In short:

Clearly Delicious Food, Cooking, & Recipes on a graduate student’s budget.

Wait….what?

Helana is perhaps best known as that really blond girl in the English graduate program at LSU.  She talks too much, is always driving up a library fine (too many books, too many post-its), and forever walking through life with a loaf of bread in her hands.  You may even have one of her tupperware containers because she wouldn’t accept “no” as an answer to her newest sweet bread recipe.

Perhaps this is why she turned to cooking.

A Sense of Self–Although Helana is currently working towards her PhD in Literature, she comes home nightly to breathe if only for an hour or two from the books and the speed talking.  She bakes Cupcakes for friends, Breads for neighbors, Veggie Burgers for herself, or Book Cover-Inspired Cakes with Fondant for a friend’s book release party.

She De-Boned a Duck to prove that she could do it; recreated French Toast Foster after falling in love with New Orleans at a local restaurant; made Milano Cookies to pretend she was in Italy one day; created Ratatouille Art because she had to hide from a paper; comforted a friend’s broken heart with Butternut Squash Coconut Casserole; and learned something about herself with La Divina Gelato on Magazine Street in New Orleans.

Boring foods will never do and only a wide variety of tasty, “clearly delicious” cuisines offer something worth blogging about (and yes, she knows she just ended that sentence in a preposition).

Location, Location, Location–To say Helana loves local cooking is downright under-cooked.  She lives in Baton Rouge, LA, but frequents New Orleans like any local might.  Sometimes, she plans her trips solely around food visits–refilling her Infused Balsamic Vinegars and Olive Oils at Vom Fass New Orleans, picking up a pint or two of her favorite “Te Irlandese Gelato” (Earl Grey & English Tea Biscuits) at La Divina Gelateria, or sharing a stiff drink at Bar Tonique with writer John Edgar Browning and fellow foodie Michael Agan.

Food in Photos–Helana has embarrassed more than one elderly family member by photographing her lunch at a New England cafe. But really, someone had to photograph that sandwich.

Clearly Delicious is a Food-o-Book (Food Blog + Photo Book = Food-o-Book) representation of her real life cooking for and with friends.  Readers will see a host of well-versed foodies (or just friends making family recipes) as Helana and company prepare and test dishes for the site.

As a member of the BlogHer community and featured publisher on Foodbuzz, Clearly Delicious strives to contribute to online conversations about recipes, cooking techniques, and tips.

What else can you find on Clearly Delicious?

Recipe Book: All available recipes listed alphabetically and some seasonally.

Amazon Store: All of the gear Helana uses in her kitchen! Please check it out if you’re looking to update recipe books, gadgets, or other fun stuff.

Rss Feed: A Google-Text Friendly Page and mailing list for those who would like to get recipe updates daily.

Twitter: Clearly Delicious is available on Twitter! Search “ClearlyDeliciou” (yes, the “s” wouldn’t fit) and become a follower, please.  Helana tweets of you.

Food (F)otography?

Recently taking the plunge and investing in a legitimate professional camera, Helana is a goner and can never go back!

Helana takes the food photography element of this website very seriously.  It is, essentially, the same camera used by Elise Bauer over at Simply Recipes and Deb over at Smitten Kitchen although lenses may differ.

Jeramey Jones introduced Helana to the Canon 500D Rebel T1i w/EF-S 18-55 mm lens (a digital SLR camera).

Canon Normal EF 50mm f/1.8 II Autofocus Lens : love this lens! It focuses on one object whilst blurring other affects/images in the shot.  This lens is used on many of the close-up shots with simultaneous “focused” and “unfocused” affects.  Although primarily created as a “portrait” lens, the Canon Normal EF 50 mm f Autofocus Lens gives food a face too.

All photos & text © Helana Brigman (“Clearly Delicious”) 2009-2011.

Note: please don’t steal Helana’s photos.  Helana will both slap you with a bagel and the bagel’s legal rights.

Contact

hbrigm1 [@] tigers [dot] lsu [dot] edu