ON TRYING TATTIE SCONES FOR THE FIRST TIME

How to make a low-effort pre-workshop afternoon breakfast, or

on trying tattie scones for the first time.

1. Cook the sausages.

You’ll need the scissors for this. Grab them from the cutlery drawer (top left); use the ones with the blue handles. Separate the sausages now. Say sorry as you split skin from skin. Do not imagine the pain they must be feeling, the sadness of being pressed so close and suddenly torn apart. Be glad you cannot hear them cry as you rip them from their friends.

Close the oven. Forget them, for now.

2. Cook the tattie scones.

Bring the hob to life. Savour the lick and the woosh as the fire bursts into being and kisses the back of the pan. Add a generous helping of butter. Tilt. Let it paint the black in liquid gold. Think of holding a buttercup in your once tiny hands, and offering it to the smiling face of your mam. Feel the catch in your four-year-old throat when the glow lit her skin.

Liberate potato from packet. Lay down the scone into your pool of sunlight. Use your now grown hands to massage. Paint them. Give them peace. Wait for the butter to bubble in excitement, and flip – admire the new found melanin, the honey flower dew of its skin. Wait for the fat to crescendo, to fade. Rescue from the embers.

3. Combine the ingredients, cooked, on the plate.

Bring the sausages into the cold. Ignore their frightened hiss: instead, admire the split in their seams. Build a meal with their bricks. Steal a bite and travel to your first festival with the first-love of your life. Remember the hungover sandwich you paid dearly for; how tomato sauce stained the corner of his lips while the afternoon flushed his cheeks and your makeshift fire danced in his eyes. How he offered you the last bite; how you kissed the ketchup from his skin.

His bloody smile.

4. Try your first tattie scone.

Take a photo first, to prove you took your friend’s advice – they’re golden brown. He said this was best. Savour your first bite. Feel the butter seep into your tongue, let the soft starch fill your soul. Enjoy your taste of his childhood. Think unbidden now of his mother, looking out towards the west-coast sea. The islands waving at her through the kitchen window, three boys waiting at the table, a chocolate spaniel circling their muddy feet, and between them all; endless tattie scones.

NASIM ASL