|
Western
Wildcat's Lost Recipe Salsa all started off as a
dream. My husband, had a dream that one day we
would market a salsa that I had always made for him
and that he always enjoyed and bragged
about.
I
started making salsa because there just wasn't any
out on the market that had a fresh homemade flavor.
Each year when we did our families home canning I
made a salsa that always seemed to disappear faster
than I could make it. Eventually, we made the salsa
for gifts for friends and the demand for our salsa
increased.
When
Ted got involved with formulating the recipe we
started adding alittle of this and that, making it
alittle sweeter and trying to come up with a recipe
that was written down rather than made on mental
recall. And then something drastic happened, the
recipe turned up missing! We lost the recipe for
about two years, little did we know that it was
safely tucked away in an old cookbook. Meanwhile we
tried to duplicate our original recipe but none of
the "new" recipes would ever turn out like the
original. That's how the name "Lost Recipe" came
about.
One
day I was going through all of my cookbooks and
found the original recipe. Ted and I both kind of
breathed a sigh of relief. Ted was in seventh
heaven because at last he could pursue his dream of
"making the perfect salsa"
One
night on our way home from church Ted said, "boys,
one of these days Dad's going to market Mom's great
tasting salsa, so think of a name for it." Our
youngest son Jonathan piped up with a name for the
salsa. "Let's call our salsa Western Wildcat's
Salsa because we live on Wildcat road," Jonathan
said. "Well, that sounds great, " Ted replied. "I
really like that name." Ever since that night Ted
had liked the name Western Wildcat's
salsa.
One
day out on the golf course Ted was discussing how
he was going to name the salsa, ect. The head golf
pro said, "well, you should call it Lost Recipe."
That name just kind of stuck, but Ted still liked
Western Wildcat's Salsa.
One
night Ted awoke at about 1:00 or 2:00 to the words
"salsa sauce", on the T.V. was a country singer
talking about her salsa sauce on the Crook and
Chase program. "Denise!!", Ted said, "they are
talking about salsa." Then Ted went on to something
more elaborate to the effect of "if she can do it
we can do it."
Ted,
an avid elk hunter, was hunting in the Mt. St.
Helens region when he stopped at a place called
Tent City. There was a group of tourists at this
popular tent and breakfast in whom Ted was
conversing about his salsa dream. One lady seemed
very inquisitive about the story so Ted went ahead
and told her the whole story. "The reason why I was
bugging you", she said, "is because I'm a buyer for
a large speciality store in Portland." She seemed
very interested in the product. In the weeks to
follow Ted went to Portland to have our product
"taste tested" by the buyers of the speciality
chain. They opened a lot of jars, ours included,
and agreed that ours was one of the best out there.
After Ted returned he told us that if they liked it
as good as they said then maybe we should look into
this business alittle closer.
As
our dream formed Ted had got in contact with local
graphic artists "here is a copy, just some scratch
notes that I have gotten to this day", Ted said,
"here is a copy of Western Wildcat's Salsa and here
is a copy of Lost Recipe, I want to see both of
them and get back to me." The artist called back
about three days later and said, "Hey, I got them
done." Ted went over to his house. "Here you go",
the artist said handing Ted a piece of paper, "here
is Western Wildcat's Salsa", and then continued on
handing him another paper, "here is Lost Recipe",
then he said, "I have a suprise for you", Ted
asked, "what is that?" The artist then handed Ted a
third piece of paper and on it the name was put
together, "Western Wildcat's Lost Recipe Salsa
Sauce." And from that point the whole thing seemed
to take on a certain form.
All
with alot of hard work, batches of salsa made and
remade. Batches thrown out because they weren't up
to par, hundreds of jars given out to taste testers
everywhere to come up with the perfect batch.
Finally on June 2, 1996 our first jars were sold.
Since then, doing lots of demos, some people would
approach us and say, "that we should make a less
hot, more hot or a salsa without sugar in it. So
knowing that the customer is always right and that
we listen to people and are in a people business we
started making all the different salsas that we
have to this day, with many more different types of
products to come. Ted and I would always listen to
our customers and developed our product line from
there. We have sold thousands of jars to thousands
of happy customers. We have been to the Puyallup
Fair, done food shows and spent lots and lots of
hours on the road to promote our products which we
find very rewarding and challenging and proves to
us that dreams do come true with lots of patience
and perseverance. Last fall our product even sailed
on the Lady Washington, a tall ship replica, in San
Fransico at a press party.
We
thank all those who have beleived in us and our
products and have taken the time out to listen to
our "salsa story." It is folks like you that make
our dreams come true.
Sincerely,
Ted,
Denise, Jacob, Paul, and Jonathan Morrison
June 10, 1998
|