iStock photo.

LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” came up with this dinner-saver around this time a couple of years ago. We still need to have dinner saved, don’t we?

I’VE BEEN HAVING a rough couple of weeks. The older of my two sons left for college and along with all the crying in his empty room (me), worrying over course selection (him), the usual pangs of loss (both of us) and the trips to the post office to send him packages, I had an even bigger problem.

Ben, in what has been a revelation to me, turns out to have been my culinary compass. I had spent the better part of two decades building meals around what he liked, needed or craved. He’s my big eater and because he would eat things the rest of us also liked, I built our meals around what he had had for lunch, or what he asked for, or what I thought would be a happy surprise.

Now, as person who prides herself on always figuring out something to make for dinner, I have been at a loss, looking for inspiration when I never needed it before. There have been a few tuna sandwich nights and lots of pasta, since that’s what my younger son, Sam, prefers. But even my amiable husband started wondering where my mojo had gone and when was it  coming back.

Faced with a head of cauliflower and not an idea in sight, I took a look through Sanjeev Kapoor’s How to Cook Indian (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2011). My problems were not nearly over as almost every recipe had about a thousand ingredients that my pantry lacked, but it was start. I had dog-eared a rice pilaf with potatoes and cauliflower. Now, I have to beg Kapoor’s forgiveness because my dish is a complete bastardization. Lacking 10 of his 15 ingredients, I came up with my own version. But I also need to thank him, because it got me back to the stove.

So what did I make? I made a pretty good pilaf.

I sautéed a thinly sliced red onion in a couple of tablespoons of butter (sorry, Kapoor, no ghee here), a couple of teaspoons of mild curry powder (I know, I know, pre-made curry powder—it’s what I had) and some salt. I added cauliflower I had broken into very small florets, a cup of cooked chickpeas (my addition) and 2 small potatoes diced into ½-inch-or-so cubes. I added a cup of uncooked jasmine rice (close enough to the basmati the original recipe called for) and let everything sauté for a couple of minutes, mixing so it all cooked evenly. In went 2 cups of water and I let it cook, covered, on low heat for 15 minutes. I let the pilaf sit for another 10 and, voilà, I had dinner. A few lamb chops would have been great too, but my husband was so happy to see me back in action, he had the good sense not to suggest it.

—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick

Tallulah and friend. / Photo illustration by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

WARNING: Mice ahead. 

The Prince appears to have reached an impasse with the raccoon so now he’s gone to war with my mouse. 

I call him mine because anything that goes wrong around here, and apparently it is very wrong to give shelter and the occasional crumb of sustenance to a mouse, is ultimately my fault. Or so I’m told. While some in this household (me, for instance) never assess blame, others do. As there are only two of us in residence, I’ll let you deduce or deduct or whatnot. 

Though . . . in this case . . . it’s possible . . .

There are four glue traps in the living room and another four in the dining room. There is also one of those mouse hotels, cardboard boxes with something lethal inside. The mouse is supposed to go inside and die. (Design-wise, these leave a lot to be desired. I, for one, wouldn’t be tempted to enter anything so shoddy and unappealing). 

These are the visible traps. I’m sure there are others. There are always others. The Prince knows I consider glue traps the worst form of torture and will throw them away. So he’s trying to fool me by leaving a few out, meanwhile sniggering inside his little brain: “Heh, heh. She thinks she’s gotten rid of them, I’ll show her.”

Meanwhile, the current resident mouse is getting the better of him. We chuckle about this, the mouse and I. 

Interlude.

I had a mouse as a child, I was maybe 8. I don’t remember his (or her) name. I do remember standing at the bathroom sink, deciding it would be nice if he (or she) smelled like Arpège, my older sister’s scent of choice. This did not come out well. The mouse . . . expired. 

My second mouse, Willie, was the pal of my teens. Living in a New York apartment, the pet choices were limited. No one wanted to walk a dog. 

Willie lived in a cardboard box on the floor beside my bed. His particular toy was a small brown paper bag that he’d stand on, wriggling his nose like a tiny puppy when he sensed me around. I’d take him out and we’d chat and so on. When I was out, he’d sometimes chew a corner of the box sufficient in size to escape and frolic around the bedroom floor, then hide in the closet inside a shoe. My mother did not care for him, but she was tolerant. My father had no opinion. 

His sisters, Bea, Ruthie and Mil, would sometimes visit. Though not triplets, they were identical in size and shape, scarcely five feet tall in heels, with button noses, nice legs and little round bodies. They wore their hair in identical short curls, only the color differed: blond Bea, red Ruthie and salt-and-pepper Mil. This was pretty much how you could tell them apart. They’d sit on the living room sofa in a line, little legs dangling, and I’d bring Willie out to say hi. This never went over well. 

