Napa cabbage coleslaw

First the dressing, prepared and held in a separate bowl. No amounts given. Here's the thing; imagine pouring oil over the entire mass except pour it into a smaller bowl instead, plus a little bit extra, some to stick onto the sides of the bowl and a little to save in a spice jar or something similar to dress a hamburger or the like later. Better to have a little too much than not quite enough. Visualize. If the dressing were made at the end this would be easier because the mass would be right there in front of you, as it is, the mass is not there because it is desirable in this case to have the dressing ready. We don't want apples and such sitting there waiting for dressing. Then add enough acid to go with the amount of oil that was poured, and that depends on what type of acid you decide to use, in this case rice vinegar, so a little bit more than, say, cider vinegar or balsamic or lemon.  Then add all the other junk to the extent of your heart's desire.

Not shown, salt and pepper.

Taste it.

Adjust if necessary. That's my method, and I'm stick'n with it.  It would be ridiculous for me to state exact amounts because I have no idea how much cabbage you have there or what else you are including that you are dressing or what your personal tastes are. In my own case, I am dressing one half of a Napa cabbage, and a small one at that, plus a bunch of other stuff that I determine as I go along. Could be a whole bell pepper, could be half, at the point of the dressing preparation that exact amount is unknown.  Mind, I'm planning for a little extra dressing. As it turned out, I used all that I made, which ended up being the perfect amount. Damn, I'm good. I'm a little bit sad that I didn't have extra, but I'm very glad that I had enough. So there's that.

The following is the order of the assemblage. Apple last because it wouldn't do to oxidize and turn brown while the other things are being prepared. No mise en place here, just chugging along haphazardly. 

After all that I forgot the onion, didn't even miss it until now, but I do sense a slight disturbance in The Force and somewhere a little kitten has died.

This is delicious. I never really cared much for coleslaw but that's because I never had anything this extraordinary. This, my friends, is a whole different deal.

You can see how easy it would be to change it, pecans for instance, grapes, mango, pineapple, tomatoes, whatever.