Egg Mayonnaise Sandwich

Some meals are too simple to write recipes for. This is nearly one of them. Boil eggs, chop them, stir in mayonnaise, put it on bread. A child could do it and often does, standing on a stool at the kitchen counter, shell fragments on the worktop, the eggs slightly overcooked. Those sandwiches taste as good as any.

But there is a version of this that is worth paying attention to. Eggs from a good hen, the yolks deep gold rather than pale yellow. Proper mayonnaise, not the sweet, vinegary sort that comes in a squeeze bottle. White pepper, which warms without shouting. And soft bread, buttered to the edges, because the butter stops the mayonnaise soaking through and turns the whole thing into something that holds together in your hand.

I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: eggs, mayo, white pepper, Tuesday. It didn't need more detail than that. This is lunchbox food, picnic food, the thing you make when there is nothing in the house and somehow it turns out to be exactly what you wanted. We're only making a sandwich. But a sandwich made with care, eaten at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and the window open, is a meal worth sitting down for.