Thanks Rita. No, I am not related to the food industry.

I just have this bad habit of playing with my food.

dcarch

Those are brilliant! I lived for many years in Monterey, close to Castroville, Artichoke Capital of the World. And I have never heard of eating stems! Send your recipe to the good people at Ocean Mist and maybe start something that will go viral among choke lovers.

dcarch, I grew artichokes a couple of times, but it's sure not consistent here. I wish I'd have thought of eating the stalks!

I like the empty rings, I'm assuming onions? They look kind of like bubbles, floating around that plate.

Annie

Annie, some time ago, I was at Whole Foods. I never shop at WFs, just to walk around. I don't see paying their kind of prices. Then I saw some really good looking globe artichokes with very long stems. I decided, what the heck, just once, splurge! Then I noticed that everyone who was also buying was breaking off the stems and throw them into a trash bin next to the artichokes. I got a produce bag, and fill it with the discarded artichoke stems. Of course, the cashier didn't charged me anything for the stems, she was happy that I was taking away their garbage.

Apparently no one had seen Jacques Pepin's artichoke show that he shows that the artichoke stem is better than the artichoke heart.

dcarch

Wow! I've never seen people throw away the stems! I have been known to cut them off and cook separately, however, because they can get mushy if the artichoke is big. I thought earlier you were talking about stalks that were beyond the stem part that's like the heart.

I guess it must be the pealing of the stem that makes them taste good. Living in the SF Bay Area most of my life led me to eating more than my share of artichokes and I can assure you that unpeeled stems are just plain bitter.

You're so right! If it's not for company, I just cook them and split them open so we can dig out the "marrow". ;)

The bitter taste is not unpleasant, Like bitter (hoppy) beer.

dcarch