On cooking for two

I am a retired farmer’s wife. I cooked for one husband, seven children and various others. Now the horde is gone and I’m left helpless. I don’t know how to cook for two. I can’t gauge the amounts of anything it seems. We have left-overs from the left-overs.

It’s a malady, I’m sure. The symptoms begin when the first child leaves home and worsens as one by one they leave, until Ma and Pa are left gloating; “Now they’re gone! We get to eat what we want: Liver and onions, broccoli, sauerkraut, lutefisk, pickled herring and so forth.

But suddenly the pots and pans are too large,...