Yid.Dish: Fancy Artichokes
Living close to San Mateo, CA, the artichoke producing capital of the US, I am lucky. For months, the delicious, complicated, decadent vegetables have appeared faithfully at my nearby farmer’s market. I usually steam them and eat the leaves plain, or possibly dipped in butter-garlic sauce. Or, if my fiance mixes up a dipping sauce of mayo and mustard, I may dip a few in there. But mostly I just eat them plain, enjoying the complex green vegetable taste.
Then I read Out of the Kitchen Adventures of a Food Writer by Jeannette Ferrary.
Ferrary is an Irish-Italian American raised in Brooklyn, and later the suburbs. The memoir covers a fascinating arc through America’s love affair with convenience food through the recent passion for local and sustainable. Her (Irish) mother’s cooking revolved around meat and potatoes, and later TV dinners. It was her (Italian) grandmother who labored over elaborate meals and loved her grandchildren through feeding them.
Although the recipes accompanying each chapter are mostly humorous punch lines to their respective chapters, (collegiate popcorn, or tea with a child, for example) the artichokes got my attention. You slather the artichokes with olive oil, garlic, lemon and parsley, cover with water and simmer until done. And they are delicious. The complex flavor of the veg is drawn out and enhanced. The original recipe calls for bread crumbs and peas, which I omitted. So, here is the adapted recipe:
4 artichokes
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Juice of 1 medium to large lemon
4 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Cut the artichoke stem so it is flat, and cut a bit off the tips. Place artichokes in a pan big enough that all four chokes can stand on the bottom side to side. Place remaining ingredients over, in and around artichokes. Cover with water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer until cooked, anywhere from 20-45 minutes depending on the size of the artichokes.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion In Qatargate fiasco, Netanyahu’s ‘witch hunt’ narrative takes cues from Trump
-
Yiddish די הגדה ווי אַ לעבעדיקער דענקמאָל פֿון אַשכּנזישער פּאָעזיעThe Haggadah as a living monument to Ashkenazi poetry
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
-
Opinion Marine Le Pen may be headed to prison — antisemitism and xenophobia still roam freely
-
Fast Forward Israel announces new offensive to seize ‘broad territories’ of Gaza Strip
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.