Meatless March

It was a weekend of records around here. There were, for example, my backup dancer's personal best swim meet times in the 50-yard breaststroke and the 100-yard individual medley. And then there was the collection of vinyl records we found abandoned along the side of the road on Sunday. Someone discarded Sonny & Cher, George Gershwin, and more. They were warping in the hot sun. No one got you, babe. Finally, there was dinner on Saturday night, which had to represent a new personal record for how long it takes to get a dang pasta dish on the table. I made " Zucchini Pasta With Crispy Capers and Pistachios " (NYT Cooking). The recipe stated that the cooking time was 50 minutes; it took me more like two hours, even though I took a couple shortcuts. By the end of those two hours, I was thoroughly hangry, my kitchen looked like I'd staged a food fight, I had grease splatters on my shirt, and I had lit a paper towel on fire by placing it too close to a burner. Whoops. My

A friend who lives in the Midwest recently came to visit New York, and I made plans to meet him for lunch. The train trip from my New Jersey town to New York Penn Station takes less than 40 minutes, and many people live here especially for the convenience of commuting by rail into the city. Alas, on that particular day, my jaunt into NYC was not to be. I was walking to the train when I got an alert that all trains in both directions on my line were cancelled indefinitely, because of a problem with wires. I could have driven to a stop on another line, sure, or even all the way into the city, but I didn't know where I was going or where I would park when I got there, and my window to make it in time for lunch didn't allow much time to figure those things out. My friend and I settled for a phone catch-up instead. New Jersey Transit is plagued by all kinds of problems, but its  overhead wire issues are caused by extreme heat , and we have had plenty of that all over the United Stat