As I have said in the past, I have a love/hate relationship with Meijer’s ( regional grocery chain). I love their selection and the fact that they are close, about 3 miles away. But, I really hate the fact that there is no consistency in their inventory. Just because they have an item on the shelf today doesn’t mean that they won’t be out of stock next week. So in short, you can’t depend on them to have what you need when you need it.

Their slogan is “a single store, a million reasons.” I think that they should change it to “a single store, a million excuses.” Or perhaps they should change their “just in time” delivery system to “better late than never”.

But I do have to give our local Meijer’s store credit, they have never run out of fresh artichokes. Asparagus, green beans and even romaine disappear from time to time but I can always count on finding fresh artichokes.

Of course, I do wonder just how many artichokes they sell particularly here in Lowell. Lowell is just not the type of community to eat a lot of artichokes. I have purchase artichokes from time to time hoping that a new recipe that I found might yield a tasty artichoke. So far, no.

But even the checkout people are not that familiar with artichokes. Invariably they will grab them like they are grabbing a potato only to discover that those leaves have sharp barbs.

I think that artichokes and eggplant fall into the same category; if you put enough other stuff with them, they are quite tasty.