A Christmas Recipe for Romance

Abby's parents are deceased, she runs her grandmother's inn, she is always cheery and smiling, but she soon learns the truth. The inn is on the verge of failure, they are out of money, the grandmother hasn't paid the property taxes for several years, it would take almost $50,000 (Canadian, I presume) to get back in the clear.

As luck would have it a famous producer is planning a cooking contest with a prize of $50,000 and they want a local included. Of course Abby is the natural selection, but her nickname locally is "Five Alarm Abby" because she more often burns food she tries to cook.

As more luck would have it a young chef has just arrived, he is taking some time off, he agrees to teach her how to be a professional quality chef in a week. Of course all of us who are avid cooks know this cannot be done, but we go with it because the movie is light entertainment.

My wife and I frequently watch Hallmark movies and this one seems to want to follow that formula, but in all areas, script, cinematography, acting, this movie falls short. While the two lead actors are pretty good most of the others are amateurish.

Was it an appropriate expenditure of 90 minutes? Yes, I suppose so, as it was a free DVD rental from our public library. But in total it isn't really a very good movie.

Terrible acting predictive ending you could see what was going to happen as soon a granny needed $ 46.000 to save the inn

I couldn't watch this movie through. The acting was horrible like a bunch of first time actors trying to find their way while they act AT one another. I couldn't stand the blatant naivete of Abby towards managing the inn and it's finances and especially cooking. Grandma was even worse. Much of it was supposed to be funny, but it struck me as just stupid.

It's another we-have-to-save-the-family-inn premise combined with total-amateur-wants-to-win-a-contest to save it.

I love Christmas romance movies. I love cooking movies. This one had the premise to have it all but was just okay-ish. Of course, no-one expects an excellent and original plot, but a bit more work would make it much better. Everything seemed "too soon": all the problems got solved the next minute, the tention didn't last long and the leads didn't even have time to get the chemistry going. Nevertheles it's not a bad movie, it's quite nice and the main actors were really cute. I would recommend watching this movie after a few glasses of wine, so all the details would become insignificant.

This movie had all the right ingredients for a terrific Christmas movie recipe. I loved that it wasn't "routine" in its story. With these s one you really didn't know what was coming next and it was interesting and not dull.