I grew up on America's Third Coast – the Gulf Coast – a culinary intersection that has many delicious collisions! After relocating to Central Oregon I found a lot of good food, but sadly, no Tex Mex. I started experimenting with chiles, trying to recapture authentic TEXAS taste. What I came up with is an homage to my favorite food influences – something equally great on chips, tacos, and burritos, as well as on BBQ and in chili.

Because of the heat, my wife can't eat most salsas, including my Original recipe. I set out to make a salsa for her that was mild yet flavorful, which seems to be almost a contradiction in terms. The mild stuff is always an afterthought, and typically tastes like it, with an attitude of “All right, I've made my REAL salsa, now here's something for you landlubbers.” I wanted to create a mild salsa that even a lover of hot salsas will enjoy. Voyage successful.

The delighted response from our fans soon became accompanied by “Please make us a hot salsa, too!” Pirate's Inferno was my answer. There seems to be a glut of hot-for-hot's-sake salsas (using ingredients like ghost chiles and Carolina Reapers), giving a vision of death by chile pepper. I think there is a threshold between heat and flavor where the heat overtakes the flavor in an unpleasant imbalance. Okay, so maybe Pirate's Inferno is hot. (Its rabid fans seem to think so), but the flavor of the chiles is complemented and enhanced by the other ingredients. This isn't just heat. It's heat that's only part of the whole – a complete salsa, bursting with flavor! And yes, it's hot.