Cook: This “highly adaptable” vegetarian skillet chili from Melissa Clark, part of our weekday series on cooking with pantry staples.

Read: For his book “Mitch, Please!” the American sports radio host Matt Jones drove across Kentucky to understand why Mitch McConnell polls so poorly there yet is serving his sixth term in the Senate. Mr. Jones calls Mr. McConnell “the most destructive force in American democracy.”

Smarter Living: Catastrophizing, or imagining the worst-case scenario and planning for it, can be damaging. So take a breath, stick to the facts and follow these other suggestions for staying sane.

And now for the Back Story on …

Losing the sense of smell

There is growing evidence that anosmia — loss of the sense of smell — may be a symptom of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Medical experts said that people who lose their ability to smell or taste should isolate themselves for at least a week, even if they were otherwise asymptomatic.

Sarah Maslin Nir, a Times reporter who covered an outbreak in the New York City suburb of New Rochelle, lost her sense of smell last week and later tested positive for the virus. She spoke to our colleague Jonathan Wolfe about her experience for our Coronavirus Briefing.

When did you notice that you couldn’t smell?

I had a socially distant lunch with a friend on Perry Street, at opposite ends of a stoop, and she passed me some Clorox wipes. And I thought, unscented Clorox wipes? That’s weird. But then I looked at them, and they said “lemon scent.”