Adventures in Cooking! Part 1

My roomie Cassie is basically a gourmet chef. Really. You give her a food from any country in the world, no matter if she hasn't heard of it before in her life, and she can find a recipe online and whip up something that's amazing. I'm always complimenting her on this and telling her how much I wish I could be that way.

"You can be, Shelece," she always says, "You just have to try!"

So I'm at the grocery store today, trying to come up with something interesting to have for dinner, when I pass the display of artichokes. They are on sale, $1.99 a piece. I have no idea if this is really cheaper than normal. What I do know is I ate an artichoke once. My best friend had me over some time in middle school and that's what was served. From what I understood, artichokes are a delicacy, and this was a special treat.

$1.99 for a delicacy is a good deal... right? Sure! I pick one up and plop it in my cart. Never mind that I have no idea how to cook one. I can figure something out! I remember vaguely that the artichoke I ate was served with some kind of sauce. I debate calling up my best friend (STILL my BFF after all these years! :) to ask, but saying, "Hey, remember when we were like 14 and we ate artichokes one time?" seems a little bit goofy to me. So instead, I text my dear sister Shauna and ask her to google what sorts of sauces artichokes are served with.

Shauna is a gem. She knows me and my random brain well enough that she didn't ask any questions, she just goes to the task at hand. Unfortunately, it turns out there are about a bazillion different sauces people use. We don't reach any solid conclusions.

So I come home with my prize.

I read up online about how to boil it. Apparently, artichokes float. So you have to pin them down while you boil them. The website I looked at recommended using a smaller pot lid to do this. I get the artichoke and the water in the pot, I get out a smaller lid, and then I realize...

the artichoke is too big for the pot.

It's not floating, it's touching bottom. Okay, time for a bigger pot!

The website says to add salt to the water. Another website recommends adding a garlic clove to add flavor. I compromise and add a generous helping of garlic powder and salt. That's basically the same thing, right? Apparently artichokes are done when you can cut the stem easily with a sharp knife. A little vague, but okay.

Now what?

I find a website where someone recommends melted butter or mayo as a dip for the artichoke. I have butter! Some websites recommend adding spices to the butter for flavor. I don't have any of the spices, so I add more garlic powder. Someone said garlic was good with this stuff!

I decide to fry up some meat to eat with this too, since one vegetable seems like a smallish meal. That's when I discover the reason the freezer door didn't shut properly when I put away my groceries. We keep my George Foreman grill on top of the fridge, and I managed to slam the power cord inside the freezer. I don't know enough about science to know if this will impact the grill negatively in any way. But I plug it in... it works out.

I have to google how to eat an artichoke, but I figure it out, and you know what? It's pretty good! :D Except I forgot you can't actually eat most of it. When I consider how much I actually got to eat I'm not sure it was worth the $2.

Oh well. You gotta have a little adventure now and then in life, right? :) Aren't you glad I caught every exciting detail of that experience? ;)