Yah's Corner
From time to time Yah will share a story or provide her words of
wisdom on what we call Yah's Corner. Check back from time to
time to read her latest offering...
It wasn't a plan, a recipe, or a dream... just a bowl of fresh goodness with ingredients gathered from Yah's garden during a family get together in August, 1995.
Walking the gardens grown from ancestrial soil on McCord Road in Huntersville, NC, the family gathered fresh tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, onions, and garlic from an abundant harvest. The ingredients to what is now our famous salsa. Yah added some salt and spices, gave it a quick turn in the blender, and the first batch of Yah's Best salsa was born.
Yah honed her salsa recipe over the years - continuing to share it with family and friends, A chance encounter through a church picninc gift exchange and the word started to spread. We started thinking that maybe we could sell this stuff.
Some nine years after that first batch of salsa on the back deck, Yah & Paige took a leap of faith and took 20 jars of salsa to the Charlotte & Raleigh Farmer's Markets to see if folks outside of friends and family might like it. We knew if customers could taste it they would love it! Eventually, peop[e gathered, samples were tasted, and at the end of the day we sold out. So many customers commented, "Oh my that is So Good", and that became the the name of our mild salsa. Those same customers offered their input that has helped us cultivate our product line. We began selling every weekend and now 11 years later, we sell over 20 different salsas, dips & dressings, seasonings, and southern favorites, 7 days a week at the Raleigh Farmer's Market and on weekends at the Charlotte Farmer's Market.
(That family gathering on Yah's
back deck and the first bowl of
salsa is captured in the photo above.)
In life, you don't often recognize the events that change you in the moment they take place. Who knew that that first batch of salsa in the photo was the beginning of a business. Who knew that 2 years later Yah's son and Paige's brother, Jason (pictured furthest to the left) and his wife Heather (pictured to the right holding her then 1 year old daughter, Molly) would both be taken from us in a heart-breaking accident. Who knew that from tragedy Yah and Paige would create a business that would be the tie that binds a family. As a family owned and operated business we have vowed to make good food for our family, friends and now faithful customers.
So many family recipes and traditions have been woven into the fabric of our business and products. We grow crops on land that our ancestors started farming in the late 1800's and we still gather on that back deck to celebrate life and all of its abundances.
From our family to yours, Yah's Best is Fresh from the Heart!
Fresh from the Heart