Sweet Mother's Milk
Later, grocery shopping with my mother, I spotted an artichoke and shamelessly begged for it. I wasn’t a kid who begged much but this was a big deal to me. I didn’t just want it. I needed it.
“Bun, do you really know what that is?”
She stopped the carriage as I reached out towards the artichoke. I kicked my feet a little and tried to pull myself out of the carriage seat to emphasize my point.
“Mom, trust meeee, I know how to eat it!” I pleaded.
The walk home from the grocery store felt like a lifetime. Finally, we sat at the speckled linoleum kitchen table that my mother had let me pick out at a tag sale, just a week earlier. My mother patiently watched as I confidently peeled it open, leaf by leaf, just like on the show but slower and with more anticipation. I eventually peeled my way to the prickly, furry center. What? Had the apple not yet developed? Closely inspected, there was no sign of even a crab apple inside. A dud! I need another one!
Artichokes are one of my favorite vegetables nowadays. I’ll have it for lunch in a sandwich, as a side during dinner or as a healthier and funner alternative to popcorn when I’m watching a movie.
*Over many years at Miya’s, I have chopped apart thousands of pounds of artichokes to be rolled into sushi and to be served steamed with a side of my six month aged hot and frothy jalapeño dip. Why am I so into this vegetable? I can’t help but wonder…is little me still searching for that apple?
*Our jalapeño sauce, which is served with our Sweet Mother’s Milk and The Kung Fu Tuna, is made from homegrown jalapeños that have been pickled. The pickling method used is a middle eastern process that causes the steamed, salted jalapeños to slowly pickle in their own juices in a vat of olive oil for six months. The result is a pickle that is dramatically milder than vegetables that have been pickled in a vinegar solution. I got the inspiration to pickle jalapeños in this way because I fell in love with the pickled eggplant, called makdoos, at Mamoun’s Falafel Restaurant.
