A Sweet Life Inspired by Grandma at “Almost Famous by Tracy”
Candy Puterbaugh
50plus Magazine
As a child, Tracy Nesseth gobbled up her grandma’s frosted oatmeal sugar cookies whenever she could. When little friends raved about her grandma’s cookies, Tracy always replied, “I know! She’s almost famous!”
Fast-forward 40 years. Needing to support her family, Tracy combined that sweet memory, her artistic talent, and her own baking skills to create “Almost Famous
by Tracy,” a business that would attract a loyal, robust client base.
“My other grandmother was also a baker, so I grew up thinking that’s what you do,” she says. “I’ve always liked cookies!”
Tracy’s workshop is in a cozy, light-filled corner room of her Tigard home, with soothing sea-colored walls, shelves displaying sugar cookies in different stages, and cabinets filled with supplies. The day of our visit, she talked while edging a flower cookie with white icing.
“Making cookies brings me joy and gives others joy,” she says. “I’ve always liked gifting something homemade rather than store-bought. In college, with a lack of funds,
I used to cross-stitch gifts for weddings. I follow the beat of a different drummer.”
It took her a while to find that drummer. After raising three sons on a five-acre llama farm in Tualatin for 18 years, a divorce forced an about-face. She needed an income that would provide balance in her and her boys’ lives.
“I couldn’t even land an interview at age 50,” she says. “I hadn’t worked for 25 years — since running our church’s children’s ministry, teaching knitting at my kids’ grade school, and puff-painting sweatshirts to sell.”
During her career search, Tracy took to heart this wisdom: “Do what you’re good at, do what people say you’re good at, do what brings you and others life.” As it turned out, she found her “drummer” in a Cookie-Making for Gift-Giving workshop, and soon her life took a sweet turn. After “playing around” with cookie-making for three years, she was ready to start her own business.
“I’ve always been creative and artistic, like my three siblings,” she says. “My father was an artist too. I see the world through design and color. More than baking cookies, I enjoy creating their designs. The first question I ask clients is, ‘Can I have creative freedom?’ That’s when I do my best work because the creativity flows naturally.”
That freedom fits her friendly, outgoing personality. “I’m a relational person and like people. Everyone who knows me knows there’s no ‘fancy’ in me! I’m not a desk-job person. I work solo but deal with clients and belong to a group called Oregon Cookiers. We help each other out.”
In time Tracy’s clients grew from individuals to include companies such as Nike, Adidas and Columbia Sportswear. Individuals and businesses alike became regular clients, returning yearly for cookies for trade shows and special events. The most popular personal requests are for birthdays, baby and bridal showers, rehearsal dinners, and holidays. Most people want cookies personalized to reflect them.
Preparing such an order takes about three days: making, cutting and baking the dough; using different icing consistencies for piping edges or ‘flooding’ whole cookies, and detail work; then wrapping each cookie in cellophane.
When clients pick up their orders, Tracy loves hearing the oohs and aahs. “When I started, I think I was the only one in Portland — until five years ago when cookie-baking businesses took off! People realized it allows young moms or retired people an income.”
Today, remarried with a blended family of six married children, Tracy has 11 grandchildren, ages one to nine. When they visit “Grammy Cookie,” their first words are
usually, ‘Let’s eat cookies!” Her 9-year-old granddaughter likes to “apprentice,” exclaiming on arrival, “Let’s bake!”
Last year Tracy went from full- to part-time for a better life balance. Weekends are for family.“I need margin in my life for my own mental health,” she says. “I love my job, but too much of anything is too much. It is life giving for me to create and bring joy
to others. And here I am, making gifts for people to give to others. I create to make people smile.”
Find Tracy and her cookies at almostfamousbytracy.com.