The draining board is the most fought over area in our kitchen.

Not the oven.
Not the stove.
Not even the coffee machine.

The draining board.

Because in a kitchen the size of a postage stamp, every inch matters.

One minute it's being used for washing up, the next I'm balancing trays of brownies or Soggy Aunties, prepping bread and butter pudding and rescuing a jug of milk thats being stretched so aggressively from the coffee station that I can hear it screaming from across the room.

There is always something happening in our little kitchen.

A soup pot bubbles on the stove. A batch of cakes in the oven. Croissants proving somewhere they probably shouldn't be. Lunch orders flying in. Someone asking where all the pens have disappeared to this time. Spoiler alert, they have all rolled under the till because no one ever puts them back where they belong.

And somewhere amongst all that chaos... spring quietly arrives.

You notice the fridge first.

The giant bowls of winter comfort food slowly disappear and suddenly the shelves are full of herbs, dressings, roasted vegetables and giant trays of salad waiting for the lunch rush.

And honestly? Salad season might be my favourite shift in the café year.

I know that sounds strange coming from someone whose entire life revolves around cake... but there's something about making salads that I absolutely love.

Not limp lettuce situations.

Proper salads.

The kind that people order thinking they're "being healthy" and then end up talking about the potato salad for the next three days.

Which brings me to this months obsession.

Potato salad.

Now admittedly, those two words don't scream excitement.

But this is an Ottolenghi inspired potato salad, which means it contains pickles, sharp little crunchy things, fresh herbs and a ridiculously simple dressing that somehow makes the whole thing taste far more impressive than the effort involved.

It's become one of those recipes I make almost on autopilot now between cake batches and coffee emergencies.

And every single time we put it on the menu, someone asks about it.

So here it is.

The potato salad currently getting us through spring service at the Whistle Stop.

Ottolenghi's Potato Salad

And every year, when the salads start appearing in the fridge instead of the soups, I realise we've made it through another winter.

The kitchen is still tiny.
Still chaotic.
Still balancing trays of cakes on every surface.

But maybe that's the lovely thing about small independent places like this.

They aren't perfect.
They aren't polished.
They're just real people, creating good food, in tiny kitchens, one chaotic season at a time..

And somewhere between the brownies and the bubbling soup pot... spring has arrived in the kitchen.