Now that you've explained the rest of your requirements, I can see that `fr` is not suitable for the purpose. In the meantime you've gotten a better answer for the updated requirements, in particular min-content and max-content.
First:
> I want a simple 2 column row with the first field being narrow and the second field stretching to fill the width
Second:
> i want the first column to be just wide enough, and the second column to fill the space.
Now that you've explained the rest of your requirements, I can see that `fr` is not suitable for the purpose. In the meantime you've gotten a better answer for the updated requirements, in particular min-content and max-content.