OK. First of all, buy an artichoke and trim it. Cut off the stem so it will sit upright, then take a heavy chef's knife and chop an inch or so off the top. Then take scizzors and trim all the pointy ends off of the leaves. This sounds complicated but takes only 2 minutes at the most, but there is a barb and the end of each leaf that will make this no fun if you don't (plus it looks prettier). I have a lemon half on hand, and rub the entire artichoke with it when I'm through trimming. Then place the artichokes on a glass dish that is deep enough to hold a little water (for one artichoke -- two or three people as an appetizer -- a shallow soup/pasta bowl will do, for two or three artichokes, enought for a half dozen people, a glass pie pan will work). Just barely cover the bottom of the dish with water. I take the half lemon I used on the artichoke, and squeeze it into the water. Then cover with clear plastic wrap and nuke. The hard part is how long to nuke it, because microwave ovens vary so much in power, and artichokes vary a lot in size. I think this time I had two huge globe artichokes and did 4 minutes about a half hour before my guest arrived, then two minutes after she got here. You don't want the artichoke to be too hot to grab with your fingers. The test for done-ness is to be able to very easily pull off a leaf.
My favorite dipping sauce is mayo, a bit of honey, some dijon mustard and a dollop of tabasco (I like that bit of vinagery flavor)
You tear off each leaf, dip, and nibble the inside of each leaf (this is why the dip is important) and discard much of it. AS you reach the inside of the artichoke, more and more of each leaf is edible. You will know when you hit the choke ... it looks hairy. At that point you take a little paring knife, cut off the hairy stuff, and cut the bottom into pieces and pass it around (or, if your selfish, squeeze lemon on it, put in the fridge, and make poached eggs and place it between the eggs and the English muffins ...what is it called, folks? Eggs sardu or something like that?).
So now you have no excuse. Buy a real artichoke and go to work!!!!