Have you ever participated in a competition?

Carly and Jason meet at a cooking class. Jason suddenly leaves the class, before he’s finished with it. Carly has no idea as to why Jason left – she’s a bit disappointed and wonders what happened…

Fast forward 3 years and both Carly and Jason are working as chefs in restaurants. Both of them want to own their own restaurant. But, it’s tough to just open up your own restaurant…know what I mean? You need start-up capital and such. Anyway, both of them see that they can enter this cooking competition – grand prize is your own restaurant!

So, both of them, as well as some other folks, are chosen for the competition! The competition takes place in a few cities and after each round, someone gets eliminated.

Carly has big shoes to fill – her dad is a renowned chef and she wants to be a chef on her own, without being compared to him. Her dad doesn’t approve of her competing, but, he does show up to support her anyway.

I thought that Jason was cute as could be! Oh, my, Luke Macfarlane is one of the cutest Hallmark actors!

I also loved Carly’s support system. Her next-door-neighbor/best friend and her best friend’s daughter were wonderful supporting characters for this film.

The competition. Reminded me of a Food Network Competition, the dialog, the description of the food, all of it.

Have any of you ever watched a Food Network Competition?

Overall this was a cute, sweet, movie, not one of my faves, but, enjoyable nonetheless!

So, have you ever competed in a competition?

Have you ever had romantic feelings towards a coworker?

Well, Maggie is not really Hank’s coworker, per se, but, they do work together closely in this cute, sweet Hallmark Movie. I’ll admit, although this movie was cute and sweet, it’s not one of my Hallmark faves.

Hank, a widower, is stubborn when it comes to his cooking. A perfectionist, he wakes up early in the morning to make elaborate meals for his daughter’s breakfast. His daughter flip flops, not able to make up her mind, about being a vegan. She doesn’t always eat his food, which annoys me – who wakes up early to make all that food with nobody to eat it? I believe once in the movie, Hank had mentioned that he took the leftovers to the staff at his restaurant.

Hank’s restaurant – it’s failing! His brother-in-law (Bernie) used to be the bartender in the restaurant. After Bernie’s sister (Hank’s wife) died, Bernie stepped up to manage the restaurant, but, he’s a terrible manager! I’ll admit that Hank is a terrible business owner! Neither of them know how to account for their earnings and they even have an employee who was stealing cases of wine, and they had no knowledge of this until Maggie stepped in!

Maggie wants chef Hank to work with her company to create a gourmet line of frozen foods. Hank reluctantly agrees since he needs the money. Bernie admits that they have over-due bills. (BTW, I HATED Bernie’s tie clip! It looked so DORKY! I know that they wanted to portray Bernie as a business man, but, he needed to ditch the tie clip!)

Maggie agrees to help Hank make his restaurant profitable if he agrees to do the gourmet food line for her employer. While Maggie helps Hank save his business, she bonds with his daughter. They go shopping and Hank’s daughter admits that Maggie reminds her of her mom.

It was terrible when Maggie’s boss, Andrea, tells her that they won’t pay Hank any more money. After he’s given them their recipes for the frozen food line, Andrea refuses to pay him for more, and threatens to fire Maggie if she continued to work with Hank in his restaurant.

When Maggie tells Hank that she has to leave and go in search of another chef to create yet another line of frozen foods, Hank gets mad. Maggie’s boss, Andrea, was supposed to pay Hank more money and she’s not holding up her end of the deal. Maggie tells Hank that it’s not her fault – Andrea is the one who controls this whole project. Hank tells Maggie to leave his restaurant and he also says that she should’ve quit her job.

Really Hank? He’s so dumb. Such a goofball! I know if I’d been in that position, I couldn’t just up and quit my job – I’d have needed the money. I have my own bills to pay – the most I could’ve done was to seek out other employment while working for my current boss. (Although it does come up later that Maggie has a comfortable savings).

Hank finally admits that he’s wrong and asks Maggie to come back to his restaurant. Maggie swoops in and saves the day and becomes an investor in Hank’s restaurant and quits her job!

I loved seeing the food that Hank makes.

Do you like Italian food?

I love it! I make my own spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes and I also make homemade pizza using my sourdough starter for the crust! Yummy!

I loved seeing those homemade pizzas and pasta that Hank created! They looked so good! If Hank wasn’t so pig-headed, it wouldn’t have taken him so long to realize that he needed to update his menu. Just because a menu is classic, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be updated, just a little bit! Especially when profits were dropping!

I would’ve loved to have seen a recipe for Hank’s homemade pizza on Hallmark’s website!

So, have you ever had romantic feelings towards someone that you’ve worked with? What happened? Did you ever date?