Paella With Pride
In February 2024, Seattle Central hosted its inaugural Community Dinner, where 170 guests dined and socialized under the twinkling lights of the Atrium. Eight months later, on October 25, friends, family, and neighbors of the college gathered under those same lights and filed into long, communal tables, this time adorned with bright colors, butterflies, and autumn leaves.
Seattle Central College’s second-ever Community Dinner reiterated the themes of the first, emphasizing the college’s efforts to foster community and connection with the broader Capitol Hill community. This dinner also honored the legacy of the late Chef Tamara Murphy, a beloved local culinary icon, passionate advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, and dedicated supporter of small businesses. It also celebrated the establishment of a new culinary scholarship in her name.
“This Community Dinner was near and dear to our hearts, with many faculty, graduates, and current students having worked with Chef Tamara Murphy in some capacity,” shared Culinary Dean Aimee Lepage.
Seattle Culinary Academy Chef Kären Jurgensen created a tribute menu filled with rich and complex flavors, honoring the menu at Murphy’s Capitol Hill restaurant, Terra Plata, which she owned and operated with her life partner, Linda Di Lello Morton. The vegetable dish was influenced by An Incredible Feast, a local fundraiser conceived by Murphy to raise funds for the Neighborhood Farmers Market and Good Farmer Fund that Seattle Culinary Academy students have traditionally volunteered at.
In the kitchen, a dynamic team of SCA chefs and students—including Chef-Instructors Craig Hetherington and Carol Wang — prepared paella-adjacent dishes directly from a massive paella pan. The pan itself was a gift from the World Central Kitchen, used in 2022 for disaster relief training, now repurposed for community events like this one. “We learned to prepare meals for 250+ folks at a time in an emergency [during that training],” Lepage explained. “It was perfect to feed 170 guests.”
Like the first, October’s dinner brought together a diverse mix of guests, from college affiliates to community partners, to Capitol Hill neighbors ranging from toddlers to seniors.
Lepage’s ten-year-old daughter, Elsie, was among the volunteers. “She sorted silverware in the dish room, then served epis (wheat stalk bread) to each table while I pushed the bread cart,” Lepage said. “We noticed other families with young ones checking out the paella pan and playing by the Atrium’s fountain.”
Culinary student Chelsea Holstra, who volunteered as a wine server, found herself in her element that night as she poured sangria and selected wines from South Seattle College’s NW Wine Academy in the M. Rosetta Hunter Art Gallery.
“I love when it’s super busy—that’s my happy place. I just get to react and live in the moment and pour things that make people happy," she shared. “Being very busy in hospitality and in service is such a chaotic, simple action, but I find it deeply meaningful, and it brings me great joy to serve others in the kitchen.” Hostra is especially grateful for the ample volunteer opportunities like Community Dinner that SCA provides its students.
Central to the evening was the announcement of the Tamara Murphy Food is Love Scholarship, slated to launch in 2025. Introduced by Ilona Lohrey of the Greater Seattle Business Association (GSBA), the scholarship aims to support aspiring culinary artists who embody Murphy’s vision of food as a unifying and healing force. It will cover a two-year culinary certificate program, emphasizing leadership and community-building in the culinary world and within the LGBTQ+ community.
“Chef Tamara Murphy was a force of nature … her impact extended far beyond her delicious meals — she inspired connection, belonging, and joy.” Lohrey shared. “Through this scholarship, GSBA aims to continue Tamara’s spirit of love and excellence, nurturing new voices in the culinary world and ensuring her legacy endures for years to come.”
Lohrey recalls the room buzzing with excitement, and marveled that the paella pan was “as big as a boat.” What inspired her most that evening, though, was breaking bread with total strangers.
Long-time Capitol Hill resident Susan Ragen, who attended the first Community Dinner solo, expressed similar sentiments. But this time around, she brought company — including her mom, who informed her about Central’s first dinner in February.
“I didn’t know what to expect the first time, and going solo, I got to talk with people I didn’t know,” she shared. “But for the second one, I wanted my family to experience it, so I got tickets for two brothers, my mom, plus two friends.”
The paella-inspired dish was a hit for everyone in Ragen’s party. She is looking forward to a third dinner in fall 2025.
As the evening drew to a close, children doodled on the butcher paper lining the tables, their parents nibbled on slices of citrus olive oil cake, and other guests mingled by the art gallery as they finished their last glasses of sangria. The full bellies and belly laughs that filled the room seemed to echo Chef Tamara’s enduring ethos: “Food is love.”
