A Taste of Love

It's hard, you get invested in a movie and get 40 minutes into it and it's hard to turn it off.

Old high school couple that was in love, but then she left to chase her dreams.., And of course they can't get along... restaurant, needs repairs, renovation, and it's up for sale.

Then the two girl chefs at competing restaurants enter a competition with each other.... OK, we know who's going to win... Halfway through, I want to click stop/erase... Aaron Cahill does an excellent job, Jessi is kind of a dork.

I'm trying really hard to like this....,

Very typical Hallmark plot, really needed help in the writing editing department.

TV show host ends season and goes back to hometown. She spends time with her former sweetheart. Her parents are selling the family restaurant where she learned from her dad and grandmother. There is a cooking contest. I could keep going right up to the end where I totally knew what was going to happen in the very last scene. That's because I've seen it all before. There are probably a couple previous movies that follow this plot point for plot point.

The acting is decent. The dialog also, but not sparkling. There is a rival who seems evil but it is only talk.

I love Erin Cahill. This is probably the best of her last four Hallmark movies. One of those was equally unoriginal as this. I don't think the letdown in any of them was her fault. Why does she keep doing bad stories? Could she be coasting?

I give this movie my default for OK but not good - 6 stars. And that's all because of my prejudice for Cahill. I wasn't impressed with her opposite or the relationship between them.

To help set expectations, this is a straightforward hallmark romance. Taylor has a success show on the cooking channel. So successful that the network wants to take her show nationwide. The problem....while the recipes are "quick, easy and tasty", they aren't Taylor's and she is tired of doing other people's recipes. She takes a break and heads home to the coastal town of Dunedin, where she meets an old flame, old friends and old rivals. She also discovers that her dad wants to retire and sell their family's restaurant.

She enters her and her dad into a local cooking contest hoping for them both to get inspired, igniting that old cooking passion...meanwhile she has to decide if she should except the network's new very generous offer with a little pressure from her friend and agent.

I loved seeing Martin Kove, who played her father Glen. It was a fine enough script, but just a middle of the road romance that left me lukewarm on recommending to my fellow romantics.