We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jim Mumford a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jim, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

I started publishing recipes in 2018 on my website as Jim Cooks Food Good. The name is of course grammatically incorrect, though done intentionally. My vision was (and remains) to celebrate food simply, not taking it or myself too seriously. So, the name is a nod to this vision; a simply play on words to celebrate this journey and stay as a reminder to keep it all light and fun.

Jim, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

In 2010, I was, in a word, worthless. I was drastically overweight, a loser at my job, and did nothing but play video games and eat low quality pizza. That year, I vowed to turn my life around, in part by exercising and eating food that wasn’t served in an edible bowl. I just didn’t know what to eat, because all I knew how to cook were carbs and processed food. So while I had the will, I lacked the way.

My solution (which admittedly took some tough years to get to) was to squat 4x a week, and to start trying recipes. Any recipes. Soon, I turned what I knew about cooking and started creating food that was a little healthier, but still interesting and comforting (anyone who can’t get off the couch after leg day knows the need for a culinary hug). In a way, I turned comfort food “healthy” (which, I have learned, means different things to all of us, but I think we can agree not adding a pound of cheese to a meal is better than not).

Through trial, error, and a lot of ground turkey, I found that it was possible to cook food in ways that were good: “good” for you, tasted “good”, and made you feel “good”. I used this good food to turn my life around, first physically, then professionally, personally, and emotionally.

Have you ever had to pivot?

In 2018 I moved my family across the Midwest. Not having any community in the Chicago suburb we lived in, I knew the next step of my journey had to include connecting with the people and city around me. They say sell what you know, and I knew about cooking food. So, the Instagram Jimcooksfoodgood was born. Quickly, the website came after, home to recipes and posts focused on “healthy comfort food”, which is a fancy way of saying cooking what you want while keeping dietary and caloric preferences in mind.

In 4 years, this silly, grammatically incorrect little website has grown into a monster, paving the way for cookbooks, being a cited expert by some of the very places I idolized for years, and most of all, using food as a bridge to connect with my community. Turns out, everyone is on a journey of some sorts, and food just seems to be involved in some way.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

By far, the most rewarding part of this process is connecting with the community. Food seems to bind all of us in a way, and that goes double when it is locally sourced. There is an overwhelming sense of joy when I make a recipe using ingredients from local farms and businesses; not only am I supporting these companies, but I am creating something that others can do as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: jimcooksfoodgood.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/jimcooksfoodgood
• Facebook: facebook.com/jimcooksfoodgood
• Twitter: twitter.com/jim_cooks