Have you ever ever dreamed of packing all of it as much as transfer to some cozy coastal town — the place a swoon-worthy second probability romance and limitless buttered lobster rolls may simply be ready for you? I imply, who amongst us hasn’t, proper? Which is why Hallmark’s Catch of the Day, coming to the community and streamer on Aug. 30, is consolation meals in film type. And we’ve a real-life foodie favourite to thank for it: Katie Lee Biegel.
Biegel has spent many years sharing her passion for food with the world by means of The Meals Community’s hit present The Kitchen, culinary competitions, her bestselling cookbooks, and even a podcast that deep-dives into what folks’s favourite meals say about them. However now, the Emmy-nominated culinary star (and mother of 1) is including “screenwriter” to her already stacked resume.
Catch of the Day, which Biegel co-wrote and produced, follows Sophie, a rising chef in New York Metropolis, who returns to her hometown of Montauk to save lots of her household’s struggling seafood restaurant. As soon as house, she reconnects along with her roots, her household, and — yep — a dreamy native fisherman. Assume coastalcore summer season romance with loads of mouthwatering meals alongside the best way. (I would love some spaghetti with clams instantly, please and thanks.)
We caught up with Biegel to speak about what impressed the movie, how she turned recipes into plot factors, and why easy summer season meals are nonetheless those that feed her soul.
Scary Mommy: That is your second Hallmark film and your first screenwriting credit score. What was your inspiration for Catch of the Day?
Katie Lee Biegel: I stay within the Hamptons, and Montauk is a city right here on the finish of Lengthy Island that may be a business fishing city. I’ve watched it change over time, like so many small cities in America, and increasingly mother and pop companies [are being] pushed out.
So, I had the concept for Catch of the Day that’s based mostly round a younger girl named Sophie Monahan, a chef who grew up in her household’s restaurant and is now a chef in a flowery New York Metropolis restaurant. She strikes again to save lots of her household enterprise, and naturally she has a romance. She meets up with Cam, her highschool crush, and sparks fly.
SM: What made Montauk the proper setting for this story about second probabilities?
KLB: Effectively, I feel that there is one thing actually particular about summer season romance. Sophie assembly up along with her first crush from highschool — we are able to all establish with that and bear in mind what it was prefer to have these moments after we have been younger and to form of reconnect with that a part of ourselves.
And I feel that meals additionally has the flexibility to encourage nostalgia. While you hear a music, it takes you again to a spot, however when you might have a dish, it takes you again to a time in your life as properly. So this film has meals, it has romance, and it additionally has escapism and household on the coronary heart of it.
SM: You might have a cameo within the movie as properly. How was it moving into that function, and did you sneak in any Easter eggs for longtime followers?
KLB: I play a meals blogger within the film, and I am not the nicest meals blogger in it. Usually by myself social media I solely put up optimistic issues, so this was a little bit little bit of a departure for me. However a few of my recipes, my longtime followers will acknowledge, are within the film. They will see my cioppino, my spaghetti with clams. Possibly you have already seen me make spaghetti with clams on TV; now you are going to see these characters consuming that very same recipe.
SM: Sure, this film is full of actually attractive coastal meals moments. It’s protected to imagine, then, that you simply have been very hands-on in what meals made it to display screen?
KLB: Sure, I used to be very hands-on when it got here to the meals. I labored with the culinary producer and meals stylist to rent the suitable individual and in addition then to undergo the dishes. We made the dishes prematurely, took footage, went forwards and backwards on what precisely it ought to seem like, and acquired it good.
SM: What was it like seeing your imaginative and prescient come to life?
KLB: Once I first acquired on set and noticed Easton’s Fish Market all put collectively, I truly began to cry. It actually took my breath away to see all of it come to life … similar factor once I acquired the primary minimize of the film to look at. I had tears coming down my face. It was actually a second for me.
SM: Hallmark aptly known as this challenge “a dream.” What about this second in your profession feels full circle?
KLB: I feel this space of Lengthy Island is so central to who I’m. I grew up in a small city in West Virginia. I moved right here to Lengthy Island over 20 years in the past, and it is actually develop into a second house to me. I really feel so related with the communities, so to have the ability to write a narrative that takes place right here after which see it on the display screen is de facto particular.
But additionally, on the place that I’m in my life — I turned a mother nearly 5 years in the past and going by means of these couple of years of a fog considering, Will I ever be capable of do something totally different, and actually only for myself once more? — penning this was a method to reconnect with myself and to make use of my mind differently. I might put my daughter to mattress at night time after which work on this script. So, it is one thing that feels actually good to have completed at this level in my life once I actually wasn’t positive if I would be doing something like this once more.
SM: Love that! Talking of constructing household proud, you’ve stated earlier than that you simply grew up cooking along with your grandmother. How does that formative expertise discover its method into your work at present?
KLB: My grandma is my greatest inspiration. I might not be the place I’m at present in any respect with out her. She not solely was the best prepare dinner there ever was, however she believed in having a second act as properly. When she was in her late 50s, she went to varsity and she or he began working and had this second profession. I form of really feel like it is a second act for me. I’m identified largely for cooking, however attending to do one thing that is so totally different feels actually good. And I feel that my grandma at all times gave me the braveness and the inspiration to have the ability to leap on your desires and take the step that you should.
SM: That is actually pretty. In the event you needed to decide one summer season meal to eat endlessly — your “limitless summer season” dish — what wouldn’t it be?
KLB: OK, that is one as a result of it is a dinner that we’ve on repeat. I purchase the native fluke right here on Lengthy Island, and I do identical to my grandma would do with fish: I mud it in cracker meal, and I fry it in a skillet. Now we have that with corn on the cob, sliced tomato with just a few flaky sea salt, and a inexperienced salad, and that is all I want. It is a easy meal, and it is perfection.
SM: I used to be going to say that actually feels like perfection.
KLB: That is the very best factor about summer season meals is that you do not have to do a lot to it, and it tastes nice.
Catch of the Day involves Hallmark on Aug. 30, at 8/7c, and shall be obtainable to stream on Hallmark+ the next day.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
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