The mackerel at the fishmonger's on Saturday had that deep, burnished gold that good hot-smoked fish gets, the kind that flakes apart under your thumb and fills the kitchen with woodsmoke the moment you open the paper. I bought two fillets without a plan, which is often how the best things start.

This is barely a recipe. It's five minutes with a fork and a bowl, and it gives back more than it asks for. The cream cheese rounds out the smoke, the horseradish lifts it with a slow, clear heat, and the lemon keeps everything honest. What you end up with is a pâté that tastes like you spent an hour on it, though you didn't, and wouldn't need to. We're only making dinner.

I keep coming back to this on evenings when the fridge is thin and the appetite is there but the energy isn't. A pot of this, some toast done properly, a few cornichons if you've got them. I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: mackerel, horseradish, Tuesday, rain. It hasn't changed since. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract, but some conversations don't need revising.