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O J A I M AG A Z I N E | SPRING 2025
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Ballet to Bread Linn Bjørnland’s journey to sourdough stardom Covid-19 will be remembered for many things and the amateur bread-baking craze that flooded Instagram during lockdown periods will certainly be one of them. But while for many home bakers their floury adventures ended when the world reopened, for some it marked the beginning of a whole new career. A case in point is Linn Bjørnland, a former actor and ballet dancer, who turned to baking loaves of bread while being cooped up with her family in a remote cabin in Northern Michigan. There she started experimenting with sourdough, baking to her heart’s content. And when her family moved to Ojai two years later, Bjørnland’s hobby evolved from feeding her kids into something much bigger as she began sharing her loaves with friends, neighbors, and customers of her Bluebell Bakehouse. Born in Scotland to Norwegian parents, Bjørnland spent her early years immersed in Scandinavian culture, growing up on a tiny Norwegian island called Jeløya. Bread, she explains, was always a central part of life. “In Norway, bread is simple and nourishing and part of every meal. We literally eat bread for breakfast, for lunch, and after dinner,” she says. This connection to bread stayed with her, waiting for its moment to resurface. However, Bjørnland’s early career took her far from the kitchen, when aged
just 14, she left home to train with the National Ballet in Oslo. From there, she danced her way to London, graduating from Bird College, hitting the stage, and eventually transitioning to acting. “Ballet is beautiful, but well, I really like to eat, and I’m an independent thinker so I craved something that allowed me to express myself more independently,” she says. Acting offered her a way to explore that, leading her from the stage to a small but transformative movie role. “When I did the movie, I just fell in love with working in front of a camera,” she recalls. “I loved theater, too, but the stage feels very big and grand. With film it’s more about the small moments, and I’m really attracted to the humanity of it.” A move to New York followed, where she attended the New York Film Academy, before eventually relocating to Los Angeles to pursue acting full time. Here Bjørnland’s career quickly took off, with roles in commercials, television series, and films, including HBO’s True Blood, NBC’s Grimm, TNT’s Leverage, CW’s Hart of Dixie, CBS medical drama Code Black, and Criminal Minds, as well as the lead role in the independent feature Escape Through Africa. “I was lucky enough to get a lot of work, and I absolutely loved it,” she enthuses. But after a successful decade of acting, motherhood prompted Bjørnland to rethink her priorities. “After our first son was born, we decided to go traveling for a while and a few months turned into four years,” she explains. “I kept getting pregnant and we would come back to California. When my second son was born, we lived in Encinitas for a year,
and then when I was pregnant with my daughter, I decided we were moving back to live in Ojai. It just felt like the right place to settle,” she says. Bjørnland speaks warmly about her new life here and the town she feels mirrors her values of simplicity and creativity. “Ojai has this amazing energy,” she says. “It’s a place where you can slow down and really connect – with nature, with people, and with yourself. It feels like everyone here is creating something, whether that’s art, food, or ideas. It’s inspiring to be part of that,” she says. This has influenced her baking, too: “The slower pace here has taught me to be patient, which is key in sourdough. The bread takes time, and that’s a good thing. It’s a reminder to slow down and enjoy the process.” Bjørnland’s early days of baking in Ojai were simple, she baked small batches of sourdough loaves and shared them with friends and family. But as word spread, her small kitchen operation began to grow. “I’d deliver loaves with my kids in the car, meeting neighbors and hearing their stories,” she recalls. It wasn’t long before she realized she could turn her passion into a business. With California’s Cottage Food Law allowing home-based food production of baked goods, she decided to take the leap into building her micro-bakery, Bluebell Bakehouse.
by KERSTIN KÜHN