Salsa . . .

About the time we were leaving Arizona for Ohio, we visited friends en route in Tucson, AZ.  We happened to go to a local swap meet held in an area near the Pantano Wash.  A wash is sort of a dry wadi as found in North Africa.  When, and that was a rare thing, there was a good healthy rain storm, the wash turns in to a raging torrent of flood waters.  So this area was located in good residential area but some what uninhabitable because of the close proximity to the wash.

As we perused though the junk so to speak, we found a family selling Desert Rose salsa, their brand name, out of the trunk of an old dilapidated car.  So we bought a couple of quart jars of the stuff and found it to be absolutely superior.  It had great taste and flavor.

A year or two later while visiting Tucson again we tracked it down to high end department stores.  It had grown in reputation and moved beyond the trunks of cars the shelves of fancy places.  They had even come out with a new issue called "Commeertavio."  Generally meaning commemorative and it was commemorative.  By then we had progressed to the "hot" version of the salsa and the Commeratavio was a step a beyond that but very tasty.

We started at that point of tracking down the maker and found we could mail order the stuff.  And so in our travels we would around Christmas time get a whole case of the stuff sent to us.  This went on for years.

Later, in California while working for Rockwell International in San Bernardino, on Fridays we would bring snacks in and that gravitated to salsa and chips.  Finally we reached the point where we brought in our favorite commercial salsas and rated them.  Desert Rose was the champ.  And was in great demand.

By then we could get the salsa at high end specialty grocery stores in California.  It was now an off the shelf product.  We no longer had to order from Tucson, we could get it in Redlands.

Years later we ended up in Tucson working for Raytheon and the local high end food stores had it on the shelf.  That was really pleasing to us.  In fact, that was about the only time we ever went to that grocery store was to get salsa and we bought all they had in stock.

Then it disappeared.  It was not to be had.  It seems the company sold out to a bigger operation and then was discontinued.

So we looked of a suitable substitute and did not find one anywhere.  Later while now living in Ruidoso, New Mexico, I found a salsa put up by an elderly lady in a small town of LaLuz.  LaLuz is between Terazozo and Alamagordo, NM.  There was a Pistachio company that sold it at their store on the high way between those to towns.  It was close to Desert Rose so we began ordering salsa from the Pistachio people.

Just a few months ago we passed through that area and stopped at the store to pick some pistaschios and salsa.  Well we got the pistachios alright, but the elderly lady had retired.  There was no more LaLuz Salsa to be had.  It seems she could not get her family to help her make the salsa and it had become to much of a burden to her.

None of the local salsas like Joe T. Garcias comes close to Desert Rose or LaLuz.  I guess our tastes are not compatible with the local desires.  We keep looking and trying but it just is not the same.

An era has past.  We enjoyed it but it is no more.  Times have changed.