In case you missed the first ‘explainer’ post that outlines what this is about…I am The Wednesday Gourmet, creator of Gourmet Wednesday, an opportunity to break the week in half by commandeering the kitchen to cook your partner a tasty meal while enforcing a None-Shall-Pass-Who-Are-Not-Me-and-My-Wifehusbandpartnerspouse door policy on offspring or live-in anyones. It is a chance to slow-pedal for an hour or two, drink a glass of wine, drop the pace and realise that the day after tomorrow is already Friday.

Gourmet Wednesday is also the place where you pretend to be your favourite tv chef or, like me, various ones. Its up to you. As for recipes, you just need to know how to read. And allow yourself to make a bags of it, occasionally. Soon, I’m going to pretend to be Antony Worrall Thompson, super-chef de television and The Greyhound restaurant and co-author of a great cookbook for people who need to watch their GI numbers; plus I own a greyhound too, a retired runner called Loughty Joy.

But first I’m going to drop in a Saturday Salad – because the warmer weather beckons. For the salad I shall temporarily pretend to be me.

I’ve had famous run-ins with unfortunate serving staff in eateries around the world; one in particular left a poor waiter in Sausalito utterly stumped. He sat us down – we were three – handed us menus and gave us the run-down on the day’s Specials. It included a choice of Soup or Salad. I thought it was an American dish, so I said “I’ll have the Super Salad, please.” Yeah. Thankfully, one of the party explained the misunderstanding before the guy, quite justifiably, punched my lights out.

To the business at hand. This beautiful mouthful seemed like the only option last Saturday as the temperature hit 18°, which leads Irish people to declare a heatwave and run around without appropriate clothing on. Me, I’m cold-blooded reptilian by nature, and can turn blue at 16°, so I just took off my Big Eagle cardigan.

The slap-up salade I went for is essentially a variation on the Niçoise / Mediterranean / Greek smorgasbord . It involves raiding the fridge and pantry for whatever can be found hiding there, with the basic essentials of eggs and fish being non-negotiable. I found (tinned) Atlantic peppered mackerel, a pair of organic eggs, four sunstream tomatoes, and rocket; all were Irish home-grown and, presumably, fished, in the case of the mackerel. The rest were from sunnier climes – roasted red pepper from, um, Lidl, anchovies from FAO87*, black olive tapenade from the Republic of North Macedonia , Peruvian jalapeños and just to be sure, a dash or three of Frank’s Redhot Original Cayenne Pepper sauce – from the land of my birth, the good ole US of A. It was yum and it looked like this.

*FAO87 is the South East Pacific Ocean, generally, as ordained by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. So it does cross my mind that this simple little salad’s carbon foot-print includes anchovies from there, avocados from Mexico and sauce from North America. Food for thought.