Shaved Winter Salad

I will never make this salad in exactly this fashion again. And that is the cast-iron rule about cooking: a recipe is not a commandment; it is a record of something someone once cooked. And perhaps another person ate, perchance enjoyed. Your task: to go to the market in deepest February and find distinctive, crunchy things like watermelon radish, fennel, and apples, and to make them look and taste lovely. Because they are not shy ingredients, shave them as thin as you possibly can.

Olive oil
1 orange
Salt and pepper
Watermelon radish
Fennel
Green and red apples
Chives or parsley
Walnuts

1. Juice the orange. Whisk a dressing, using four parts olive oil to one part juice. Season.

2. Shave the radishes, fennel, and apples in very thin slices on a mandolin.

3. Mince the herbs.

4 .Toss it all, coating the vegetables thoroughly with the dressing.

5 . Scatter walnuts on top.