An Unanswered Letter to California Artichoke Advisory Board

Christopher L. Jorgensen
P.O. Box 546
Ames, IA 50010

April 2, 2012

California Artichoke Advisory Board
PO Box 747
10357 Merritt St.
Castroville, CA 95012

Dear CA Artichoke Advisory Board,

My first attempt at making tasty and appetizing artichokes was a dismal failure and I would rather not repeat this. I was hoping you could tell me where I were wrong. I bought four small artichokes from Trader Joe’s, put some garlic and Italian seasoning in a steamer pan along with some butter, salt, and pepper. (Forget for now that I didn’t put in enough water and that stuff scalded to the bottom of the pan! A little Bon Ami and several hours of scrubbing by my girlfriend took care of that!) Assume for now that the rest of the cooking process went fine (I popped those bad boys in the oven to finish cooking).

When all was done and said I ended up with some slightly weird tasting artichokes, but near as I could tell once I got the first layer of leaves off the burnt taste went away. The problem I had was there didn’t seem to be anything to eat there. I’d pull off a leaf and scrape it between my teeth and nothing happened. I did this all the way to the fuzzy center where the artichoke instruction manual said to scrape that off then scoop out the heart and enjoy. Well, as romantic and this sounds there was no heart! I had a heartless and uncaring artichoke! I felt scorned something terribly awful!

I learned my lesson with the scalding pot, but how do I get an artichoke that has a little meat on it’s bones? Those scrawny things I got couldn’t feed anything.

Sincerely,

Christopher L. Jorgensen