It was from our friend and fearless leader - Delia, the president of Maberga. (That she is, or WAS I should say, president of our consorzio has
For those who don’t read Italian or really blurry very small print, that says “how are you? Are you home tomorrow, I want to come see you and bring you some artichokes.” "Thanks! Unfortunately we aren’t. Guess where we are?!” Yeah, we were in Venice - different blog post. This one is about artichokes.
So the other day, true to her word as all presidents are, we found this hanging on the fence
I stared at them for a couple of days. All I could see was a memory —a huge pan of perfectly cooked artichokes, swimming in their own juices, and more than a little olive oil, resting on my auntie Jan’s stove top waiting for every Easter dinner in the years I was growing up. It was sort of like magic...they were just there. Thinking that one must be magic to make such delicious artichokes, and knowing that I am personally NOT magic, I've never tried making them.
yeah yeah, ok. that's bullshit for the fact that I totally took the amazing food I had growing up for granted and am too lazy (and spoiled) as an adult to learn to cook.
So, to the Serpe Family hotline - home of all advice on food and everything else, solicited or not, - I went to learn to make artichokes.
ARTICHOKES - the recipe
In case you couldn't follow the written recipe, here it is in photos.....
