Jen Earns an A — in Artichokes!

Jen, of the delightful Random Acts of Writing, blogs close enough to where I live to visit once in a while. After a recent post about artichokes, she commented that she’d tried not long ago to cook and eat an artichoke and ended up with a tiny little stub that she wasn’t sure what to do with. So I suggested she come up for Artichokes 101. As part of her ongoing veggie education we’d prepare and eat some of the spiny but succulent beauties.

Good sport that she is, she said yes! Here’s Jen arriving with a surprise armload of flowers:

The artichokes await:

Jen gets a knife, an artichoke, and the go-ahead:

Okay, she’s sliced, and snipped, and steamed, and it’s time to attack at the table. But why does she look so dubious?

Not so bad after all! This is actually fun, she thinks:

The debris dish quickly fills with leaves, first dipped in aioli, then scraped delicately with teeth, then discarded:

And the prize is — the heart! Not so glamorous to look at, true. But succulent and delicious.  (You can smother your artichoke in melted butter, or anoint it with a garlicky aioli, which is the way I go.) I think artichokes may have won Jen’s heart after all. I know they’re dear to mine!

We never know where blogging will lead, do we? In this case, it led right to the table. And, of course, to a prize for me — a blog post!