who is connie jo kirk

The Story of Connie Jo’s All Purpose Sauces

By Connie Jo Kirk

I come from a long line of great cooks in my family from my Grandmother Sarah and her Mother. At the age of 4, I was stricken with Scarlett Fever and lost so much of my hearing, that I was almost a mute. All I could hear was very low humming sounds from voices. I couldn’t play with other children, because I couldn’t hear them. My hearing was blocked by masses of scarred tissues throughout my ears, nose & throat areas; until they were surgically removed when I was 6. Being a sickly child, I spent a lot of time with my Mother. I would help her prepare foods and she taught me how to cook full courses of meals. I was very observant, because I had a severe speech impediment from my deafness. I spent 3 years with a Speech Therapist, when I return to school.

By the time I was 13, I was cooking for my family of 6. Mother was a school teacher and would get home late from grading papers and meeting with parents. Mother used to take a cheap brand of bbq sauce and add more ingredients to make it taste homemade and for years, I did the same. My friends loved my sauce and asked if I made it from scratched. I told them that I added stuff to make it taste homemade. One of my best friends, Brenda, told me that I should try making my own from scratch. Then one day in 2011, I started experimenting with making my own sauce. I worked on it off and on for 5 years and couldn’t get it right to perfection. 

In December, 2015, I was working on a large batch of my original sauce. I tasted it and it still tasted like something was missing. I told myself, that if I didn’t get it right, that I would give up trying. I stood in front of the pot just staring at it, while stirring it slowly. Then I heard a voice whisper to me and say, “You didn’t ask me to help you.” I was alone in the kitchen and whole house. I asked, “Who is it?” The voice repeated, “You didn’t ask me to help you”. Being a true believer of Christ and multiple experiences I’ve had with angels. I knew that the voice was a Holy spirit. 

I then, put my right hand over the sauce and bowed my head. I asked the Lord Jesus to make my sauce perfect. An Angel spoke and said, “Add this, add that and more of this, stir in slowly, cook for an hour on low fire and let cool.” I return to the kitchen 2 hours later, tasted the sauce, jumped for joy and screamed, “Thank you, Jesus, thank you.”  

In February, 2016, Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton and his Deputies, called the Posse, were contestants in the Rodeo BBQ Cook Off at the Exposition Center in Austin. Through a mutual friend, the Sheriff tasted my sauce and asked me to make a spicy flavored sauce along with the Original. A few days before the contest, I created 3 sauces: Original, Mango and Spitfire (spicy). Three of the deputies won championships in their category after they used my sauces on their meats.

In April, 2016, I met with the famous TV Food Critic, Dr. Rob Balon at Rudy’s BBQ Restaurant. By then, I had 4 flavors. I made Mango Spitfire. Balon sampled my sauces on slices of brisket, ribs and sausage and even the potato salad. A few weeks later, I met with him for lunch at Hoover’s Home Cooking Restaurant in east Austin. He ordered several items on the menu and put my sauces on mac & cheese, fried fish, fried okra, bbq ribs, baked chicken, salad, and veggies. He said, “Critics don’t like to rate bbq sauces, because most of them taste too thin or flavorless. Your sauces are the BEST that I’ve ever tasted. You shouldn’t call them BBQ Sauces. Label them as All Purpose Sauces, because you can put them on anything.” Now in 2019, I’m 70 years old and turning 71 in June.

My mission is to sell my sauces to finance and support my Non Profit Org called Nasaru Inc’s projects to build boarding schools in Uganda and Kenya, East Africa for impoverished children; particularly targeting orphans. My precious Mother lived in poverty and became an orphan at 11.

This is a true story by Connie Jo Kirk, Owner of Connie Jo’s All Purpose Sauces.

Contact:

Connie Jo Kirk Enterprises, LLC

Maymonaah@gmail.com

P.O. Box 6731

Austin, Texas 78762

512.412.1897 cell

USA