That’s What Love Tastes Like
There are moments in life that feel so divinely woven together that even while you’re living them, you know:
This was always meant to happen.
That’s how meeting Heidi felt.
If you read her early writing…
and then read The River…
you can almost see the loving hand of God weaving our stories together long before we met—before either of us even knew the other existed.
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A Promise I Didn’t Think Was Possible
When Heidi entered my life, I was already on the other side of so much loss.
Divorce.
Pain.
The unraveling of the life I thought I was building.
At that point, my greatest focus was simple:
Being connected to my children.
That was enough for me.
And yet… God had spoken promises over my life that honestly felt too beautiful to believe.
Especially about love.
Especially about partnership.
Especially about a woman whose love would reflect something I had only ever fully experienced in heaven:
Unconditional love.
Safe love.
Overflowing love.
A love that gives more than this world teaches is possible.
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Limping Together by the River
We met online—something neither of us imagined we’d ever do.
And then came our first date.
Seven hours.
Walking. Talking. Laughing.
Neither of us wanting it to end.
The funny part?
I had just undergone Achilles repair surgery and was walking in a boot.
And somehow…
Heidi had injured the exact same foot.
So there we were—both limping along together beside the river that would later become sacred in my healing story.
Stopping to rest.
Laughing through the awkwardness.
Walking slowly through beauty.
Honestly, it feels like one of the most perfect visual metaphors for love I’ve ever experienced.
Not two perfect people gliding effortlessly through life.
Two people healing together.
Walking gently together.
Choosing joy together, choosing abundance together, choosing heaven together.
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The First Creation
One of the first things we discovered was how deeply we both loved cooking.
Not just food—
Creating.
Hosting.
Gathering people.
Loving through meals.
Heidi brought this beautiful simplicity to food—clean ingredients, intentional wellness, nourishment.
And I brought my artistic “mad scientist” approach:
How do we make this the most delicious thing imaginable?
At that point, Heidi had already been eating gluten-free and dairy-free because of health.
Years earlier, I had stopped eating meat after finally listening to my body for one of the first times in my life.
Neither of us wanted to accept the idea that healthy food had to feel restrictive, boring, or joyless.
So we started creating together.
And somewhere in those early meals, we looked at each other and thought:
What if we made a cookbook?
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Heaven Around the Table
What makes this book so emotional for me isn’t just the recipes.
It’s what the creation represents.
In the acknowledgements, you’ll see that Heidi’s son and his wife (our daughter-in-love) created the beautiful photography for the book.
Even writing that feels surreal.
A family gathered around creativity, beauty, food, and love.
One night, all of our children were all together making pizzas.
And suddenly I realized something:
This was heaven.
For the little boy in the river who thought he’d never have a wife who loved him deeply…
who thought he’d never experience children/family this way…
This was the miracle.
Not someday.
Now.
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Love You Can Taste
Traveling together deepened this even more.
Different countries.
Different cultures.
Different meals.
But everywhere we went, we noticed the same thing:
You can feel love in food.
You can feel peace in the environment where it’s prepared.
You can feel care in the hands that made it.
And our bodies respond to that.
Food is more than nutrients.
It’s energy.
Connection.
Presence.
Celebration.
That’s part of why we prioritize real food so deeply now. Food, that is actual food with real ingredients, as we talk about in the book.
Not perfection.
Not obsession.
Just food that feels alive.
Food made with love.
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That’s What Love Tastes Like
This cookbook is more than recipes.
It’s a story.
A story of healing.
Of restoration.
Of receiving.
Of partnership.
Of joy returning.
It’s the story of two people who met later in life and discovered that God still writes beautiful things after heartbreak.
And honestly…
This feels like only the beginning.
Grateful doesn’t even begin to touch what I feel for Heidi, for our children, for our family, and for this creation we now get to share with the world.
Here’s to meals around the table.
Here’s to food that nourishes deeply.
Here’s to love you can actually taste.
And here’s to the beautiful truth that heaven is often found in the simplest moments:
A shared meal.
A slow walk.
A kitchen full of laughter.
A table surrounded by people you love.
Infinite love and blessings,
Nicholas
Check out the book here 👇