Scrambled Eggs on Toast

There's an evening you know well. The fridge is bare. The day was longer than it should have been. You stand in the kitchen and you don't want to think, you just want to eat something warm and then sit down. This is that supper.

Scrambled eggs on toast. It barely counts as a recipe. Three eggs, a knob of butter, a couple of slices of bread that can hold their nerve under something soft and hot. But the distance between scrambled eggs made with attention and scrambled eggs made in a hurry is the distance between a meal and a disappointment. Low heat. Slow stirring. The willingness to stand at the hob for three minutes longer than you think is necessary. That's all it asks.

I've made this hundreds of times. It's the meal I come back to when nothing else appeals, and it has never once let me down. I wrote it in the notebook years ago, just a few words: "Eggs. Butter. Toast. Tuesday. Late." I still think that says everything. We're only making dinner. But we're making it properly.