Happy Holidays from Ballard Food Bank

By Jade Fisher, Communications Specialist

Happy holidays to you and your loved ones! May this season be filled with health, happiness, and connection.

At Ballard Food Bank we know that food is a human right AND a powerful vehicle for joy, kinship, and celebration. So we asked folks this month what special foods are warm, nostalgic and/or meaningful to them. We are honored to share the traditions of those who make our Hub for Hope so vibrant.

Puerto Rican pasteles, New Mexican tamales, Latvian pīrāgi, an abundant Ethiopian spread, “wassle” and more. Our staff, volunteers, and guests share what’s on the menu during the holiday season.

Frank (in the yellow hat) shows volunteers the best method to stuffing the masa

Frank is a longtime volunteer and he’s led our Tamalada (a traditional tamale making party found in Mexico - also in the American Southwest during Christmas) for the past three years at Ballard Food Bank. You can often find Frank with a big smile serving warm meals at the Kindness Cafe each week. For this special time of year, he wanted to bring this dear family tradition to a wider scale and audience through our cafe. His maternal grandmother’s tamale recipe was from Northern Mexico. She taught the recipe to his dad and they made it a family tradition each holiday season. Now, there have been some tweaks to the recipe and Frank says they resemble more of a Colorado/New Mexico tamale. Frank laughs a little and says when he told his mom he wanted to make 1,000+ tamales she simply responded “You’re crazy.” Three years in, the Tamalada is beloved and efficient. 65 volunteers alongside our cafe team and Frank made close to 300 vegetarian tamales filled with cheese and peppers and over 1,000 pork-filled tamales over the last weekend. Preceding the tamale-making party, Frank invited me to try the chili and it was fragrant, smooth, and not-too-spicy. He says “Each year we get better and better at making the tamales for the cafe.”

Frank isn’t the only one filling and forming pockets of deliciousness inside of masa. Food Bank Coordinator Yoshi is excited to make Puerto Rican rice and pasteles for her children this holiday season. She describes the feast she’ll be preparing using ingredients from Ballard Food Bank’s market. She smiles as she talks about the joy it brings her that her children will enjoy such a special and laborious meal. And fondly recalls memories from childhood being part of the assembly line with her maternal figures to make this meal possible.

Colleen with father and son make pīrāgi which are traditionally eaten at major celebrations

Meanwhile, Vice President of Development and Communications Colleen, joins an assembly line alongside her son and father. She says, “My dad is an immigrant from Latvia, and he makes traditional Latvian pīrāgi for Christmas, just the way my grandmother used to make it. This year was special because three generations of my family joined together to make them. Pīrāgi, or bacon rolls, are the most popular Latvian treat … Made with yeasty dough and finely chopped bacon, they are quite time-consuming to make but so delicious!”

Khalid, another staff member, shares about the labor of love his mother creates. An Ethiopian feast that includes lentil curries, beef stew, lamb stew, collard greens and kale, cabbage, beets. It’s all completed with homemade injera bread - a soft and tangy flatbread. He says it takes about eight hours when all is said and done. This feast truly marks something as a special event.

When I head into the market to learn more about our guests’ holiday prep, I get some great inspiration. One shopper says she makes prime rib with locally foraged horseradish and cannot miss out on a side of candied yams. Carl and I chat over the bright red tomatoes. He says, “Well now that I’m vegan, everything that I was nostalgic for isn’t something I eat anymore. Things like turkey. Now that I’m vegan I’m just excited to steam some vegetables - anything really - to have with rice and beans. It’s very simple but delicious when you let the ingredients shine”

Debby poses excitedly with her great ice cream cake find and sugar that she’ll use for future baking projects

Nissa, who runs our Kindness Cafe, has a great twist on the wassail drink. Dubbed ‘wassle’ by her mother and grandmother, her family takes equal parts apple cider and pineapple juice and simmers it for hours with cinnamon sticks, cloves, and ginger (generous amounts of each.) Because we all crave something warm and comforting during these cold months. Typically it’s made in the morning of the feast, and simmers all throughout the day to ensure the house smells good. By dinner, it’s ready to drink and she shares that it must be consumed piping hot!

Debby is just about ready to leave for her home state of Texas to do some errands that coincide with the holiday season. She has an ice cream cake with white frosting in her basket. We bond over our shared sweet tooths. Or is it sweet teeth? She says, “It’s special to see sweets in the market. It really feels like [the holidays] when you have baked goods!” That’s why it’s especially wonderful when we are able to offer baking ingredients like sugar and flour, and pastries and cakes during this time of year.

You can truly feel the nostalgia, celebration, and reflection in the air of our Community Market.

Because we have a community that cares, we can keep our shelves stocked so neighbors can continue traditions or create new ones around food. Thank you for sharing your heart, abundance, and selves with us at Ballard Food Bank. As 2025 comes to an end, we look forward to the new year with full bellies and full hearts.