Cooking with wolf ​

I danced around the kitchen, pirouetting from one cabinet to another, gathering supplies in no particular order.

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My dog-shaped shadow follows along.

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A tin of tuna. A medium-sized lidded bowl. A large spoon. The last three pickles from a jar in the back of the fridge.

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There are two dozen eggs … maybe three dozen. The cartons were packed tightly in the refrigerator. So tightly I couldn’t make out a complete inventory.

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I’d been thinking about this moment since my husband (now traveling for business) miscalculated how many elbow noodles he would need to make goulash for the two of us. Hence, I’ve ended up with pasta for days.

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Now where is the mayonnaise? Didn’t I buy some the other day, or was that a dream?

It is the drawback of having only vague dreams. Vivid memories of strolling into the Post Office to buy stamps lead me to a frantic search, until I realize I must have paid for my imaginary postage with Rapid Eye Movements instead of legal tender. This time, I hoped would be different.

Huzzah! I find the mayo wedged behind some half-empty dressing bottles in the door of the fridge.

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Embracing thrift feels necessary these days, what with four-dollar gas and $100 bags of groceries. I laugh as my husband spends quadruple that amount filling up on the delights of bulk supplies at COSTCO just when our flock has left the nest.

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It occurs to me that this hankering for a recipe the Joy of Cooking once called “... so much better than it sounds,” is just a longing for carbs.

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Truly. We have so many ingredients now I could have made something like “Eggs in Hell” … or homemade mouthwash if I were able to locate my mother’s dog-earred copy of M.F.K Fisher’s “How to Cook a Wolf.”  A practical wartime cookbook that wryly advised how home cooks could make silk out of a sow’s ear … or faux vodka without going blind during times of want.

I thought my mother had kept it as a joke. It surmised that if the wolf was at your door, you should invite him to dinner.

But it’s just me … and the puppy … trying to do less with more while the cat’s away on business.

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The dog follows me closely from one side of the room to the other, looking up as I assemble my nostalgic casserole, a childhood favorite brought into the world by Depression-era mothers and a purloined page from a waiting room copy of The Ladies’ Home Journal.

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Time and tastes have made this meal a pariah, especially in this house.

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My husband doesn’t trust food that combines fish, eggs, and mayonnaise, or that is served on the side by the spoonful. I am less discerning, especially when “cooking” for one.

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I don’t really need a recipe. I have a malingering memory of my mother folding fish and fats into cold macaroni and garnishing it with knifeloads of diced pickles and chopped egg. I considered embellishing this madness with a few dashes of Everything Bagel spice, but decided against it for reasons of laziness and lack of adventure, not to mention that the spice blend remained shrink-wrapped.

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The dog watches me work, unperturbed. All hope and no judgment. He knows an elbow or two will fall to the floor. And he will slurp them up, along with the liquid I drained from the tuna onto his kibble and a sausage snack from one of the many bags we’ve hoarded for winter.