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EWTN+’s ‘Fork in the Road’: Kids, Food, Faith & Travel

EWTN+’s ‘Fork in the Road’: Kids, Food, Faith & Travel

Last updated on: August 14, 2026 at 12:49 pm by Kate O'Hare

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EWTN+’s ‘Fork in the Road’: Kids, Food, Faith & Travel 2026-08-14T12:49:14-08:00 Kate O'Hare

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You can take your kids on a trip. You can teach them to cook. You can send them to school. But, why not do all three at once? That’s the idea at the core of the EWTN+ series Fork in the Road.

When the Classroom Is the World

All episodes of season one of Fork in the Road are currently streaming on streaming app EWTN+. Here’s how the network describes it:

Three globe-trotting siblings explore cultures around the world through one of life’s greatest teachers: food. They journey with locals one city, one dish, one fork at a time, while shattering stereotypes about homeschooled kids, proving that education — and childhood — can take many forms.

I was excited about the show because a longtime friend of mine, Catholic filmmaker and singer/songwriter Patrick Dwyer, is the show’s director, director of photography, and editor. He also wrote and performs the theme song.

Dwyer teamed up with the show’s creator, a longtime friend of his, Jessica Rey. She’s an actress (she was Alyssa Enrilé/White Wild Force Ranger in the TV series Power Rangers Wild Force), fashion designer, and mom of the siblings in question: Nathanael, Estella and Sebastian.

The first group of episodes travels to Italy, Croatia and Austria to learn about local culture and faith, and to cook some yummy-looking dishes.

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Talking Fork in the Road

So, we hopped on Zoom to chat about it. Our full conversation is below, but here are some excerpts.

On producing the entire cast for the show:

Rey: And it is a miracle that I produced them. So, my doctors told me I would never produce any, and they were wrong.

Where the show began:

Rey: I’ve been traveling with the kids for about 10 years now and homeschooling all over the world, mostly in Europe. And last year, I was like, “Hey, this would be great if we turn it into a show because so many people ask me. ‘Why do you do this? And how do you do this?'”

So I brought Patrick along, and we created something amazing together. But yeah, it had been an idea in my head for a few years, and I just didn’t really know if anyone would watch it, but here we are.

How the show evolved:

Dwyer: This was a show that took shape as I went along. A lot of it took place in the editing room later on, because it was such a wild and fun, crazy adventure that it was like, “Ok, we’re going to cook here now. Now we’re going to go film this other thing in two hours over there with someone else.” And I was like, “All right.”

But what’s fun is that the kids are so great. …

They’re not like show kids, which is my favorite part about them. So it was trying to find a way to get them to come out and showcase who they were a little bit more by just having fun and sort of allowing the bloopers to happen.

I’m like, “It doesn’t need to be perfect, just be kids and have fun.”

So that’s how I started thinking about it, and I started approaching it. And then, for sure, in the editing room later, when it started coming together, I was like, “I just want to show a lot of the mistakes.” Because I feel, I think people like that kind of stuff in general. It makes everything a little bit more human and less reality TV-ish.

So that was my sort of long-winded answer of how it came together was … sort of naturally. And then after seeing what I had, I was kind of like, “OK, this is what I want to do with it.”

One just one little adventure at the beginning:

Rey: Patrick was really thrown in, literally thrown into it. I went to pick him up from the airport in Rome, and his flight just kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed. So the kids and I, we were driving from Umbria. We went to Orvieto to just wait and see what happened with his flight.

The plan was to pick him up, go have a nice leisurely lunch, and then go shoot. But because his flight was delayed, there was no time for a leisurely lunch. I mean, we picked him up, he said he hadn’t slept on the plane, that he was actually feeling motion sick, and he stayed up and talked to a French priest the whole time.

Dwyer: An American priest who was a Francophile.

Rey: Yes. And then, we found him at the airport. It was pouring rain, and we just drove to our first shoot, and they almost canceled it because they were like, “You were supposed to be here three hours ago,” but we made it work. So there were a lot of situations like that where it was like, “Ugh, we don’t know what we’re doing. Nobody speaks English here. Let’s go.”

On the kids’ cooking cred:

Dwyer: I’ve known Jessica since before the kids were born. So it was always a treat for me visiting the family, even in California, because even when they were really little, the kids were cooking.

And I learned this from Jessica and the kids, where I would come over and be, and I think Ella was maybe nine, and they’re like, “Oh, Ella’s making dinner. She’s milling flour.” And I’m like, “What? Who mills flour? How do you even do that?” I’m like, “Is she churning butter too?”

But then she would make this amazing pastry, and then the boys would grill some steak and stuff. And I mean, they’re just really good at what they do.

And, on why kids should cook:

Rey: I loved Home Ec. I loved cooking. I loved the sewing. I loved the woodworking. I just thought it was all so much fun. And the fact that that’s now gone from school curriculum, I think it’s a sad thing.

I mean, cooking is a life skill. Everyone should know how to do it. And if you don’t, then you’re eating fast food all the time.

What they want people to take away from the show:

Rey: I want people to watch the show and walk away with joy. There are so many things on TV these days that you watch it and then you walk away and you just feel depressed and down or angry or whatever. But the one thing I want them to walk away with is just a feeling of joy and that their spirits were uplifted.

And maybe they were able to learn something, and maybe they have a desire now to adventure and go travel or maybe cook something in their own kitchen, but really just to feel joyful.

Dwyer: Honestly, that was a really good answer. I mirror a lot of what she said. I think a lot of what I would want people to take away from this is just to be more curious about travel, about food.

And in terms of just the show, yeah, to walk away feeling good and feeling happy and feeling too that, “Oh, I can do cool stuff with my kids and I can go and I can try and make this thing”, or go to those places.

And here’s the full interview — which includes Dwyer doing an impromptus performance of the theme song:

Image: EWTN+

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About Kate O'Hare

Journalism, screenwriting, Seahawks ... I prefer stories with soul. Covering the intersection of entertainment, faith and pop culture. Writing movies in my spare time -- when not watching Seahawks football, that is. From the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, left my heart in Saratoga Springs. Currently based in Los Angeles, where it's always another day in paradise. No, I don't pick my NFL team by geography. You can read more about the author here.

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