Tamara Sellman
Claim to Foodie Fame: Food writer, journalist
Quote: Generally, food traditions centered around our garden, fishing, shellfishing, and foraging... so we had a sense of ownership over everything we ate because we’d either grown it, caught it, or found it in the wild. Now I know what a rare thing that is and how lucky I was to eat like that.
What is your earliest memory of cooking?
I don’t remember cooking early on, but I do remember doing a lot of whole food preparation. Throughout childhood, I spent many summers on the porch with my mom and, sometimes, my grandmother, pitting cherries, stemming gooseberries, scaling fish, snapping beans, hulling strawberries, peeling potatoes, paring apples. My parents were avid gardeners; they grew tons of vegetables and berries, and there were fruit trees in the back yard as well. They were also into fishing (salmon, trout, steelhead, panfish, catfish), shellfishing (clams, oysters, crab) and foraging (mostly wild mushrooms and huckleberries).
As far as baking goes (I distinguish between cooking and baking; I’m a cook first, a baker second), the first cookies I ever made out of a cookbook were molasses cookies in The Modern Family Cookbook by Meta Given. I still have that cookbook; it’s over 50 years old. My mom received it as a wedding gift. It’s surprisingly progressive and suited to 21st century tastes. Before that, baking for me was mostly just following recipes for oatmeal cookies off the Quaker cylinder or Tollhouse cookies off the chocolate chips bag. My first pie was a gooseberry cobbler (berries from our garden).
The first thing I made myself as a kid for family dinner was a simple salad, from veggies harvested straight out of the garden, which we ate before dinner every night of the week. Super fresh stuff: lettuce, cucumbers, green onions, radishes, tomatoes, carrots. I still love making salads and think I’m one of the most creative salad chefs I know. No one makes a better spinach salad than I do!
What is your idea of comfort food?
Whole food cooking, period. The comfort, for me, comes not only from the food but from the knowledge that it has been prepared from scratch. I crave vegetables like some people crave chocolate or pasta. I’m not a vegetarian, but I definitely prefer smaller portions of meat to larger portions of salads and fruit or vegetable side dishes. I guess that’s part of my upbringing.
If I were to narrow it down to specifics, I’d say soup is a big comfort food category in my current household. We make a lot of soup from scratch; it’s easy, healthy, cheap, and satisfying. I like making stock because I can take all the bits and pieces of leftover veggies (I keep them in the freezer) and cook them down into a great broth. I hate throwing food away.
My homemade chicken noodle soup is superior (I think!) and my husband’s clam chowder is a regular menu item. We do a lot of shellfishing (clams, oysters, crab, shrimp) so we make a lot of dishes with locally caught seafood, like bisques, chowders, and cioppinos.
And there’s no better bread to accompany soup than sourdough. That’s the Northwest influence on our palates; when Mike and I lived in Chicago, we always longed for real sourdough. I’ve got Oregon Trail starter in my house even now.
Looking back as a kid, I can think of some old-fashioned desserts like rice pudding, bread pudding, or banana pudding that bring back fond memories. They were my dad’s contribution to the menu, Depression-era sweets that were cheap but cozy and comforting. I’m also a big pie fan. I’d rather eat fruit pie than just about any other kind of dessert.
Breakfast for dinner is another concept that leaves me all warm and cuddly.
Finally, one of my first foods to eat as a kid was baked beans. My mom was in the hospital giving birth to my little brother when I had just turned 1; my dad, at a loss for how to feed me, opened a can of baked beans and I ate the whole thing. I still love beans of all kinds and think of baked beans as the ultimate comfort food.
If you had to eat only one food for the rest of our life, what would it be?br> I couldn’t possibly narrow it down! I become bored with the same old, same old. We mix it up a lot in my household as a result, and it’s also the reason why we experiment a lot with world cuisine (flavor profiles from places like India, Morocco, Greece, Cuba, Germany, Thailand, etc.).
