When my dear friend Julia Burke, mistress of the magnificent Ogilvie Farm in North Salem asked me to help her plan a soiree that would be part of the benefit series “Tables of Content” for the North Salem Free Library, I could not resist.

Immediately, an evening based on my favorite novel “Il Gattopardo” — “The Leopard” by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa — and the subsequent film, Lucchino Visconti’s masterpiece, began to take shape in my mind.