Artichokes

Growing up in central California, we often had artichokes, eaten leaf by leaf, with dinner. Here on the east coast, I've rarely seen them served this way. They only appear in the supermarkets here in the spring (always flown in from California), so now's the time to enjoy them. I picked up a few this week, to accompany last night's dinner of Baked White Beans with Garlic and Sage, and Honey-Roasted Carrots. Together, the three dishes made for a great earthy springtime meal.

When I told our two-year-old that we were having artichokes with our dinner last night, he said "I like artichokes." When I put a nice trimmed steamed artichoke on the table in front of him, along with a little bowl of melted lemon butter, he said "I don't like artichokes." Sigh. But then I showed him how to pull off a leaf, dip it in the butter, and scrape it with his teeth. After a few tries he got into it, though he had a hard time keeping track of which end of the leaf to scrape, and I'm pretty sure that half the time all he did was lick butter from the leaf. And sometimes we had to remind him that you don't actually eat the whole leaf. Still, he worked his way right down to the choke, and I showed him how I scraped off the fuzz with a spoon, then cut the heart into pieces. He speared those with his fork, dipped them in the last of the butter, and asked for "More artichoke please!" Success! By the end of dinner, the table had become a veritable Slip'n'Slide for all the butter he dripped on it, but it was fun to have shared a new food ritual with him.

(Artichoke photo by Minwoo)