She created Half Baked Harvest in 2012, a food blog that she has since expanded into several popular social media accounts, a daily newsletter, and three cookbooks.
Gerard stated in an interview on the podcast Radio Cherry Bombe that she graduated from high school early with an associate degree by taking additional classes at a local Colorado community college.
[13] In 2023, The New York Times described Gerard as an "unwilling lightning rod for controversy, entangled in issues that have galvanized the food world in the last decade: cultural appropriation, intellectual property, body shaming, privilege and racism."
In 2021, Gerard faced significant backlash when she posted a recipe she called "pho", but that was largely unrelated to the soup considered Vietnam's national dish.
[3] Gerard's mother Jen runs the business side of Half Baked Harvest, with her brother Malachi and father Conrad also contributing.