Vietnamese Cabbage Salad

this is mostly about panic attacks and heatwaves but there is (kind of) a recipe!!!

Fun fact: if you whisk up 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar, 1 tbsp fish sauce, and 1 tbsp caster sugar with 1 crushed clove of garlic and an anchovy, you will make a perfect dressing. Whisk until the sugar dissolves and mash up the anchovy with the side of the spoon.

This is a very good idea because it elevates the most ordinary of summer vegetables — carrots, cabbage, green beans— into something chic and delicious and thoughtful. You shred those things; rough them up with your hands; add coriander leaves and soba noodles; poach tender pale chicken or pan-fry crispy turmeric prawns or slice silky white tofu into ribbons or do nothing. Pour over the dressing. Voilà, ça y est! It is the perfect thing to eat today. Hot sauce probably less hot than hell, but as hot as Central London, as desired.

Also, if you happen to suffer as I do from heatwave induced horrors, it’s pretty soothing to make. I think probably we have all heard quite enough on the meditative effects of chopping to last a lifetime, so I won’t get into it, but you get it.

Enough to say that I was chopping for the sake of chopping, and the end result was fantastic, and while it did not heal me it was nonetheless a healing kind of process. And it was healing to cook something genuinely superb.