Smoked Salmon and Scrambled Eggs on Toast

Saturday, half past nine. The kitchen is cold because you haven't been in it long enough to warm it up. The kettle is on. The bread is in the toaster. And the butter is already in the pan, barely there, just enough heat to make it foam.

This is the meal I come back to when I want something that feels like more than it is. Eggs, scrambled slowly in butter, folded at the last moment with cold ribbons of smoked salmon that half-cook against the warmth of the curds. Good toast underneath. Nothing else required. There are few better feelings than sitting down to this on a morning when nobody is expecting you anywhere.

The eggs are everything. Not the rubbery, overcooked sort that bounce back when you press them with a fork, but soft, barely set, still glistening. You cook them lower and slower than you think you should, and you pull them off the heat before they look ready. They'll finish in their own warmth. This is the one thing you need to learn, and once you've learned it, you'll never go back.

I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: eggs, salmon, toast, Sunday. The day was wrong. It was a Saturday. But the meal was right, and that's what matters.