Looking back through the pages of your life, do you find foods that you passionately hated as a child, which have become your favorites? I do.

For me it's artichokes, which I disliked intensely throughout childhood. I was never forced to eat them, but I was offered them a lot. My mother loved them, and I remember her, at around this time of year, munching on raw artichoke leaves dipped in olive oil and salt while making dinner. "Would I like to try one?" she'd always ask. Risotto and artichokes, slow cooked with garlic and parsley, was our Sunday lunch, because it was my maternal grandfather's favorite dish. "Would you like to try some?"
When Tom and I lived in Rome, I always bought fruit and vegetables at a certain market stall. One day the jolly lady who ran that stall greeted me munching on artichoke leaves. "Would you like to try one?" she asked. I tried one plain, raw leaf, and I discovered my new favorite vegetable: the spiny artichoke.
The stall-keeper taught me to peel away the tougher outer leaves, chop off the spiny end, and slice the artichokes thin, then serve them, alone or in a salad, with nothing more than fresh lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. She showed me that the stem is delicious, as long as you peel it. That day I bought my first crate of spiny artichokes.
Tom and I embarked on an artichoke adventure, and tried many varieties, feasting on the
Romanesco artichokes and the Tuscan
mammola ones. But my favorite remained the spiny artichoke: they grow where we live now, too, and I still buy them by the crate.
Because artichokes are blossoms, you keep them in water; there's often an artichoke "bouquet" on the kitchen table this time of year. I munch on leaf after leaf as I cook dinner, like my mother used to do. And sometimes I ask my children, "Would you like to try one?" I wonder what they'll remember, and whether they'll someday discover the delicious food beneath the spines.