A couple years later, I'm hanging with neighbors, one of which was a waitress at The Border, and we start to get nostalgic about that place. She can sense my anguish and then I hear the magic words, "Well I have the Border salsa recipe if you'd like to play around with it." Oh man, I literally fell out of my chair with joy and after some major hugging she presented the recipe. It was like having the secret map to the Holy Grail for me and the excitement that I could finally taste that salsa again.

The first few attempts were frustrating as I tried to parse the original 50 gallon recipe down to a manageable batch. I tweaked and tweaked and after a few attempts, boom, I finally had the texture and flavor that I remembered, but with a few changes. Two gallons was still a lot of salsa so on "salsa say" I'd called my friends to bring over empty jars. Over the years it started gain cult like status I'd make it to keep up with the demand of my friends, and the friends-of-friends. Little did I know what was next!