Two's Company

Area cooks dish up their ideas for cooking for two.

C

ANNABEL COHEN
Special to the Jewish News

4rotioll

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ooking in small amounts
doesn't come easy to some
people.
For those accustomed to
cooking for families, cooking for two
may hardly seem worthwhile. After
all, they argue, if you're cooking for
two, you may as well cook for four or
14 — it's pretty much the same
effort, cooking time and clean up.
And if you're the type who loves left-
overs, cooking in bulk may not be a
problem.
However, if you're like numerous
others, the idea of eating the same
thing for three days in a row can be
hard to swallow.
Harriet and Manny Sklar of Franklin
have been virtual empty-nesters for sev-
eral years. Cooking dinners for her hun-
gry brood was something she did nearly
every day in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.
"As a mother of five, I got used to cook-
ing for a crowd," she said.
"Aside from Wednesday and
Saturday nights, when we had baby-sit-
ters for the kids, the other nights I made

Bloomfield Hills' cooking instruc-
dinners, just as my mother had made
tor Faye Starr cooks for two regularly.
dinners. And my time and thoughts
Since the mid 1980s, when her three
were focused on those dinners.
children moved out of the house,
"I always made full meals. Salad was
she's prepared dinners just for herself
and still is a must as far as my husband
and husband Louis. Starr shops more-
is concerned, and always on a separate
or-less European style. Because she
plate. There was always a starch, a veg-
often needs to buy ingredients for her
etable and a meat or fish, mostly meat
cooking classes, she's in markets prob-
— it was before cholesterol."
ably more than the average person.
Sklar did not consider the transi-
"I often stop in a market and buy
tion from cooking en masse to
what I feel like eating that evening. I'll
cooking for two a tough one, espe-
be in a store two to three
cially when it came to shop-
times a week.
ping for groceries. "I still buy a
Faye St arr
Starr has no problem, howev-
lot. I'm always asked by the
has bee n
er, with buying foods in larger
checkout people at Strawberry
cooking for
Hill if I'm having a party.
two for years. quantities. "I may buy a whole
side of salmon and cook two
"What is different is that I
portions for dinner and then
buy less meat or fish. I don't buy
make gravalax to freeze or to eat four
food at warehouse clubs — I want a
days later. And I'm one of those people
relationship with the people I'm buying
who looks forward to leftovers."
from. I like to look the meat man in
Unlike some who have had to pare
the eye when I order." She added, "I
down their cooking amounts, Denise
would go crazy if I had to eat the same
Alexander of Waterford has always
thing for more than one day. I need
cooked for two on a regular basis.
variety.
Except for family dinners and special
"When I cook now, there usually
occasions, Alexander usually cooks only
aren't leftovers. The only night there
for herself and husband Stephen Pyle.
are leftovers are when I've misgauged
Alexander looks to find foods per-
amounts."