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Ma, my artichoke, he broke it!
Everyone’s got some food they wax poetic about, be it wings (Hi, Alex!), escargot (Hi, Ang!), Peter Luger’s steak (Hi, Joc!), okra (Hi, Dan!), pralines (Hi, Dupin!)… for me, it’s artichokes.
I will order about anything on earth that has a single fleck of artichoke in it. I have searched for artichoke recipes so many times on Epicurious.com, I swear that when my IP address hops on their server, it goes, Look! It’s the Artichoke Lady again! I’ve grilled them, boiled them, fried them, sautéed them, braised them, mashed them up with garlic, and in a weak moment, eaten them cold and rubbery from a refrigerator case intended for pastries after midnight at a dirty little all-night French diner in Georgetown named after pig’s feet. And I knew how unclean it was, sticking the leaves head-first in a gelatinous pile of lemon butter and running the underside across my teeth while peeling the outer skin off the stem in shards with my grimy fingertips, but I just couldn’t stop myself.
I talk about artichokes the way Bubba talked about shrimp. And the craziest thing is that – though they taste incredible, what I love, really love about them is that funny thing they do to your mouth that makes everything you eat from that point forward taste sweet and complex and dreamily perfect. The only other thing that could possibly have such a profound effect on me I won’t know about for another 38 days.
Anyway, I blew off the gym tonight to get a pedicure. (This you can make fun of me for all you want.) I sent Alex home with instructions to start boiling the massive, stunning leafy globes I’d picked up at the store the day before: a pot of water, a large splash of vinegar, pull off the tiny outer leaves and cut the bottom third off the artichokes. I sat in that massage chair and had lotion smoothed into my calves while I dug my toes into the broiling jet streamed tub, put my book down, leaned my head back, thinking about how good dinner was going to be.
And this is how much I love my husband-to-be. THIS IS HOW MUCH I LOVE HIM. When I came home and peered into the pot and saw headless artichokes and some stray leaves thrashing about, then glanced at the counter TO FIND THEIR DECAPITATED NECKS AND HEARTS lying asunder on the cutting board, the knife, still glistening with the residue of choke flesh… I didn’t lose it. I didn’t. I just said that he’d accidentally chucked the edible part and cooked the less-edible parts and that I’d show him how to do it again next time, and to not apologize, because obviously he hadn’t done it intentionally.
Then, I ran into the bathroom and burst into tears. (Because by this point, there’s just no point in me still trying to act as if we still think I am a well-adjusted person.)
comments (23)
i can totally get with your love of artichokes.
i grew up in CA and ate them frequently growing up since we lived near the artichoke capital of the world, castroville. we moved to the east coast 4 years ago and once a year, my husband's aunt sends us a box of large castroville artichokes (~12 chokes) and we rarely share them with anyone.
i've wanted to try this recipe for artichoke pancakes with goat cheese ever since i came across it, but haven't had the chance...hope you like it!
1 | elaine | July 21, 2005 09:01 AM
What? He just tore the leaves off and boiled them?
2 | Liz | July 21, 2005 11:13 AM
He cut the top end off, so there was barely anything holding them together. It's okay, I still love him.
3 | deb | July 21, 2005 11:15 AM
There is a town on the central coast of California (south of Santa Cruz but north of Monterey) that is totally dedicated to the artichoke. Obviously they grow there, every single shop is some sort of artichoke store, and they have a huge artichoke festival there every weekend and some hot babe wins a Miss Artichoke pageant and gets to be the grand marshal of the Artichoke Parade. Their claim to fame is that a very young Marilyn Monroe was the very first Miss Artichoke. Anyway, I know all this because I accidentally stumbled upon it on some stony back woods drive with my friend Orion one lazy weekend back in California and i bought some amazing artichoke dip & crackers and artichoke oil etc. etc. and it was super yummy for my long stoned ride back to Santa Barbara.
Jocelyn
4 | jocelyn | July 21, 2005 11:18 AM
i am dying inside for you. it's a good thing, for his sake, that you love alex as much as you do. :)
5 | red | July 21, 2005 11:55 AM
He murdered those 'chokes. If he were Catholic he'd have to go to confession and repent his sins.
6 | Who else? | July 21, 2005 12:20 PM
"The length of the tail indicates the quality of your sex life.
And again more is better! You drew large tail, WOW!"
This is debatable.
It also didn't tell me what it means if your pig is wearing a bow tie.
