Artichokes from Nady's Garden!

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Artichokes from Nady's Garden!

Another treat Nady brought from her garden were these artichokes. I've been holding off on writing about all the goodies we got from Nady because I wanted to make the artichokes first and then combine everything into one whooping post of gratitude (thanks, Nady!!!). But with all the tomato sandwich dinners this week (thanks, Nady!!), and then dinner at friends' places Thursday and Friday, I didn't get to the artichokes until yesterday - and look what had happened while they were waiting in their bag: the biggest one was in full bloom, and the next biggest one was starting.

The blossoms are amazing: an electric purplish-blue, and they smell really nice, too. This is while they were soaking in water to get the creepy-crawlies out - but there weren't any.

I was't sure if the blossom was edible, plus I wanted to show it to Ritesh, so I didn't toss the big one into the pot. Here are the others, nicely simmered in pepper-garlic-bay-leaf water, with some lemon mayo.

Aren't they beautiful?

Artichokes are amazing. Check out all this furry hair. This is what would have turned into the blossom, I assume, if it hadn't gone into the pot first. Sadly, however, the blossom seems to be generated from the fleshy artichoke heart, because there was really not much left to speak of.

So we didn't get to eat much artichoke (shame on us for wasting a week before cooking them), but boy what an aesthetic experience. This is what went into the trash - isn't it stunning looking?

3 comments:

popps said...: Hi, I found your blog through Simon's (lee) who somehow found mine (don't know how), and i wanted to say that the photos of the artichokes are really cool.
I came across a garden here in France the other day where they were being grown simply for the flowers, they were fantastic.
i always found eating them an anti climax, a lot, a lot of work for a few mouthfulls and a PILE of leaves to throw away at the end.
I never understand why they are considered a luxuary in england, run of the mill here in France.
By the way i looked at your other blog - notebook - it seems to be empty or am i missing something?; August 26, 2009 at 9:19 AM
Miss Agu said...: such a great colour for something which ended up in the rubbish bin hehe~ i've never tried artichokes, wonder how does it taste like...hurmm; September 1, 2009 at 8:26 AM
Roger Hallas said...: I love these shots. I never saw an artichoke in bloom before. Amazing color.; September 10, 2009 at 6:04 AM

Post a Comment

Why bother? (Jan 2008)

First of all, this is NOT a diet blog. No calories counted, no kilos or pounds lost, no quantities of any kind.

My first motivation for this blog was MINDFULNESS: this is part of an overall attempt to be more present in my life, notice what I eat, stop mindless nibbling.
Then of course, there's CURIOSITY: if you are what you eat, what am I? What do I actually eat over a year?
Turns out, while I love food, I don't have a great memory for it. More often than not I have a hard time remembering what I ate yesterday, let alone a week ago. I can only imagine what I subsided on as an undergrad, or when I was living or traveling in odd corners of the world. Looking back, I wish I had some kind of record... So, the fight against FOOD AMNESIA as well as ANTICIPATED FUTURE AMUSEMENT definitely play a part.
Once I decided I would buckle down and do this, like all of two days ago, I started poking around on the web and of course stumbled over Tucker Shaw's endlessly fascinating work, from which I borrowed the title for this blog (Tucker, you're an inspiration!). Tucker also provided the ANTHROPOLOGICAL angle. While I'm less convinced than he is of the value that posterity will place on a record of the varieties of food enjoyed at this time of history on the glorious West Coast, I'm hoping that at least my bright and curious goddaughter in Germany will be intrigued to find out there's more to food in the US of A than McDonalds.

Everything I Ate - Japan

Sunday, July 26, 2009