Returning to the subject at hand. 

While we were out of town last weekend—and unbeknownst to me—the Prince had deployed traps on the arms of the living room sofa and one rather large one on the middle seat cushion. 

We came home and I observed that the traps were undisturbed but there was a little dropping, delicately positioned on the sofa back. Just one. As if to say, “Point made, buddy?”

He’s a bold little thing, this mouse. Strolls about the living room searching for crumbs while we’re watching TV. We wink at each other. But either the Prince is oblivious or he’s too enraptured by another rerun of Sherlock or “Midsomer Murders” to notice.

I suspect he, at heart, has mixed feelings. 

Last year when Tallulah, our granddog, was visiting, he took her to the park for her night romp. She was chasing the tennis ball for the 400th time when he noticed she’d frozen in her tracks, back rigid, hair standing on end. Wandering over, he saw a field mouse, a tiny gray thing, like the one in our living room, reared on his hind legs with paws posed pugilistically, as if to say, “You wanna fight, Dog?” And Lu, bless her 65-pound soul, backed away very slowly. 

All of which My Prince gleefully described when he got home. He even confessed a fondness for that gutsy little mouse, and I sensed a yearning to have him as a . . . pet? 

Have I mentioned that earlier this summer I saw a sign on a lawn in Rehoboth Beach, “Please do not empty your dog here”? This was so wonderfully polite. And neither here nor there,  

Several years ago I wrote about our little mouse problem, or is it a problem with our little mice? They seem to have no problems, except us. Anyway. I included directions for freeing a mouse from a glue trap, which I wrote about so well that I do not see the need to rewrite and will just recount: 

 All you need to do is coat the mouse and the trap with a little oil, being careful not to drown the mouse, “NEVER USE ANY KIND OF PETROLEUM, SYNTHETIC OR LUBRICATING OIL . . . and do not submerge the mouse’s mouth and nose in the oil,” the instructions stress. I love instructions.

If the mouse has gotten really stuck, you may have to poke it a bit, but use something well padded because he or she is probably pissed off—even if you had nothing to do with its predicament—and might nip.

Now place the oily mouse on its oily trap into a plastic container with a lid and “lock it down” because the mouse will work its way free in a few minutes and leap for the safety of behind the stove.

They suggest driving the mouse to a place far away, at least a mile, otherwise it will come right back. A fairly ridiculous suggestion in the middle of a city.

Personally, I would make the gesture of releasing it into the garden* where it might consider partaking of the hospitality of one of our neighbors. I might even point out a promising direction or two.

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

* See how cleverly I managed to insert the garden into this column, which is theoretically about gardening? 

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” does not restrict herself to writing about flora. Sometimes the subject is fauna.

iStock photo illustration.

HAVE YOU EVER ordered anything from Wayfair, the giant online home-furnishings retailer? You’d probably remember if you had.

First, after spending untold minutes or even hours combing through as many items as you can, short of causing your eyes to bleed, you order something. Then you get an email.

Wayfair is so happy it can barely contain itself: Thanks for your Wayfair order! We love what you chose! See inside for details. . . .

Details of the order I placed two minutes before? My short-term memory isn’t that bad.

Then the next day, more exclamation points:

Your Wayfair package has shipped! The Jetta 6 Drawer Accent Chest is on its way! Track your package and view your order details. . . . Again with the details.

The next email arrives on my computer before the package hits my door (I live in a big building). And, by golly, more exclamation points:

Your Wayfair items were delivered. Woohoo! Your order has arrived! 

That’s a lot of enthusiasm for a little chest of drawers that will live in the guest room just in case a guest wants to plop a suitcase down on something flat. (I doubt overnight guests are going to be filling the drawers with their clothes.)

A couple of these missives were also sent as text messages (fewer exclamation points).

Wayfair has been excited about my household purchases before: In June, We love the Scale you chose! Before that, We love the Fireplace you chose! (They must be German, capitalizing their nouns.)

Of course Wayfair isn’t the only business out there that is excited to work with me. Seamless, the restaurant delivery service, told me only this morning, Just in: new restaurants! That was the same message they sent me last Saturday (but listing different restaurants). And that was only a day after: Food recommendations for you.

At Honest Paws, purveyor of CBD oil and treats for dogs and cats, Customer Experience Representative Neeah welcomed me last Saturday, then the same day thanked me for my purchase and said they were getting [it] ready to be shipped (which pretty much entailed putting a bottle in a box), then on Monday said (Great!) it was about to ship. On Tuesday, Neeah stopped by my Inbox just to say hello (Hello again! I hope you and your cute pet [see how personal that is?] are having a great day.)

