October, and the market stall had red cabbages stacked in a crate, tight and heavy and that extraordinary colour, somewhere between plum and ink. I picked one up and it weighed like a small planet. You forget, sometimes, what a proper vegetable feels like in the hand.

This slaw is the sort of thing I make when I need something in the fridge that earns its place across several days. It goes with everything: cold roast pork on Monday, a baked potato on Tuesday, alongside cheese and bread on Wednesday when you can't be bothered to think. The cabbage holds its nerve. Most salads wilt and turn sad within hours. This one improves. The vinegar and mustard soften the shreds, the apple stays crisp enough to matter, and the walnuts keep their bite.

A recipe is a conversation, not a contract. The proportions here are a starting point. More mustard if you like heat. A little more honey if the apples are tart. A handful of dried cranberries if they're in the cupboard and you want a touch of sweetness. Your kitchen, your rules.

I wrote it down in the notebook last autumn: red cabbage, Cox's apples, walnuts, the vinegar smell sharp and clean in the kitchen. Right food, right evening. Sometimes that's all a recipe needs to say.