Why this blog was created:

One day I took a day off from work to stay with my son, who was off from school that day. I had recently perused some of my mom's cooking magazines and my mind was full of recipe ideas-- mostly the simple ones :-)

We went shopping for ingredients, and I spent the day in the kitchen, whipping up a healthful, inexpensive lunch and dinner from scratch.

After realizing how much FUN I actually had, experimenting in the kitchen after being inspired by recipes (online, in a cookbook, in a magazine), I decided to create a blog to jot down notes on some of my experiments and creations. These entries really serve more as a reminder to me of what I did and how to re-create it, rather than a full-fledged recipe with measurements and times.

About the blog name:

Why "Helly's Kitchen"?
After all, Allan spends more time in there than me-- it's really more "his" kitchen ;-) But come on-- who can resist a play on the ever-famous "Hell's Kitchen" when my own name is just one letter off from it? ;-) Besides, my recent forays into the kitchen have been so much fun (and eye-opening) that we're looking for ways to split the kitchen duties.

Why "lycheesilk"?
Three reasons:
1. Following the lead of a friend, I use an anagram generator to find unique and creative blog names. Inputting "Helly's Kitchen" yielded some phrases with both "lychee" and "silk" in it. I took out the fluff words to make it simpler, and voila!

2. Lychee is a food, and this is a food-related blog, isn't it? Enough said.

3. The "Li" part of my Chinese name (Hai Li) is written with the same character used in the Chinese word for "lychee". How's that for a personal reason?

So there you have it. Helly's forays into the world of cooking, and a log of her adventures in the kitchen :-)

Happy reading!