Tamale Day 2025: The Annual Kitchen Takeover

Every December, Elena transforms our kitchen into what can only be described as a masa war zone.

Tamale Day 2025: The Annual Kitchen Takeover

It’s beautiful and terrifying at the same time - like watching a master chef work, if master chefs left flour footprints across the entire house.

She starts before dawn, soaking corn husks and prep-cooking the filling.

Year 14 of making these and I still get masa under my fingernails.

By afternoon, the real magic happens - that perfect masa spread, the precise amount of filling, the fold that somehow never tears despite my attempts to help. I’ve been banned from the actual assembly line after the Great Tamale Disaster of 2019.

The kids hover around the edges, stealing bits of filling and asking when they’ll be ready approximately every seven minutes.

Biscuit’s favorite day of the year. So much potential for floor snacks.

Biscuit has positioned himself strategically for maximum floor-treat potential, and honestly, he’s the smartest one in the room.

By evening we’ll have enough tamales to feed the neighborhood, half of which will disappear before Christmas morning. Elena will be exhausted and swear she’s not doing this next year. Same time next December, the masa will be soaking again.