So much communication! So little to say! And always, naturally, sell, sell, sell!

Then on Wednesday, big excitement: Hi Nancy, Great! #HP64232 is on its way to its destination (presumably my home). And five hours later, an offer to take 15% off my first order (which, of course, I had placed four days earlier, but it’s the thought that counts, right?).

My purchase arrived on Thursday (Hi Nancy, Great!), and when I couldn’t get the little bottle open, I met another Customer Experience specialist, Amy T., who, bless her heart, ordered me another bottle in case I broke this one while trying to open it (I didn’t).

Some companies don’t seem to believe in oversharing. Verizon is one. They will tell you all sorts of stuff as long as you don’t ask them IRL, which in their case means on the phone. On their site, 17 screens in (okay, I exaggerate, but not by much), you find a phone number and then . . . you wait because of “an unusually large call volume” (translation: We don’t hire enough staff and shuttle them from call to call without a break). Verizon does believe in some communication. While you’re waiting, a recorded voice purrs into the receiver to say, We’re sorry. All of our representatives are still busy. You will hear music until your call is answered. Thank you for your patience.

Maybe 12 bars of music do in fact play, but they keep getting interrupted by the recorded voice saying you will hear music while you wait (except when you don’t).

I realize these are two fundamentally different types of communication. The latter, shared by other utility-type companies (talking about you, AT&T Mobility), comes under the heading of “You’re our customer now and what can you do about it if you can’t even reach someone to cancel your service.”

I consider the former a version of “top of mind marketing.” Technically, top-of-mind refers to the brand names that immediately come to mind when thinking of a particular consumer item. But these constant shout-outs from companies with which I have a minimal relationship seem to have that awareness as a goal. And are as annoying as they are disingenuous.

The first mass email was sent out in 1978 by Digital Equipment Corporation. Things have been going downhill ever since.

—Nancy McKeon

I BELIEVE I once told you that I was afraid of vegetable soup until I was 30-something. It was such off-putting stuff, with strange items floating, unidentifiable lumps of orange and those brown bits. The white things were the worst. I’m not going to say what they looked like chopped up like that. 

And then one day a Eureka! moment. I realized there were vegetables in the soup. Stock and vegetables. That’s it. 

Now, I’ve never been wild about vegetables; I find them somewhere between boring and inedible unless they’re smothered in cream or cheese or both. In fact, in theory, I’m a vegetarian—animal cruelty you know, sweet little piggies, downy little chickens. But in practice? There’s bacon. 

No bananas yet, but the poor thing looks as if it’s trying. / Photo by Stephanie Cavanaugh.

I just happened to read a report today that said bacon can cure Alzheimer’s, well, not specifically bacon, but fats, and in mice, not people, but better safe! These fats should be ingested when pregnant, lots of fats. I immediately passed this along to my baby who is With Child and will be until late December. Eat more bacon, I said. It’s good for baby’s brain. 

You’ve seen the movie Sleeper, I trust. Cigarettes will be next. 

Getting back to my point, I think. 

I know this might be hard to fathom. But I’m a city girl who didn’t understand cooking until I left home and began burning hamburgers out of desperation. My mother was an excellent chef so learning to make anything myself seemed pointless. But even though I trusted my mother, and she’d never actively tried to harm me, vegetable soup was still an unappetizing concoction that I wanted no part of. 

Similarly, I honestly thought there was an animal called a veal. That was a thought that also took way too long to be corrected. It was called veal. Like beef is called beef. And duck is duck. And so forth.  So I thought it was an animal.

Last summer I had a moment with bananas.

I was at this boutique garden center a few blocks away, a place where our friend Carol, who was visiting from Ohio, once stopped to pick up a little posy for me as a house gift, figuring how  much could such a thing cost? She was too embarrassed to put it back. The flowers did last a few weeks, I assured her, then reassured her every day until they passed. I dried a few bits and added them to an arrangement, just to add to the perceived value. 

Anyway, instead of buying anything, as I passed one day, I stopped to admire the banana trees, which were unusually frilly. As I have several of these, I asked one of the guys who worked there about banana trees that actually grow bananas, not just stand around looking unusually frilly. And he said: This is a banana tree that grows bananas. That’s what banana trees do.

Oh.

This is something I have never seen in the North until now. Or, to be more precise, last Monday around noon. My Prince and I were in Raleigh, North Carolina (home of the deep-fried HoHo’s—and on this trip, I noticed deep-fried Oreo’s. They fry everything there. But this is neither here nor there). 

