…at the American Academy in Rome tonight (over the delightful food prepared in the kitchen she revolutionized, and presided over by the indomitable indefatigable Mona Talbott) was a highlight of autumnal Rome for me , as we sat for 3 hours absorbed in conversation about food, art, gardens, and culture occasionally interrupted by animated stories of people we both love and admire like the brilliant Peter Sellars – who she had to drop everything for in the middle of the meal to have a picture of the two of us taken by her assistant Verun with her iPhone to immediately send to Peter and let him know we were both thinking of him – and at some point in the future I might get my hands on that photo of us smiling in the Academy dining room and post it here, but in the mean time I share with you the image of the plastic row covers installed over the new seedlings in the kitchen garden this morning as the night time temperatures drop towards 45 degrees – but I like the way they look – as if you mean business, like mini radical 1970’s counter-cultural architecture.