My parents too. I’ve come to appreciate the all of it, but I really do enjoy the stems just as much. My sister, in her first job as a teenager, used to work at Wendy’s and they used to have a salad bar, which included broccoli florets. They used to get whole broccoli to cut up, and the stems would be discarded. My sister used to bring the stems home for my mom and we would cook them in our stir fries. 
Back on topic, I’ve been inspired to now try to make something with kohlrabi.
