Artichokes are mysterious

Very excited to start harvesting artichokes from my veggie patch. There is little else to harvest apart from some silver beet that just keeps giving. It's a very weird and wonderful plant the artichoke.  The flowers are stunning but i think id rather eat the artichokes than let them flower.

Now how to cook the artichoke. it's a bit intimidating at first when your holding this weird flower thing the size of your hand thinking "somehow I've got to cook this and make it edible".  It was quite fun cooking my first artichoke and extra rewarding was that it came from my garden and i didn't go out and buy the sad looking ones at the shop.