Two kinds of cooking

There was a time when I devoured new cookbooks, marking them with post-its and cooking from inside the pages. I tried my hand at making bread, or other more involved recipes that required a bit of time and patience.

Now, there are two kinds of cooking now: aspirational and real life. 

What is aspirational now, was normal before this happened. My weeks are regimented, dinner is simple, and a rotation of reliable standbys I may or may not update to liven things up. Here's what I mean: beans and...