Almost 13 years ago Gracie arrived—a feisty little thing who stormed out of her crate and announced herself as the Queen of Frajil Farms. She remained tiny but grew the presence of a lion, bossy and sometimes ill-tempered. On any given morning, you could find her at the top of the stairs with Sadie, our large German Shepherd, and Harry and Houdini, our two black cats, waiting at the bedroom door for permission to pass. Over the years we all accommodated her eccentricities. Dinner was at 5. We knew never to pick her up—to let her come to us. Then she was so loving and purred so loudly you might have thought her a tiger. But Gracie had lots of health problems and today she used the last of her nine lives. Today we said goodbye to Gracie and we will miss her terribly.
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! The inspiration for this collage comes from the beautiful textured green wrapping paper handmade by Sterling and her Dad. I save every scrap.
Every holiday there are the things we repeat always trying to add something new. The cookies (far left) above are called Robin’s Speculatius Cookies, (maybe should be spelled with a “k”) named for Remy’s nursery school teacher. Since it was more than 30 years ago, that makes them a tradition. The thumbprint cookies are from my grandmother with addition of chopped pistachios and raspberry jam we made this summer. And on the right was our favorite dinner from the holiday—short ribs with parsnip purée and horseradish (from the new Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, sauteed broccoli raab, potato latkes (my recipe can be found in The Story of Hanukkah), and braised red cabbage. The parsnips were dug from the garden that morning and the red cabbage also from this year. Sterling wrote another beautiful letter to Santa and we included her cookies and the meringue mushrooms we made. We included them on Santa’s dish and they soon became Rainer’s favorite once she figured out they were actually sweet. They remained a successful bribe, a necessity with a two and half year old, throughout the entire holiday. Below the letter are home-made matzos and challah, indescribably good, and both recipes from Baking with Julia, now out-of-print. I figured out how to make the challah into the shape of a grape cluster, festive looking and serve as tasty little rolls. And the hand knit hats! The pattern was adapted from the patterns from Purl Soho. 
Remy, Sterling, and Rainer are wearing their new hats while sledding at Frajil Farms in the fresh snow. How lucky that we got two snow storms to keep Frajil Farms blanketed in white.
We decorated cookies, opened presents, and ate too many sweets. Below are our kids and their kids.
Sterling saved the day with her beautiful card. I am awed by her attention to detail. We are the red house in the middle. 
So Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year from the entire gang at Frajil Farms! Here’s to a peaceful, productive and healthy new year!
Have a wonderful Hanukkah! PEACE, LOVE & LIGHT!
from all of us at Frajil Farms
I found this tiny little logo inside an old book I picked up from the dump published during World War II. It was a response to the Nazis burning of books. Love the line, the angry eagle clutching his book, and the banner.
Hoping everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
artwork by Sterling
This was not the turkey we served for Thanksgiving. I visited these turkeys so often while getting my eggs at Julie’s Happy Hens, that when I was leaving this turkey hen jumped on my car. She must have known the holiday was right around the corner. Her boyfriend tom was looking up from the ground. Did you know that when the tom’s are pursuing the hens, their wattles get very red and their heads very blue? Quite a sight!
Our garden is now on the “winter side of autumn.” Most of it has been put to bed for the winter.
This year we are trying a floating row cover tunnel to see just how long we can keep those greens coming. It’s the end of November and we are still having fresh salads. 
There is a bit of kale and a few straggling Brussels sprouts left above ground. Buried under hay, are carrots and parsnips fresh for the digging. They were the last addition to the turkey soup pot.
…as Frank so eloquently described September. It’s the beginning of cool nights that turn into warm sunny days. Time to take advantage of those remaining days that you can still sit outside and relax. The cocktail for this small late afternoon gathering was the Lazy Lover. Sadie is the only one left at this party.
