When I was a teenager, I would lose myself in the cookbook aisle of my local used bookstore as I imagined the kinds of dinner parties I would throw when I had a kitchen of my own. I was drawn to thick cookbooks filled with expensive ingredients and aspirational menus, and I specifically remember passing over books about eating on a budget — classics like "The Thrifty Cook" and "Good Recipes for Hard Times" — because it wasn't the future I envisioned for myself.
Then I grew up and realized that "rent week" was suddenly a monthly reality.
