Corn salsa

I love corn salsa, especially when it's made from the abundance of the late summer harvest.  But occasionally the skins of the corn kernels get a bit tough, especially towards the end of the season.  I learned a fabulous trick to combat this from Cook's Illustrated: bring your water to a boil (2 cups of water is plenty for about 2 cups of corn), stir in 1/4 t baking soda and 1/4 t salt along with the corn kernels that have been cut from the cobs.  Remove from the heat and let stand for about 10 minutes.  Drain and cool.

Works like a charm!  I used to always do my corn on the cob this way --  boiling the water, throwing in the ears, and shutting off the heat -- but I never thought about using baking soda as an alkali to soften the hulls.  More recently, I've been using the microwave method to cook the cobs, but I'm thinking that perhaps a mixture of the methods would be in order towards the end of the season.  How about using the microwave for a few minutes to loosen the husks and then finishing them off in the pot?