I’d heard from one of Chad Penry’s friends that the select few people lucky enough to receive a gift of one of his salsas go to extreme measures to get him to give them more.

     Yesterday evening I drove to Chad’s home. It was raining and getting colder and darker as I turned in his driveway. I sloshed across the lawn to the front door. His wife, Cindy, and daughter, Olivia, greeted me. Chad was at the stove preparing to cook his latest salsa experiment – Salsa Verde. He had all his ingredients laid out on the counter; different tonalities of the color green placed next to one another in the tomatillos, cilantro, and peppers.

     Chad, who owns the business, Precision Landscape, in Fairhope, remembers that he started to cook as a young kid at home when he grew tired of his mom’s predictable meat and potato menus. He’s been experimenting ever since with new food combinations that intrigue him.

     “I used to tell my mom I should’ve been born Mexican,” Chad says, “because I’ve always loved Mexican food. When I grew up and started to eat out in Mexican restaurants, I got really tired of eating things on the menu I thought I could do better, especially the salsas.”

     Last week he was eating in a nearby Mexican Restaurant and he was so disappointed in the salsa the waiter served him that he left his companions during the meal, went home and got his own salsa and took it back to the restaurant. He gave it to the owner to taste for comparison.

     Tonight, Chad heats a saucepan over medium heat with a splash of water in it, no oil. He says the tomatillos will give off their own juices as they cook and you really don’t need oil in the pan. He puts the peeled tomatillos in the pan with the chili peppers, peeled garlic and an unpeeled onion. The skin of the onion will come off easily after it has cooked.

      He keeps a watchful eye on the pan for the twenty-five minutes it takes to simmer the tomatillos to the point where their color changes from a vibrant green to a dull green and they start to loose their seeds in the pan. He flips them in the pan several times. They should be quite mushy when done.

      He pours it all into the blender, everything still steaming from cooking on the stove. He adds the cilantro, water and salt and pepper and blends to a puree with no lumps left. That’s it. Bring on the chips. Enjoy the salsa warm or cooled to room temperature.

     Chad and his family eat it on everything from grilled fish to hot dogs and sandwiches.