Now here's a thing about lettuce, etc. The typical British pub-grub "salad" consists of week-old wilted lettuce, tasteless cucumber, raw onion slices that will give you bellyache for days and, for reasons best known to anybody but me, sliced-up raw cabbage. You might get a chemical golf ball half-tomato if you're lucky, and an indigestible slice or two of a strangely-coloured bell pepper. If it ain't red, it's not for eating...

It's a disgrace. There is lovely lettuce around. I eschew all those watery iceberg globes of Webb's Wonderful (Webb's Diabolical, more like). And those butterhead soft lettuces are just like eating flaccid bog paper. Little Gem is good if you can get it fresh. Even better is one called Sweet Gem. A very nice crunch. Here's a good trick with bought lettuce: cut off the bottom and stand it for a couple of hours in a jug of cold water. The crispness will unfailingly return.

I don't understand salad dressing. Mrs Steve loves a salad of lettuce, pepper and halved cherry tomatoes dressed with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar (the thick, oozy Belazu stuff, not that watery three-quid aberration). I'm OK with that, but if I've grown the lettuce myself and I can get the amazing cherry toms from the Netherlands growers, or my own from August onward, I don't see the point of drowning their deliciousness with oil and vinegar...