The French never understood our obsession with mayonnaise-drenched potato salad. In every bistro from Lyon to Paris, you'll find this instead: warm potatoes dressed while still steaming, absorbing a mustardy vinaigrette that penetrates to the center of each slice. The result is lighter, brighter, and infinitely more suited to a summer table.

The secret lives in the timing. Hot potatoes are porous. Their starch granules, swollen from cooking, drink up the vinaigrette like a sponge accepts water. Dress cold potatoes and the vinaigrette slides off, pooling sadly at the bottom of your bowl. This is not merely a preference. It is physics.

I learned this technique from a woman who ran a small bistro near Les Halles, decades before that great market fell to developers. She would pull potatoes from the pot, slice them with quick confident strokes, and dress them immediately. The smell of warm potatoes meeting sharp mustard and good wine vinegar is something I've never forgotten. Her salad required no refrigeration, no advance preparation beyond cooking potatoes. It was ready when she needed it to be ready.

This is the potato salad you bring to dinner parties when you want people to ask for the recipe. It sits beautifully at room temperature for hours, actually improving as the flavors meld. Make it once and you'll wonder why you ever reached for the mayonnaise jar.