Hot Stuff: Ann Hamilton Reeves Is The Queen of Salsa

article by MEREDITH MCKINNIE | photos by CASSIE LIVINGSTON

With an emphasis on natural ingredients and the art of preparation, Ann’s weekend batches sell out quickly. Thanks to word of mouth, family and friend promotion, and the community’s appreciation of quality, Ann’s talent in the kitchen is well-known. Her salsa recipe was concocted about ten years ago, due to her husband Dave’s dislike of vinegar, a common preservative in salsa recipes. Ann’s claims, “You either like salsa, or you’re wrong.” She adds it on her eggs, alongside her veggies and with the typical chip and dip scenarios, so finding a recipe she and her husband could enjoy together was essential. Ann doesn’t care for chunky salsa and created her own recipe that is lower in sodium and sugar with her own spice blend. Using preservatives of lime and lemon juice, an alternative version of citric acid, the result is both natural and fresh. 12 cases take 12 hours, and the three flavors are: mild, hot and the fan favorite, roasted garlic.

Ann comes from a cooking family. Kitchen creations were routine growing up, with one side of her family cooking out of necessity, and the other side for entertaining. Her mother Kathy King cooked every night. Eating out was a rare occasion for the family at local places, like Hob Knob or Geno’s. Her grandparents, Ike and Shirley Hamilton, loved to entertain. Ann claims Shirley “could have been a world-class chef,” though she had no formal training. Ann can still smell Shirley’s Holy Trinity on the stove: bell pepper, onion and celery simmering. The memory takes Ann back to sitting on the stools in Shirley’s kitchen, with her grandfather in his office preparing for an auction and Clementine Hunter paintings adorning the walls. Her grandmother would make fancy dishes like blackened catfish topped with crab claws and a side of chutney, but also the best grilled cheese sandwiches. She told Ann, “You don’t need recipes. Just put together what you think tastes good.” Vera Brown, whom Ann called “Memaw,” cooked out of necessity and did so in an open kitchen. Many of Ann’s childhood memories happened around the table, with food being prepared and appreciated.

Amanda Barkley, an artist friend of Ann’s, gave her the idea of canning and selling her salsa. Ann brought some finger foods to a gathering at Amanda’s house, and Amanda’s family consumed it aggressively and insisted she bring some jars to sell at an open house Christmas party. Ann only had 17 jars, and they sold out at the party. Over the next two weeks, she filled 567 more jars, and they were gone before Christmas Eve. The salsa has snowballed every since. Ann admits the name is a bit deceiving. The original recipe is not “hot” at all. The name came from her nephew Rhett who called her “AnnieMae Hot Stuff” when she walked through the house one day in her bathing suit. And it stuck. Ann’s success is attributed to her family. Her husband Dave and brother Hank Hamilton Jr. who tell everyone about the salsa and her dad Hank Hamilton, who takes it all over the place when he travels. Family friends, the Tedetons, put it on their company trucks and gift it to their clients. Her sisters, Heather Finley and Becky Cerda, pass it out at their jobs. Tracey Hamilton, Jordan Hendricks, and Harley Roubion serve as Ann’s support team, setting up, cleaning up and selling at the market. They’re family; and this business venture is a family-endorsed, family-grown, family-nurtured endeavor. Ann couldn’t do this without the support of her family. It’s grown through word-of-mouth, literally homegrown. Ann is a med tech by day at West Monroe Endoscopy Center, and the doctors and staff buy the salsa by the case and give it as Christmas gifts.

This past April, Ann entered the salsa contest at Ritas on the River, taking home Best Classic Recipe and the People’s Choice awards. Ami Schmitz, part owner of Atomic Ink, designed and created T-shirts for AnnieMae’s Salsa at Ritas on the River, the T-shirt being the first of its kind and still available at atomicink.com. Ann can also be found on Saturdays at the Farmers and Maker’s Market on Tower Drive in Monroe. The people who visit the market are more appreciative of what the sellers do, an awesome addition to our local community. Ann is a culinary artist, who still enjoys cooking for her family every night. She bakes homemade bread and butter, chicken broth, roux, and now homemade ice cream thanks to a recent gift from Dave. She is not afraid of trying new ingredients, different collaborations of flavors. She just finished an ice cream batch of hickory smoked peach with candied bacon, followed by a recipe combining pumpkin and butter pecan.

One of her simple joys is seeing “the expression on people’s faces when they eat something I’ve made.” Ann appreciates homegrown produce, the cultural emphasis on buying and supporting local endeavors. She is thankful to have been raised in a food family, for that experience early on that molded her passion for culinary pursuits. She gives all the credit to the women in her family who showed her how, and the men who believed in them.