other donations. You can also donate to help support the incarcerated firefighters who are currently battling the LA Fires. The money raised goes towards a scholarship funds to support firefighters so they can continue to do good once they’re released.
Despite current events, I am doing okay. Last year, I celebrated the New Year with a full-on anxiety attack, so I’m grateful to have a much more easeful start to 2025 (sometimes just feeling *different* than you have in the past is enough). 2024 was a beautiful year but also deeply sad and frustrating in many ways. I travelled to Mexico City, Nicaragua, Cancun (2x), Seattle, Kelowna, Tofino, Harrison Hot Springs, Tampa, Kentucky, Miami, Cayman Islands, Tulum, Isla Holbox and Laguna Beach (phew!), but I also mourned the loss of my grandma and spent the first half of the year job hunting and frustratingly underemployed.
If anything, the past week — and year — has reminded me of how much in life is out of my control. The best I can do is continue to create the things I want to see in the world, lean into moments of joy, and step up to help out wherever I can.
So, in the spirit of embracing joy in weird times, here are some of my favorite things and moments from the past year (in case you need a healthy distraction from the news/reality.)
Stories I wrote
It only seems fitting that one of the last stories I placed in 2024 was about one of my first — and most impactful — travel experiences of the year. I’m incredibly proud of this story I wrote for the Toronto Star about how learning to surf in Nicaragua helped me process the grief of losing my father.
Honourable mentions go to this queer travel guide I wrote about my hometown for GayCities and this Margaritaville story I wrote for Business Insider.
In the fall, I also started writing part time for The Takeout, and it’s been such a thrill writing about food again — whether it’s covering Wendy’s recent “fungus fumbles” or a breakdown of Ina Garten’s cooking techniques.
Bucket list experiences
Although I haven’t made it to the Center of Puppetry Arts to see the Muppets (yes, visiting a puppet museum is on my bucket list/wish list! UNIVERSE TAKE NOTE!), but I still managed to do some seriously cool stuff this year, including crossing off some local bucket list items — like visiting every single Hotel Zed location, Staying at the Fairmont Empress and going for afternoon tea and seeing Madonna in concert (my 12 year old self is so happy for me.)
I also visited Mexico City and Isla Holbox — two Mexican destinations that have been on my vision board for years.
Meals I ate
I was really fortunate to eat & drink at several Michelin starred restaurants and Top 50 bars in 2024 (including, Pujol in CDMX), but my favorite meals of the year were much more low-key.
Everything I ate at Maiz Tinto in Mexico City, including these garlic shrimp that I still think about.
Brisket and Grits at The Kitchen Table, the restaurant at James B. Beam Distillery in Kentucky. The brisket was fall-apart tender, and the grits were unbelievably creamy and delicious.
Everything I ate at Sabor Mix Latino, my go-to Pupusa and taco spot — and arguably the best place to get Latin American food in Victoria — that sadly closed a few weeks ago. I’m still grieving and processing this loss — especially after another favourite spot, Little Jumbo, closed earlier this fall. Pray for me. The birria con queso withdrawals are real, friends.
Music I listened to
If you read this newsletter, it should come as no surprise that my listening in 2024 was dominated by Kali Uchis’ Orquideas and Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter, so I thought I’d shine the light on two artists that slid into heavy rotation after my Spotify wrapped was published — Lucky Daye and Durand Bernarr.
I’ve been a fan of these artists for a couple years — they each have duets with one of my other favorite artists, Ari Lennox — but something recently clicked that took me from “I like them” to “wholly obsessed.”
Lucky Daye’s Algorithm album has been on steady repeat for the past month. My sister (who isn’t a fan of all things soul/r&b like I am), heard the song Soft on the radio and immediately liked it (she thinks Daye sounds like a young Stevie Wonder and I have to agree.) Like Cowboy Carter, the album is lush and layered, bending and mixing genres to take you on a journey. The more I listen to Algorithm, the more I love it.
When I’m not pressing play on Daye’s Herricane - a song that might dethrone Beyonce’s Bodyguard as my go-to feel-good song — I’ve been listening to a lot of Durand Bernarr. His gorgeous falsetto and unapologetic queerness is the balm my soul needs right now.
And if this Tiny Desk concert isn’t a dopamine boost, I don’t know what is.
Beauty products I tried
I’m very fortunate to receive beauty products as PR. Often, what I receive is hit and miss. But in 2024 I tried some truly fantastic stuff. Here’s what I’ll be re-buying with my own coin.
Do you want to smell like an expensive hotel lobby? If you answered yes to that question you’ll love this Santal & Tonka room and body spray.
The closest thing I’ve found to a miracle product: FEKKAI Super Strength+ Protein PowerBond shampoo and conditioner. I’d made peace with the fact that my thinning and damaged hair would never be what it once was (healthy and curly), then I tried this shampoo and conditioner. I’ve been using both for about six months and my hair looks & feels the best it has in 15+ years. My hairdresser agrees and says my hair “feels like it belongs to a completely different person - in a good way!”
Perfect for the no-makeup makeup girlies: KEYS Soulcare Let Me Glow Illuminating Serum Primer. This is from Alicia Key’s line and it gives you an instant, dewy glow. I use it to even out my skin tone instead of foundation, but you could also use it as a primer. Her tinted lipbalms are also worth every penny for that “my natural lip color but better” look.
Stay tuned for a part two of this list next week!
Happy weekend!
I do want to smell like an expensive hotel lobby so thanks for the recommendation. Got to track down that shampoo too. Love your life. Vicarious dopamine. Xx
I read your surfing post - it was a great one. Did you buy a surfboard yet?