The artichoke dabbler.

Last night, my wife served artichokes for dinner. We also had soup and bread and cheese, which was a good thing, because I am, as I announced at the dinner table, an artichoke dabbler. My daughter laughed at that announcement, but it really is true. Some foods are just things that you don't mind putting in your mouth once in awhile, because they're there, but they don't really do anything for you that makes you want to continue eating them. Artichokes is one of those foods for me.

I think the artichoke problem is compounded by the fact that it doesn't seem like food to me so much as a project. You can't just tackle it and shove it in yer mouth, like regular food. Oh no. You have to meticulously break off one leaf at a time. Then you don't really *eat* the leaf, you just kinda scrape the gunk off with your teeth, amassing a discard pile of gross, teeth-scraped leaves. Then, after all that, you have the heart to deal with. The way I always deal with the heart is to give it to someone else at the table, since they kind of make me sick.

So there it is. The artichoke is just 1) Too high maintenance, and 2) not much food for all the work you put in, and 3)not very tasty even for the little you get. In short, it's a lot of work for not much payoff.

Case fucking closed.