Hi, I’m Rebecca Crump.

I’m married to Jeff, a dreamy tech-junkie who owns an absurd number of jackets:

We live in Nashville with Henry the Wonderdog, a 7-year-old French bulldog:

No, Henry, you may not hump the rainbow.

I’m a freelance writer and blogger. Before this, I was a professional baker.

Before that, I graduated with a degree in English and spent about 10 years working as a writer – in public relations, marketing, advertising and as executive editor of two regional newspapers. I even wrote horoscopes for a few months.

Sometimes I felt like what I was doing mattered. Sometimes I didn’t. I’m sure you’ve been there.

I started thinking about other things I might like to do. I liked to wake up early on the weekends to watch Food TV. I liked to read cookbooks. I loved to try new recipes and learn different techniques. When I saw Martha Stewart making those robin’s egg cupcakes on Oprah, I sketched cupcake designs for hours. Obviously, cooking was my passion. I just didn’t know how to make a career change happen.

And then one day, I drove by a sign that said “New Bakery – Help Wanted.”

Did I stop? No! Why would they hire me? I had no experience beyond baking at home.

I got home and opened up the Classifieds, and there was an ad for the same bakery. The owner was taking applications and interviewing people that day.

For the next hour.

I RAN back to the car. No shower. No interview prep. I ran inside, filled out an application and told the owner how much I wanted any job she could give me. She said, “I’ve been waiting for you all day.”

And she trained me to be the bakery’s head pastry chef.

Six days a week (sometimes seven), I woke up at 3 a.m. to prep croissant dough and make fresh pastries, cakes and other desserts. Most of my co-workers were German, and they were delightfully candid about my early efforts. I’d get home from a 19-hour work day and have to crawl from room to room, because my feet were just big, swollen, tortured flesh-bricks.

But I was not going to get schooled by an apple strudel.

I toughened up, mastered the recipes and felt like what I was doing mattered. Because I loved it.

Then I moved on, like Bill Bixby at the end of “The Incredible Hulk.” (Because I loved Jeff. We got married, and I moved to Nashville.)

I started EzraPoundCake.com in March 2008 as a place to write about food.

The name is a Wheel of Fortune-style “Before & After” phrase (like “Whitney Houston Texas” or “Neti Pot Roast”) combining Ezra Pound, the Modernist poet, and Pound Cake, a butterlicious dessert. So, it’s a three-word phrase that spells out my own “before” and “after” as a writer-turned-baker. Because now, I use my master’s in English strictly to come up with badass blog names.

My mom is SO PROUD.

P.S. I’d love to hear from you! You can e-mail me at rebecca@ezrapoundcake.com. Or, find me on Facebook. Or, message me on Twitter.