Artichoke as Study Food

It’s gonna be short and sweet tonight, folks! This post was from Saturday (I think?) when I was struggling to cut down one of those awesome monster-papers to a feather-light 7.5 pages. Believe it or not, I’m still hacking away at it. That particular night, however, I steamed me up a couple of entire artichokes, and sat down at the computer.

We’re right there — right at the cusp of what’s left of summer leading into the crispy crunch of autumn. Unfortunately, leaves here in Philadelphia are turning, and turning quickly, a sort of baked-too-long-brown, due to the dry dry dry summer.  Already, little pumpkins and decorative squash are popping up at the market. Last Sunday, I spotted an entire bag of apples from a local orchard for a dollar — gonna have to remember that one. Early morning air grips you when you dip out on to the front step, like that first lovely, sweet, crunchy bite of an apple. Man, I love autumn.

Simple Artichokes

2 artichokes

1/2 lemon

2 tbsp butter

sprinkling of sea salt

Get some water boiling.

Grab one of those handy steamer-racks, and pop that on top OR boil lots of water (if you’re going to just drop in the artichokes).

Cut about an inch off the bottoms and tops of the artichokes. If you want them to stay a pretty, bright green while steaming, then rub the cut top and bottom with a wedge of lemon (I didn’t).

If you like, cut off the ends of the petals.

Drop either into the pot or the steaming rack.

In a small, separate bowl melt butter. Squeeze the lemon into it, sprinkle the top with salt (if you like).

After roughly 20-30 minutes, extract the artichoke, drain and cool (5 minutes?). Enjoy!

If you haven’t eaten an artichoke before, check out youtube for some quick tutorials. I love youtube how-tos!