Today we’d like to introduce you to Jamie Beebe
Hi Jamie, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’ve been playing in the kitchen my whole life. As a kid, I baked cookies with my mom and helped my grandma prep veggies from the garden. As an adult, I’ve baked in a couple local cafes over the years. Along the way, I experimented in my own kitchen, tweaking family recipes and adapting recipes I found online and in cookbooks, and eventually, I started creating my own. My blog (Northern Ginger) is where I share my favorite baking recipes, along with the lessons I’ve learned over the years (and occasional musings on life in beautiful Northern Minnesota).
I started my blog in January of 2019 as a way of dealing with the winter blues. It gave me a project to focus on and a place to direct my love of baking (I could honestly talk about baking all day long!). I thought I’d try it for a year, and if I didn’t want to continue, I wouldn’t. It’s been six years now, and I still love it!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
From the beginning, I told myself that the whole point of this blog was to have fun with baking and share it…that if, at any point, it stopped being fun, I could stop doing it. I think giving myself that permission has made the journey a lot less stressful and overwhelming than it otherwise could have been. I haven’t found myself getting too caught up with trying to get “likes” on social media or worrying about how many views my blogs are getting. (Although, since this blog is a hobby, not a job, it’s a lot easier not to stress about it.)
Every creative endeavor has some struggle though — without a challenge, we’d never grow in our abilities, right? My most common struggle is when a recipe isn’t turning out the way I hoped it would. I’ve had to learn to pivot a lot, and not get too discouraged when things don’t turn out the way I envision them. I’ve learned that if I can keep an open mind about things, and let each project work itself out, sometimes I can come up with something new that I’d never have thought of. That’s the joy and frustration of anything creative, I think.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Baking is my first love. I’ve been baking as long as I can remember, and I don’t intend to stop!
My focus can change from season to season, depending on what I feel like making. Lately, and for the past couple of years, I’ve been more focused on cookies and bars than on anything else…even though my favorite thing to bake is pie. I just can’t stop thinking of new cookie recipe ideas, so I’ve just gone with it!
I think one of the things that sets me apart from other baking bloggers is that I focus less on making something look perfect and more on making it delicious. While I totally respect bakers who can create works of art from baked goods, it’s just not my forte or what’s most important to me. When I bake, I try to create recipes that taste great and that bring joy to those who bake them and those who eat the end result.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
As I mentioned, learning to stay flexible and pivot when needed has been a game-changer, not only for this blog, but for my creative life in general. I’d say the same about learning not to take things too seriously. Trying too hard for perfection or being too inflexible in trying to make something become what you’ve envisioned can hamper creativity. If you stay flexible and have fun with it, I’ve found that creativity flows much more freely.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://northernginger.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northern.ginger/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/northerngingerblog/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-beebe-80543b1a4/
- Other: https://co.pinterest.com/northerngingerblog/
