T a ST e MAK e R
M A K E S Lori Coffman Sours
T H A T
BY RANDY McCOACH
SALSA
MAKER
Lori Coffman Sours, ’85 BA
L
Lori Coffman Sours says she ran into an inquisitive gentleman in the supermarket one day, and she mentioned she was collecting the ingredients for her homemade salsa. The guy said he, too, was a salsa chef, and he asked her what exactly she was planning to buy. She gave him the full list: tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, garlic, and cilantro. That’s it.
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“Oh,” was all the guy had to say. “So what do you put in your salsa?” Lori asked. “Well, I put celery in there … onions … some carrots … maybe a green bean,” he said. “I told him,” Lori says, “‘You’re not making salsa. You’re making vegetable soup!’” Lori, co-owner of the recently created El Nuevo Foods, producer of the coast-to-coast taste sensation Salsa Señorita, says the sheer simplicity of the recipe is one of the keys to the success of her business. “It’s just so simple,” she says. “It’s true New Mexico salsa. All natural. No preservatives.” There is, however, a special secret that makes Salsa Señorita–billed as The Legally Addictive Salsa–a taste experience far beyond what a kitchen novice could concoct using those same five ingredients. “The secret is in the tomato,” Lori says. “That’s all I’m saying.” To give credit where credit is due, the salsa was actually invented by Lori’s brother and business partner, Mark Coffman. Lori says that as she was growing up in Las Cruces, Mark would experiment with different salsa recipes. Later, as he perfected his creation and moved around the country in his role as a collegiate assistant basketball coach, he would serve the salsa to his friends and players, and the feedback was unanimous. “They all loved it,” Lori says. “And Mark kept saying, ‘You know, I need to get this stuff into a jar. … Someday.’” Lori says that as the years went by, she got sick and tired of hearing “someday, someday, someday.” “I’ll never forget,” she says. “I was in the Denver airport, talking to my
aLBUm brother on the phone, and he was talking about his salsa and how he really wanted to get it into a jar, and something just clicked. I said, ‘OK, that’s it. We’re going to do this. I’m going to help you, and we’re going to do this.’ I was unhappy with a job I had just taken, so the timing was perfect.” Lori says the planning stage took about two years. There were business plans to be written, labels to be designed, food chemists to be employed for the required nutritional details, etc. The first batch was produced in March 2008. They made 120 cases, and it wasn’t enough. It sold out. “When I saw the jar for the first time,” Lori says, “I told my brother, ‘You know, if this never goes any farther than this, that would be just fine. Lots of people have ideas and plans to produce something, and we should be proud that we made it this far.’” The second batch is now available, and this time there’s a choice: medium or hot. While there aren’t yet any Albuquerque stores on the distribution list, local Lobos can order online at www.salsasenorita.com. Lori, who lives in Atlanta, says she and her brother, who lives in Los Angeles, are in the process of interviewing professional distributors to gain a larger reach. “Right now, we’re targeting small, natural-foods stores,” Lori says. “But if Albertson’s called and wanted to stock it, we wouldn’t say no, you know?” Lori says one thing she has in common with her salsa is they are both New Mexico through and through. “I come back to visit my family every August,” she says, “and every time we have to leave, I cry. I miss it so much. But I’ll be back. … Someday.”
DON BUTTERFIELD Don Butterfield, ’92 BA, ’01 MBA, director of communications for Renown Health, was honored with the Mark Curtis Sr. Award by the Public Relations Society of America's Sierra Nevada Chapter in recognition of demonstrated excellence in his chapter role and as a public relations professional. Don lives in Reno. Sam S. Kassem, ’92 BSEE, is a federal program manager/engineer in Washington, DC. He lives in Spotsylvania, Pennsylvania. His email address is eeceus@yahoo.com. David H. Wilson, ’92 BSCE, ’02 MBA, was named as State Engineer of the Year by the New Mexico Society of Professional Engineers, last year. He serves as vice president and transportation group manager of Gannett Fleming West, in Albuquerque. Marcy Rae Henry, ’93 BA, is the author of The CTA Chronicles. You can read about it at ctachronicles.com. She lives in Chicago. Robert ‘Bobby’ A. Stover, Jr., ’93 BBA, was admitted by Grant Thornton as a new partner last August. He has relocated to Dallas where he will continue his role as central region practice leader of the firm’s Private Wealth Services practice. Levi Romero, ’94 BAA, ‘00 MARC, has a new book, A Poetry of Remembrance: New and Rejected Works (UNM Press), which explores the Embudo Valley native’s cultural memory in bilingual verse about family, illness, ties to the land, low-riding, the Movimiento, and language identity. Levi lives in Albuquerque. Jill Slaby, ’94 MAPA, is now donor relations manager in the UNM Development Office. Yolanda Dominguez, ’95 BA, has joined the UNM College of Arts and Sciences as a constituent development officer.
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