But I could definitely eat breakfast for dinner every night of the week if my husband and kids allowed it.
How did your family honor food traditions in your household?
Generally, food traditions centered around our garden, fishing, shellfishing, and foraging. My mom canned a lot of produce in the summer and made a lot of jellies, jams, and syrups for the freezer. Our freezer was always stocked with fish my dad caught himself, or clams that my brothers and I dug. So we had a sense of ownership over everything we ate because we’d either grown it, caught it, or found it in the wild. Now I know what a rare thing that is and how lucky I was to eat like that.
Thanksgiving was the classic turkey dinner but our personal twists included olives and pickles for hors d’oeuvres, pimiento cheese on celery sticks, oyster dressing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, cranberry sauce out of a can (rings and all!), Rhodes brand dinner rolls, and Ambrosia salad. We drank Cold Duck (I kid you not!) at dinnertime (all ages). We also ate a delicious wilted Caesar salad inspired by a famous recipe from Canlis.
For Christmas morning, the big tradition that I remember was Hangtown Fry, a scrambled eggs and oysters dish that I still love to eat. There was typically a prime rib roast or ham at the center of the table with many of the same accoutrements from Thanksgiving. And tons of cookies and my Dad’s homemade fudge, peanut brittle, and/or homemade divinity. New Year’s Eve was fondue night with melty cheese in a pot and sourdough bread chunks, apples and broccoli for dipping, and a side dish of black-eyed peas for good luck.
Other non-holiday traditions included cold fried chicken packed for nighttime fishing trips. When we went camping, I would make a huge fruit cobbler that we’d carve away at all weekend, and my mom always made pimiento cheese and salmon salad.
Who first taught you how to cook?
Definitely my mom taught me the very basics. She wasn’t an adventurous cook, but she taught me how to handle fresh food and to cook it simply, to let the food speak for itself. I learned to cook more formally in restaurants right after graduating from high school. I’ve worked in Mexican restaurants, where I learned how to make guacamole, tamales, and fried ice cream; at Italian restaurants, I discovered and mastered all kinds of pasta sauces and was exposed to some really great desserts. During my early years in adulthood, I also made countless salads and garnishes in restaurants and learned a huge amount about preparing and serving food.
Share an example of one of your family food traditions.
My immediate family enjoys raclette at least once during the holidays. Raclette is a tabletop grill where cheeses are melted, meats are seared, and vegetables are grilled. It’s one of those interactive meals that really makes our time together extra-special. We’re also the chief Thanksgiving cooks in the larger family, and happy to be so! It’s actually one of the easiest big meals to prepare and everyone loves it (and the leftovers). We only eat turkey dinner during the holidays for that reason.
What is your favorite dish or meal to cook?
Oven or slow-cooker Kalua Pig with steamed cabbage, sticky rice, and pineapple. Easy and so yummy!
Is there a recipe or a cooking tip, possibly related to your food traditions, that you would be willing to share?
Yes! Stop throwing food away! It’s easier to “put by” the scraps and make use of them than you think. Bread scraps make superior croutons. Veggie scraps, kept in a bag in the freezer until the bag fills, can be cooked down in soup stock that tastes a thousand times better than the stuff you buy. Grow your own herbs and, at the end of the season, dry them or turn them into flavored vinegar, herb butter, herb salt, or pesto. Freeze darkened bananas for perfect frozen goodness in smoothies later. Butter scraps can be melted into shelf-stable clarified butter (a pantry must-have in my house). Roast the Halloween pumpkin seeds. Use the leftover fish carcasses for crab bait. Cheese ends can be grated or melted into sauces or used in dressings. Cook down overripe apples into sauce or, even better, spiced apple butter. Chop up pickle remnants to turn them into relishes like tapenade or spreads like tartar sauce. Leftover bits of dried herbs and spices can be combined to make savory or sweet blends. Really, the options are endless.
