Like many ingredient-obsessed cooks, I hit the farmers’ market once or twice a week. I eat my brussels sprouts and squash in October, my asparagus and rhubarb in June, and not a whole lot beyond potatoes and onions in February. Fresh, local and organic is my kitchen mantra.

Yet when I start dreaming about the most delicious dishes I’ve ever eaten, Mrs. Ruby’s molten, cheesy artichoke dip, made with canned artichokes and topped with a spiky crown of French’s fried onions, is one of the first things that springs to mind.

Mrs. Ruby was a family friend when I was growing up, and while she admitted she wasn’t a great cook, she could wield a can opener like a Jedi master.

Her repertoire ran deep — canned cranberry and pecan cream cheese log, canned crab salad with curried mayo on tomatoes, classic Key lime pie — but my personal favorite was that artichoke dip, so insistently hot and gooey that if you weren’t holding tight, your breadstick might snap and sink into the quicksand depths of the casserole dish . She served the dip over a can of Sterno, and by the end of the night the bottom was crusted and browned, like the prized tahdig on a pot of Persian rice.