Epicure and Newcomb grad, Holly Clegg.

It's "sweet rewards," indeed, for Holly Clegg, who is turning a cupful of positive thinking, a pound of assertive energy and one mean brownie recipe into her own culinary empire.

As health and fitness gurus try to persuade the public to count fat grams versus calories or proteins versus carbohydrates, one argument is abundantly clear-cut to Holly Clegg (N ý77): If food doesnýt taste good, all the fussing and fuming is a waste. Based on that premise, and despite the nearly 100 diet-conscious cookbooks hitting the market each year, the housewife turned author and industry spokeswoman has bubbled to the top of the kettle.

"Action central" for Clegg is a single-level, five-bedroom home on a secluded cul-de-sac in an equally secluded neighborhood in Baton Rouge. But the kitchen in this contemporary scene is not the average homeýs nerve center.

No way. Not for this wife and mother of three. This kitchen serves as Cleggýs laboratory, her office and a pod for projects that are catapulting her into a publishing and consulting empire that might one day rival that of Martha Stewart. Cleggýauthor of six cookbooks, correspondent and columnist for newspapers and magazines, frequent guest on national television talk shows, and champion of a variety of food-related issuesýis in her element.

Her passion: food.

Her mission: to make low-fat a fact of kitchen life.

Her recipes: something for everyone, a la 1950sýEnchilada Bake, Glazed Sweet Potatoes, Beef Stroganoff.

The seeds for Cleggýs culinary career might well have been planted during her freshman year at Newcomb College. The Fort Worth native learned early that the way to winning friends and influencing people might be via their stomachsýand their sweet teeth. Cleggýs portable toaster oven became her entrée to her college years as she made cookies for roommates and fellow dorm dwellers. In the summers, she turned her parentsý kitchen into her own space as she catered parties for friends.

Cleggýs days in the kitchen might have ended with her 1977 graduation from Newcomb with a BA in English, except for a post-graduation trip to Europe, where she enrolled for a stint at Le Cordon Bleu in London. That credential got her an interview with the general manager of the posh Petroleum Club in Houston. She convinced him that he needed her newfound expertise; she laughs now at the memory of how she must have bowled him over with sheer enthusiasm. Perhaps out of self-defense, he created a job for her in special activities.

"He told me later that although he had agreed to meet me, he had no positions available and, literally, had no intention of hiring anyone," she says. That has been a kind of template for the events of the last two decades. It was the first of dozens of doors she has opened by the sheer force of persistence.

Cleggýs least-favorite word is "N-O. Itýs so negative," she says with a mock-glowering facial expression, exaggerated to match the emotional effect it has on her. But as the word has done for many inveterate positive thinkers, it strikes a nerve that invariably triggers a feverish campaign to elicit the opposite reaction: "Yes-s-s. Now, thatýs better," she says, intoning the single syllable with a energetic, hissing sound.

That can-do attitude has spirited her into self-publishing her own cookbook, writing two best sellers for Random House and doing numerous stints as a columnist and contributor to magazines and newspapers. Along the way, she has made guest appearances on national television and radio talk shows and invaded the strongholds of corporate America, including a major retailer and food-industry icon.

Brownies are but one small taste in the varied fare of Clegg's "Sensational and Simple" recipe booklet.

Leaping over the obstacles has taken Clegg along a circuitous routeýthat always seems to revolve around the kitchen. After moving from Houston to Baton Rouge and marrying lawyer Michael Clegg, she worked as a caterer for a few private clubs until she opted to concentrate on raising a family. But the catering bug gripped her again, and one of her clients, the Sternberg family, then owners the Godchaux department store chain, made her an offer she couldnýt refuse. They commissioned her to write a cookbook, and From A Louisiana Kitchen was published in 1983. That would be the base from which Clegg launched a career in cookbook-writing. There have been six along the way, including two subsequent books for the Maison Blanche department stores, which had acquired Godchaux: From Mr. Bingleýs Kitchen, a collection of recipes for children, named for Maison Blancheýs snowman mascot, and The Devilýs Food, with a heart-healthy section. With each new completed project she toured the chainýs stores to promote the books with autograph signings and cooking demonstrations. She learned firsthand the most important rule of marketing: If you donýt blow your own horn, no one will.

With that lesson firmly understood, fate intervened when Maison Blanche was bought by Mercantile Stores Inc., a retailing conglomerate with no interest in publishing. But that didnýt stop Cleggýwhose answer to the perceived rejection was to advance to the next treacherous level of publishing, the only area more difficult than finding and keeping a publisher: self-publishing.

With a $30,000 investment, her husbandýs encouragement and the highly respected Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge lined up to perform the all-important nutritional analyses, she published 5,000 copies of A Trim & Terrific Louisiana Kitchen in 1993. Clegg promptly loaded them into her Chevy Suburban and started to hawk them at bookstores around the region, a promotional trail that translated to a rigorous schedule of book signings and appearances on local television talk shows. On a whim, she sent a demo tape to NBCýs "Weekend Today." It led to a cooking segment that became the first of dozens of appearances. With each one, she sold more booksýbut only after she talked a national distributor into getting them into bookstores across the country. That was 130,000 books ago. It didnýt take long for her success to catch the attention of a mainstream publisher. Random House promptly signed her to a two-book deal. Trim & Terrific American Favorites came out in 1996, and Trim & Terrific One-Dish Favorites followed in 1997. Together, they have sold close to 100,000 copies.

In tandem with her book-writing routine, Clegg also has become a regular contributor to such magazines as Cooking Light, and a frequent contributor to Eating Well, Shape and the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

She wedges those assignments between book tours, which most recently had her thumping 15 cities consecutively. Those were grueling weeksýexcept that, true to Cleggýs characteristic door-knocking rule, she was able to pry open yet another door. Long a fan of the Betty Crocker reduced-fat cake mixes, Clegg had incorporated them into her recipes. For a year, she had been on the phone with officials at General Mills in an attempt to engage them in a promotion of her books. Inconclusive talks with various levels of marketing mavens elicited few, if any, encouraging results until she took matters into her own hands. When it came time to line up cities for a book tour, she advocated including MinneapolisýGeneral Millsý headquarters. While she was in town, Clegg talked the executives into allowing her to make a presentation. A deal began to fermentýbut not before they rejected her pitch the first time.

"A few months later, I called them back and I told them they were really missing a great opportunity," she says. This time, luck and timing were on her side. Since the initial meeting, several layers of corporate executives had shifted, and the layer Clegg sifted through finally was in the position to respond.

"Iýve come to realize that it takes an average of at least a year to have anything happen in corporate America," Clegg sighs with stalwart resignation.