Just as Christmas is hot tamale season throughout much of the Southwest, late summer into early fall is time for green corn tamales. Traditionally made when local corn ripens and chile pods are harvested, they have in recent years become a year-round dish, thanks to corn trucked up from southern Mexico and chiles frozen at harvest time. Fresh corn on the cob is essential, because when the kernels are scraped off, enough juice comes with them to make a moist, full-flavored tamale filling. The filling is laced with roasted chiles (often with cheese), and the combo is tightly rolled inside a green (not dried) corn husk, which is steamed until the taste of earth and fire within are exuberantly married. Nobody makes just a few tamales and few people do it alone. Tamales are the inspiration for house parties where family and friends gather with bushels of corn, pounds of chiles and corn masa, and cases of beer, and everybody pitches in.