Jersey Royal Potato Salad with Chives

The Jersey Royals arrive at the market in late April if you're lucky, early May if you're not. Small, waxy, caked in dark soil that smells faintly sweet. You know them by the price and by the way the stallholder handles them, a bit carefully, as though they've earned the reverence. They have. The season lasts until July. That's it. Three months, and then you wait another year.

This is not the potato salad of picnic tables and cling film. No mayonnaise, no heaviness, nothing to mask what the potatoes already are. You boil them in properly salted water, halve them while they're still hot, and toss them in a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, and a good fistful of chives. The warmth of the potatoes opens everything up. The lemon cuts through. The chives do what chives always do, which is make you wonder why you don't use them more.

I make this when the evenings are long enough to eat outside. A few friends, a table in the garden, something cold to drink. The salad sits on the table in a big bowl and people help themselves. There are few better feelings than watching someone go back for a second spoonful of something this simple. I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: Jersey Royals, lemon, chives, warm evening. That's the whole recipe, really. The rest is just detail.