This is a find I made on an annual bicycle ride, with friends from work, from Ohiopyle to Confluence, on the Great Allegheny Passage, for the Pumpkin Fest. One of the vendors there was Backyard Gardens, an Ohiopyle company. I didn't know it yet, but the proprietress, Vicki Marietta, was the friendly, frisky woman offering tastes of four hot mustards.

I'd just eaten and passed on her offer, but marveled at the beautiful colors of her products -- the yellow Sweet Banana Pepper Mustard, the red Hot Banana Pepper Mustard, the green Jalapeno Pepper Mustard and the orange Habanero Pepper Mustard. Glowingly gorgeous. As were the bright, clean graphics on the packaging, touting her "Backyard Gardens" brand.

Back in Ohiopyle, I was exploring town and found, next to a relatively new coffeehouse, Ms. Marietta's tidy store, which offers her sauces (she does wing/BBQ sauce, too) in addition to fresh local produce, eggs, honey, maple syrup and other locally made goodies. I bought, as a souvenir for my spicy-loving wife, an 11.5-ounce, $4.99 jar of the jalapeno mustard and, when I got home, looked up the backyardgardens.net Web site.

As explained there, the Ohiopyle native altered a legendary local recipe by adding peppers grown in her backyard garden and friends clamored for more, so she decided to make a business out of it last summer.

"They said, 'We'll pay you to make us some' and the light bulb went off," says the Ohiopyle native, who did market research at area farmers markets.

She was confident she could expand to retailers, having sold custom T-shirts to grocery stores around the country when she worked for a local silk-screener.

Her business already has outgrown her backyard garden (though she's still an avid home cook and canner of everything from tomato sauce to venison) and her commercial sauces now are made and packaged by Stello Foods in Punxsutawney.

Her retail store, which she opened this summer, will close for the season after this weekend (it's open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Fri. through Sun.).

But you can buy from her online, by calling toll-free 1-877-329-4014 (or 724-329-4014), or at many other retailers in the region, including McGinnis Sisters stores.

You also can try her sauces at Nadine's on 27th Street on the South Side, which was the subject of a recent episode of Guy Fieri's Food Network show, "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives." Ms. Marietta and her sauce got a second-and-a-half of fame: "I'm taking a big bite of a fried baloney sandwich."

She's also going to be appearing at Penn Hills Parks & Recreation Holiday Craft Show on Nov. 22 at Linton Middle School and the Holiday Craft Show on Dec. 6 at the Perryopolis Auto Auction.

And as you can see on the link on her Web site, she's working on a "Backyard Gardens Cookbook."

Here are two quick recipes:

• Pour any of her sauces over cream cheese for a party dip.

• More quirky: She swears by using any of her mustards instead of butter on the outside of the bread for grilled cheese.

Have a fresh food find? E-mail food@post-gazette.com.