I still remember my first ever artichoke. I was probably 12 or 13 and visiting my childhood friend Holly in California where she and her parents had moved a few years prior. Her mother prepared herself a steamed artichoke with hollandaise sauce. She asked if we wanted a taste, most likely assuming we would wrinkle our noses and go back to giggling about cute boys.
Boy was she wrong!
We devoured that thing. From the first tentative taste, dipped cautiously in the thick, golden sauce, to the last hedonistic morsel, watery artichoke scented juices running down our arms, drunk with the buttery pleasures of hollandaise... I was in love.
