I have the coolest friend named Maria. She has an amazing garden and amazing barns and amazing dogs and a cool truck and a pretty cool boyfriend, but mostly she's just a great person and a generous friend. She is always having someone over to cook for, and she makes the best food. If you get an invitation to Maria's, you should consider yourself lucky--you are definitely going to have a good time eating really good food and talking to smart and entertaining people. And you might get a little schnockered. This is her dog Dash. Actually it's Roberto's dog, but everyone assumes she told him what kind of dog to get so it would match her dogs better. And it does! It's amazing.

Anyway, I have to draw where to put her barn for her, so I'd better get going. But here's a sketch I did for her oven. It was eventually built, albeit in a different form, by Mark Mendel, who is an amazing mason and an amazing person whom I met at one of Maria's dinner parties, even though I already knew him. Mark knows a sh_tload about jazz, which is cool. And even though he probably winces when he hears people say it, who doesn't want to know how to build cool stone walls? Anyway, hope you enjoy it and stay tune here for lots more drawings of things for Maria. I like to do it and it makes me feel better about all the times I eat food at her house.

(Author James Akers is a registered architect and illustrator with over 25 years experience. He provides both in-house and studio-based sketching, rendering, and what one might call "design stenography" services to many of NYC's and Boston’s leading architects.)