good morning i'm like c johnson and the farmer's market event coordinator we're here today at the two thousand and twelve salsa showdown we've got about twenty contestants and they're all busy right now making their salsa we give them about two hours to complete their salsa making and then they will head out and set up their tables outside so that the public can taste their salsa so we're about an hour into it they've got an hour left stand we've got some really interesting ingredients i've been walking around and i've i've seen some babies will have seen some to quote les we've got a lot of peppers a lot of onions and most of the produce this morning has been provided by this are farmers here at the market so we really appreciate their support and we actually ordered about seven hundred how aquino peppers from them so a lot of hot and we've got some mild sasa we've got some very has salsa as and we also have some fruit sauces as well so it's an exciting day we've got a lot planned like i said at eleven o'clock they'll all be heading out for the public to taste three dollars all the church than all the cell so that you want to taste and then the judge will also start at eleven at twelve o'clock we'll have a hell of eating contest and the grand prize for that this year is one hundred dollars so pretty exciting event there as well we've got about twelve people signed up and looking forward to having several more sign up today as well ross a very thankful to holland christian preschool they're leading our kids activities today and those will take place from eleven o'clock until one out one thirty we will have our award ceremony so we'll have two divisions there is amateur and the professional division for us also making you also have our house you know ward given at that time and then the people's choice awards so it's been a fun day and  spawn for our farm to sponsor such great events as th fortunate to get an award each year they were hoping to repeat with a brand new flavor on we're from jackson has given t my good morning my name is ruben whereas i'm the c e o of workforce management and i am here today as one of the judges for the salsa showdown and excited to be here i've visited i've been here three years in a row with this my first year judging i saw this last year and i thought it was a great event a lot of people coming out having a good time and i'm looking forward to really taste and some good salsa today i enjoy salsa very much and  excited to see who has the best also here in town my wife and i had that like to travel a little bit and we often order salt off the menu just for that purpose to really get an idea of the different restaurants that are out there  what we look for is you know good texture a good smell good fresh vegetables something that's not too spicy but yet it's going to have a nice little kick and really something that goes down real smooth  if you're going to have it on chips it's got to be nice and firm not too not too squishy not too saucy but something that's really fresh good tasting good texture good smell one that it literally took about a half hour for the taste to go away because it was so hot i mean it was just extremely hot i'm sure it had habaneros in there but they had something else in there were it was just a really hot and others where you know they put some fruit i've seen pineapple and some of these salt thinking that you know maybe it's too sweet but actually it was a pretty good it was really good so i do like seeing that the different varieties so i'm looking forward to today's event and i actually live and work in the city of grand rapids but i used to work here for the city of holland and i actually used to play in this event a couple years ago i did it for two years and  really happy to be back this year as a judge i used to plan the events here at the farmer's market so this event and threw in veggie carving competition also the weekly chef series and the kids activities series here on wednesdays  great events i also used to do the former series in downtown holland for a couple years started out doing that and then went on to get my masters degree and now work for a economic tell the organization in the city of grand rapids kind of doing similar things we do a lot of events we do a recruitment retention of businesses for the city yeah kind of all over i got a call from uni for it's my old boss and she wanted me to be a judge she said she's seen a couple posts on time i really do look for creativity so some of the fun ones the more interesting ones the ones i saw some people they're using through q we in maine go and cantaloupe even the creativity that is definitely a big one for me being a foodie also just the combination of flavors not too hot not too spicy just just the right amount of kick and just the right amount of tomato just that been manager for four months i've been in west michigan for seventeen years and i've been a fan of farmer's market for probably thirty years i've also enjoyed salsa that i've bought a farmers market over the years so it's a lot of fun to be out here this morning while they ate street market is a very special place it's it's just a fantastic opportunity for people to come together and buy fresh food sauce so when it's fresh like this i think it's extremely healthy it's of course delicious and when the die downtown public pencil shopping district asked for me to participate in this it was a no brainer it's what i want to be i'm here a lot anyway why not be here and have an opportunity to contribute and also enjoy some great food we have a great group here this morning i know i don't know how many it's got to be like two dozen different contestants a diverse group of people the it's going to be a hard job all those to taste it's also be hard to make a decision but what i look for is i think i'm a fan of salon trails so it's got to have that kind of addition to it very fan of uniqueness and freshness i tend to like hot but today i'm going to be thinking more about the general public it's got to have some spice but if it's too spicy i probably really can't view that as the optimum because i need to be thinking about the rest of the population when i make these decisions i think the first thing is it puts holland on the map i have never seen a community that has this many contestants this much interest in this type of event secondly it brings more people here and the more people this contribute to the economic vitality and just the joy ment of being in a and urban community like column third i see a lot of local contestants here our neighborhoods are participating are various the latin americans united for progress is participating and i'm sure there's churches participation and participating so i think it unites us as a community creates a fabric happen the prior person interviewed just adult and used to work for the principal shopping district and was one of the people who helped found the said bad self were very grateful for building on those years of service and it's only getting better