7 | Notorious ANG | July 21, 2005 01:18 PM
I completely resent the tail-length/oinking, er, boinking life correlation. PIGS HAVE SMALL TAILS! (The fact that I am so anal-retentively accurate about this is probably more telling, but we're so not getting into that.)
8 | deb | July 21, 2005 01:31 PM
He should write into his vows that he will never fuck up the artichokes again, as long as you both shall live.
9 | wendy | July 21, 2005 02:24 PM
Two artichoke related recommendations:
I was at a restaurant the other night that served individual crocks of potatoes au gratin. And layered within all the cheesy potato goodness were artichoke hearts! I almost died. I am so trying it at home.
Also - you must try Trader Joe's artichoke tortellini. It will knock your sox off.
10 | Erika | July 21, 2005 02:38 PM
Opting for the Peter Luger's STEAKS!
11 | SantaDad | July 21, 2005 02:42 PM
All I want to know is how long it took SantaDad to type that with one arm in a sling. Hooray!
12 | deb | July 21, 2005 03:43 PM
Hey Deb (and Jocelyn) -
It's Castroville, CA - the Artichoke Capital of the World.
Marilyn Monroe was one of the past Artichoke Queens (1947), and the Artichoke festival is only once a year - but it's fab!
http://www.artichoke-festival.org/
(make your travel plans now!)
13 | Jenn | July 21, 2005 03:47 PM
Mmmm....artichokes! I love them. My grandmother used to cook them for Christmas dinner, they were so soft and drenched in olive oil, the leaves just fell off. Have you tried the artichoke antipasto spread? So good. Hm, now I'm hungry for some.
14 | Milly | July 21, 2005 05:38 PM
Garden Fresh salsa makes a artichoke/garlic salsa that is awesome...mild with a great flavor.
15 | Howard | July 21, 2005 11:44 PM
Just came back from a holiday in Barcelona and had the most amazing tapas of crispy deep fried quartered artichoke hearts sprinkled all over with rock salt crystals. Nothing better with a chilled cervesa!! It's so simple I would love to try it at home but I live in Sri Lanka and all you get here are canned artichokes :(
16 | R | July 22, 2005 12:30 AM
By the way, I like your blog a lot and it is on my daily reading list. But since of late i have had some trouble loading this page. Most of the time it goes to some access denied page.
Good luck with the wedding. Just got married last year and can empathise with some of what you are going through. Just remember to thoroughly enjoy the day because it will just zip by.
17 | R | July 22, 2005 12:37 AM
I was making a stir fry with my boyfriend a couple months ago and he started cutting up broccoli. While I wasn't paying attention, he removed and threw away every little bit of the stems which are (maybe oddly?) my favorite part. I came close to throwing a fit on the spot, but managed to stay calm.
Thinking about it afterwards, I realized that if chucking some broccoli stems was the worst thing he had done in ages, I should be pretty damn happy about it. I have a feeling the same goes for you.
18 | jenn | July 22, 2005 09:04 AM
I can relate on both counts. I love artichokes so much that my mom had a painting of one commissioned for me. It hangs in my kitchen and I drool every time I see it. Also, my husband has managed to mess up things in the kitchen that I have never thought would be possible to butcher. He, too, has totally messed up broccoli. I would NEVER trust him with artichokes! Have you ever had them with Julia Child's "sauce moutarde"? It is the best artichoke sauce In The World.
19 | Craige | July 22, 2005 12:50 PM
All I want to know is how long it took SantaDad to type that with one arm in a sling. Hooray!
12 | deb | July 21, 2005 03:43 PM
Using my ultra lingusitic heuristically superior automatic speech recognition interface, with a software connection to the encephalographic analyzer, as a front-end to Microsoft Word, I am able to recall retained memories of a sizzling steak, an earlier post referencing Peter Luger's, and the more recent question above, to generate this response without a keystroke. Unfortunately, the interface knows nothing about run-on sentences!
20 | SantaDad | July 22, 2005 04:10 PM
as pennance, alex should buy you this t-shirt:
http://store.cottonfactory.com/tee-0034.html
21 | Cristina | July 23, 2005 01:31 AM
Mmmm, artichokes are like cake to me too. my favorite dinner is a wrap with spinach, veggie bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, black beans and artichokes! yummy!!
22 | jenny vorwaller | July 24, 2005 10:25 AM
Sounds something akin to my buying a pomegranate back in high school (it was a more experimental phase for me in many ways...) and having a certain family member promptly scoop out and discard of the seeds. Happens to the best of us.
23 | Dupin | July 25, 2005 02:15 PM