A Ploughman's Salad

There's a weekend in late spring when the weather finally turns and you open the kitchen door for the first time in months. The garden smells of damp earth and cut grass. You don't want to cook, not really. You want to assemble. To put good things on a plate and carry it outside with a glass of something cold.

That's when I make this. It's a ploughman's lunch, which is to say it's cheese, pickle, bread, and whatever else belongs alongside them, except I've let it sprawl across a bed of butter lettuce and given it a dressing sharp enough to pull everything together. The components are the thing. Good cheddar with a proper bite. Branston pickle, which I won't apologise for. A soft-boiled egg with a yolk like amber. An apple, crisp and tart, because it cuts through the richness of the cheese in a way nothing else does.

This isn't a recipe so much as an arrangement. A conversation between things that have always belonged together. Your kitchen, your rules. Swap the radishes for a few cornichons. Add some good ham if you've got it. Leave the egg out if you'd rather. The market decides, and so do you.

I wrote it down in the notebook last May: cheddar, pickle, apple, sun. First lunch outside. That was enough to remember it by.