Can anyone name a vegetable that's more difficult to trim than artichokes?  This plant always looks so beautiful and yummy in the supermarket, but as soon as I get it home and try cooking it I end up launching into a maniacal search through literature and the web trying to figure out what the hell to do with the thing.  I've yet to find unambiguous information on how to trim these things.  (Although this one I just found on Jacques Pepin's site is far better than anything else I've seen).  They've got so many layers and sections of various levels of edibility that half the time I attempt to work with them I just end up giving up and making a hot pocket.  I've never had a great result when I do go through with it.

The artichokes used here were baby artichokes.  Even more appealing in the market!  They're also theoretically easier to trim.  Trim off the stems and outer leaves, quarter them, toss them in some lemon juice to prevent discoloration, and then sauté them for about 10 minutes.  A little more lemon juice, salt, and pepper finish them off.  Impossible to screw up!  These little guys have a higher percentage of edible material and no choke to deal with.  Well, as usual I didn't remove enough of the outer leaves and basically ended up with one inedible leaf on the outside of each chunk.  The edible part, however, was delightfully tasty.  So, as painful as it is, I'll be buying some more in the future and putting myself through the artichoke gauntlet once again.

The chicken pictured here was marinated in honey, soy sauce, minced ginger, minced garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Then, taking full advantage of a day of weather that seemed like a miracle, it was grilled!