My dearests, dreadful weather today, have been all but housebound except for a brief foray with weights up and down the length of my dead end road this afternoon in gray dripping sleet and with icy slush slicking the asphalt, soaking through my shoes, and seeping up my pants legs.

Indoors all is cozy, it was a good day to cook and so I made a few dishes: hummus (purée of sesame paste, chick peas, garlic, lemon juice, cumin, and EVOO), which became filling along with mixed salad for pita sandwiches; a beautiful plum tart made with farmstand fruit that I had frozen in August or September; and now, for dinner, chicken legs stewed in caponata (a mélange of eggplant, tomato, and peppers) to be spooned over penne.

But my darling starved gnat, you and I are still camping on the beach in St. John, where all is sunny and balmy and temperate breezes blow onto shore... We're not starved here at all, we're basking barefoot in the sunshine, peeling shrimp and cleaning fish that the driver whose brother's a fisherman provides to us each day from his daily catch... at night we make love and if one or both of us is a light sleeper it's because we wake to the sudden rhythmic rains pouring down onto the canvas roof... inside the spacious tent, all is dry and comfortable and cozy - it's a big enough tent that we can even stand and walk around... in the morning the driver comes around (we've hired him for the week, he was happy for the work and as it happens his paramour resides nearby)... while we're still waking in each other's arms he's lit the propane fire and set up coffee in an old tin pot and left us eggs from his wife's chickens along with a papaya from his tree...

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My dearest. I don't even need the idyllic setting. I think of you, the whole night through...