Sauces With a Story — Coming Soon
We're a family in New Smyrna Beach dreaming up small-batch jarred sauces, fresh and fermented — plus seasonal creations built on local produce, sauce-and-meat/seafood pairing recipes, and tastings at the farmer's market. Right now we're in our favorite phase: cooking for the people around us, gathering honest feedback, and perfecting the flavors that will make the cut.
Our Story
We met in the anthropology program at the University of Central Florida — two curious people fascinated by how humans live, gather, and (it turns out) eat. From the start, we felt like home to one another — we met in 1999 and married in 2001 — and food experiences became one of our favorite ways to feel something together. Along the way, Josh became a professional chef and Marlena worked front-of-house, and we dreamed of opening a restaurant together. But when it came down to it, we chose family over giving our lives to the restaurant business — and we've never looked back. We became teachers instead.
Food is also the story of where we each came from. Marlena grew up on processed food — and sometimes not enough of it — and it took years of study, all the way through a master's thesis in nutritional anthropology, to learn what truly healthy food looks like, tastes like, and how to cook it. Josh grew up with more food on the table and more home cooking, but nothing that ever showed him how enticing food could really be. Together — through the restaurant years, the nutrition research, and thousands of family dinners — we finally found our groove: Marlena hunts down healthy, creative recipes worth loving, and Josh, once he left cooking as a profession, took over our kitchen with his chef's hands. Our kids are the (enthusiastic) taste-testing department.
For Marlena, the nutrition thread became a calling. After leaving the classroom to homeschool, she certified as a yoga teacher, personal trainer, and nutrition coach and spent years walking alongside people reversing chronic health conditions — especially type 2 diabetics bringing their blood sugar naturally under control, many of whom came off long-time medications on their own doctors' recommendations. She went on to teach real estate investing, coach people into a success mindset, and help businesses and families find the places where AI can carry the load — but in this kitchen, her science answers one question: how do we make the healthy thing the delicious thing? These days we both work from home, homeschooling our two youngest — which leaves more time than ever for the flavors.
But long before any of the credentials, there was a college yoga class — a dancer's detour — and it was everything beyond the poses that transformed how Marlena experienced her own mind and life. That's the real reason she studied anthropology in the first place: underneath culture, religion, and foodways, she was asking what it means to be a healthy, connected human being. Feeding people well is where that search lands on the table.
We're still anthropologists at heart. Wherever a culture or corner of the world has a flavor its people treasure — the tastiest, healthiest, most beloved version of a dish — we want to find it, learn it, and bring it home to share with people who might never have tasted it otherwise. It's a taste adventure we love cultivating for ourselves, our family, and our communities.
We cook with healthy, whole ingredients — mostly lower-carbohydrate, higher-protein, with plenty of healthy fats — but when a dish we love calls for good, honest carbohydrates, we happily indulge.
Why "J Love's Special Sauces"?
Because of one of the little sparks from when we first met. Marlena knew a certain little-known band only because she'd been handed a freebie from their first album at an event; Josh knew them only because a friend from their hometown had shared their music with him. So when the two of us met — nowhere near that hometown — and each tried to introduce the other to this obscure band we loved, we were both surprised and delighted to find someone who already knew. It was one of those uncommon things we had in common that helped draw us together.
Years later that band grew and now tours everywhere — they even come through New Smyrna Beach almost every year, and we still enjoy the music. Our name is a playful nod to that shared spark: Josh is our "J," and the love — well, that's the secret ingredient.
P.S. — curious what that spark sounds like? This one's a favorite of ours →
Every Flavor Has a Song
Because music and flavor belong together, every sauce we create gets its own song. Our kitchen soundtrack runs wide — front-porch blues, roots and reggae-rock, soulful folk, Christian pop and hip-hop, conscious feel-good anthems, and plenty beyond. For us it was never really about genre anyway; it's about the words. We're not much for frivolous lyrics — we love songs that seed something positive, loving, and spiritually growth-directed, in whatever musical form carries them best. So each flavor's song takes whatever shape it calls for, gathered into seasonal "albums" to enjoy alongside the creations that inspired them. One day soon you'll be able to taste the sauce and press play.
We serve God and others through really tasty food experiences, real estate, education, AI consulting, and missional giving.