We were visiting Baby and her Personal Prince Pete and were cruising the farmers market picking up tomatoes and peaches and elephant garlic (which is giant garlic) and were breezing through the plant section, though we need nothing, particularly at the end of August. And there was this tall, spindly thing with a few limp leaves, not particularly attractive, but it had a tightly gathered cluster of fat purplish tuberous things, like small eggplants, with a flutter up top that looked like an emerging flower. 

Curious, I asked the phlegmatic farmer what it was. “A banana,” he said, heaving his portly self out of his deck chair. “My last one. $25.” That it was the last one didn’t surprise me as it was probably the Charlie Brown of the lot. But it had fruit. Like six of them, which if you go by Whole Foods organic prices brought the price of the plant down . . . some. 

A banana with bananas on it? And a mystery flower that looks like it’s about to do something? This was a miracle indeed, and of course I had to have it. 

My Prince bought it for me, and he wasn’t even guilty of anything. I wasn’t ailing either, or in some slough of despond, so that was nice of him. He also sprang for a “tea cup” elephant ear, about  four feet tall in its pot, which has these folded leaves on long slender stems. The farmer hoisted a watering can and poured water over the leaves and the water dripped off. “See,” he said.

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be seeing. It looked like a plant being watered. But I’d never seen an elephant ear quite like it (they were rather dainty for elephant ears) and thought it mysterious and wonderful and I had to have it.

Now, I have several banana trees, none of which has deigned to fruit. I also have a fake banana that looks better than this real one, that’s also the only one that looks like it’s dying.  

This morning I repotted the banana and stuck it in the sunniest corner of the back porch, where I can watch it in the morning while I drink my coffee and read the paper. One day, who knows when, the bananas will ripen, I suppose, and My Prince can pluck one to slice into his Cheerios. 

This is a pleasant picture. In my head. 

—Stephanie Cavanaugh

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” probably also used to think that chocolate milk came from brown cows. But she’s better now.

A spicy shrimp, orange and avocado salad. / Photo by Stephanie Witt Sedgwick.

The weather seems just about right for a reprise of this column from Stephanie Sedgwick. It ran about a year ago, but we forgot to print it out—maybe you did too.

MY LOVE AFFAIR with the avocado began 24 years ago. It’s easy to remember the date because my husband and I were on our honeymoon when the obsession hit. This new love entered my culinary life in Mexico City, and by the time we got to Puerto Vallarta, I was hooked.

It was easy to succumb, Avocados were everywhere, from the markets to almost every plate of food we were served. Between my eagerness to please my new husband, an avocado-lover from way back, and the onslaught of the thing, I gave in and tried some.

Love at first bite, enough said. Silky, fatty and light at the same time—you all know what I’m talking about—avocado instantly became a fave.

It’s been a love that hasn’t faded. Of course, I’ve made vats of guacamole, but where avocado has really made its mark on my table is as a salad ingredient. Avocado plays so well off of sharp flavors, like citrus, vinegar and spices. I leave a love of avocado toast to others; it’s fine,  but what I really like is pairing avocados with strong partners. Here are a few of my ideas to add to your own avocado repertoire.

Avocado, Shrimp and Orange Salad: My favorite hot-weather salad main course. Chunks of avocado mixed with orange slices, steamed or boiled shrimp. Diced sweet onion and a dressing of fresh orange juice, olive oil, chopped chives and salt and pepper. If the orange juice isn’t that sweet, add a little sugar.

Avocado, Spicy Shrimp and Grilled Corn Salad: Rub peeled and deveined raw shrimp with a spice rub and oil. Grill until cooked through. Grill a few ears of corn using whichever method you like and cut the kernels off the cob as soon as the corn is cool enough to handle. Mix the grilled shrimp with diced avocado, the corn kernels, diced sweet onion and/or sweet red bell pepper. Add herbs as desired. Cooked black beans are a great addition too, but rinse thoroughly before adding, Dress with some apple-cider vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper.

Chopped Avocado and Green Salad: This is a another nod to my husband, who has a much greater love of the green salad than I do. He loves a traditional green salad, me not so much, so I arrived at this compromise. I chop up a mix of bitter-ish greens—radicchio, escarole and the like. I cut the avocado similarly, into small matchsticks, the exact size and shape don’t matter much, and then I mix with a balsamic vinaigrette. Pair with a grilled steak and you’ve got dinner.

—Stephanie Witt Sedgwick

LittleBird “Stephanie Cooks” has great ideas for dinner!