How I keep half a celery stick from going limp

After the soup a short celery stick is left — pale, cut, lying open beside the carrots. In an hour the fibres already bend, the smell fades, and it is a shame to put it in a salad. I wrap the cut in a damp (not wet) cloth or in film and straight into the cold — the half stick holds its crunch until the next soup.

How I keep half a celery stick from going limp. A whole bunch out of a swamp bag is another evening; celery leaves go into the pot earlier than the stick; half a cucumber weeps seeds. Here it is a short stick after the knife: a shut cut and a cold shelf — not a speech about a new bunch from the aisle.

If the edge already went limp — I trim the weathered bit and put the firm part into a soffritto or a cold plate. I don’t stand this half in a glass of water like spring onions on the window: the stick turns soft. I take only what is already cut at ours.

I don’t need rubber celery by lunch. I need a short stick that still snaps. In your kitchen does the leftover celery go straight into the cold under film — or lie cut-out on the board?