Two Clubs are Better than One

If you were expecting this post to be about club sandwiches, we're sorry to disappoint!

This week, we were lucky enough to combine two of our favorite things:  Our usual Wednesday dinner club and our biweekly book club.  We ate stuffed artichokes with shrimp and kale linguine, and then moved up to the roof to talk about Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler and Jorge Borges's Ficciones while we enjoyed the New York City views.

If on a winter's night an artichoke

Ingredients (for 6):

6 whole artichokes

extra virgin olive oil

3 carrots, chopped

3 shallots, chopped

5 cloves of garlic, minced

8 sprigs of thyme, stripped from the vine

zest of one lemon

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons capers

2 cups breadcrumbs

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Boil a large pot of salted water.  While waiting for a boil, trim the stems from the artichokes and trim the top 1 or 2 of the leaves.  Then place them into the boiling water and cover.  Let cook for 20-25 minutes, or until tender (you can tell when they're tender when you can remove the leaves without too much resistance).

While the artichokes are cooking, combine carrots, bread crumbs, lemon zest, thyme, and parmesan in a bowl.  Heat olive oil in a skillet over high heat, sauteing the shallot, garlic, salt, pepper, and capers.  When the shallot and garlic are tender, pour the olive oil mixture over the bread crumb mixture and mix well.

When the artichoke are boiled, let them cool.  This can be aided by placing them in a bowl with some ice water and opening their centers slightly.  When cool enough to handle, remove the pale center leaves and then, with a tablespoon, the hairy choke.  Be careful not to take out the heart! (That's our favorite part.)  Fill the empty center with the stuffing, as well as in between the leaves.

Place in the oven and bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until warm and soft.  Serve with melted butter on the side for dipping. (The butter is our second favorite part of eating artichokes!)

For our tips on eating whole artichokes, see our earlier post here.