Artichoke (Prep & Cooking)

Even after following the instructions of my favourite chef-author, Simon Hopkinson, I am not sure that the results of my artichoke preparation and cooking were as impressive as they could be.  Also, it was a lot of work for little reward.... but thankfully DID taste good.  Especially dipped in hollandaise sauce.  Yum!

Artichoke: That vegetable of which one has more at the finish than at the start of dinner."  Lord Chesterfield 

Believe it or not, there are lots of poems about artichokes!  Here is one that seems relevant to my experience:

Artichoke - by Richard Foerster (From The Burning of Troy by Richard Foerster. Copyright © 2006)

For all the bother, it's the peeling away
we savoured, the slow striptease
toward a tender heart--
 
how each petal dipped in the buttery sauce
was raked across our lower
teeth, its residue
 
less redolent of desire than sweet restraint,
a mere foretaste of passion,
but the scaly plates
 
piled up like potsherds in a kitchen midden,
a history in what's now
useless, discarded--
 
so we strained after less and less as the barbs
perhaps drew a little blood
and we cut our way
 
into the core to rid us of the fibre
that would stifle every ut-
terance between us.
 
In our quest for that morsel,
how we risked silence,
risked even
love.