LAZY LOVER
1½ oz. Cachaça
½ oz. Benedictine
½ oz. agave nectar
1 oz. fresh lime juice
1 cup Green Chartreuse
½ fresh jalapeno, cut into thin wheels
The garden has peaked. It is a mad rush to get everything picked and processed for the winter. The ugly cucumbers became bread n’ butter pickles while the pretty picklers are now garlic dills in a big jar in the fridge. Our peach tree ripened practically in one day so along with many delicious upside down peach cakes, we canned peach rum jam and peach ginger jam. We even had enough to freeze some for winter smoothies. The tomatoes {on the top right} are Principe Borghese {like a very small plum}—delicious dried and packed in olive oil or roasted with garlic and frozen to be tossed later with pasta. Frank has made quarts of tomato sauce which we try to coordinate with the day I make Minestrone {see recipe below}. All goes into the freezer. We have enough basil pesto and arugula pesto to take us straight through to next summer. Which is important because no matter what, the grandchildren will always eat basil pesto and sometimes that is all they will eat. The extra zucchinis became Zucchini, Leek and Potato Soup as well as little loaves of Zucchini Bread. We froze beans, cauliflower, broccoli, and edamame. All summer we picked and froze raspberries. And even with the many bottles of raspberry infused vodka that Frank had been making, we had so many in the freezer that we made raspberry jam to free up some freezer space. We tried a new recipe from Chez Panisse of raspberries in brandy {above bottom right}. Amazing on ice cream.
This was an easy Kale and Cannellini Bean Soup with chicken stock, garlic, onions, beans and kale. I mashed some of the beans to thicken the soup. But what made it especially good were the slices of toasted Ciabatta basted with olive oil, smeared with roasted garlic literally squeezed onto the bread and topped with roasted Romano tomatoes.
We had an exceptionally good crop of Tuscan Kale and it is still standing though a bit picked over.
From a garden project I worked on, our Minestrone Soup recipe
and tomatoes with recipe for drying the Principe Borgheses.
As you enter my town this spectacular hand-lettered sign sits for all to see. And if this wasn’t wonderful enough, there is one just like it as bold and bright on your way out of town. Both are the fine craftsmanship of Bonnie Miller. Great work Bonnie!
This slight adjustment to the Romney sign speaks volumes, encompassing exactly what this candidate represents. The brainchild of designer Christian Schwartz, who I am also proud to say is my nephew, claims others have come up with this same formula. Whatever! It is brilliant.
And to this I add: http://www.romneytaxplan.com
I joined Authors & Illustrators for Children. org. Anything we can do to help. If you are interested click on this website http://www.aiforc.org/whatyoucando.html
Just to follow up on the previous Obama post—The White House sent a wonderful package to Sterling after she sent her letter to Obama. What a great lesson she learned about speaking her mind. If only she could vote!
I was honored to have two pieces chosen for Picture This! at the Danforth Museum of Art’s second annual juried exhibition showcasing new and original artwork created by picture book illustrators. Selected works will be exhibited in the Children’s Gallery, from September 9 - November 4, 2012. It is a must-see! And when you go, notice how all the art is hung eye level for our audience, the kids!
At the opening, I had the opportunity to meet my fellow illustrators and the juror, Carol Goldenberg, an award winning children’s book designer. The Danforth Museum is such a special place. I was especially pleased to have been included again this year.
As it was also the Jewish New Year, the Danforth had my Rosh Hashanah book, Even Higher for sale. Because of that I was able to meet Doreen Smith, a Danforth docent and wonderful woman. Here we were talking about her 11 day old grand nephew for whom I was signing the book.
Below are the two pieces of art chosen for the show, each quite different from the other. I loved the juror’s choices. There was such diversity in the whole show.
Here in The Story of Esther (Holiday House, 2011) the maidens prepare themselves to meet the King. 
From the Christmas Tree Farm, (Holiday House, 2006) families pick their trees for the holidays. 
My participation in last year’s Picture This! resulted in my solo exhibition of The Story of Hanukkah original art. http://www.danforthmuseum.org/jillweber.html
Besides growing most of our own produce, we are committed to grass fed meats, organically raised chicken, fresh eggs and shopping locally to support our neighborhood farms. So how happy was I when I was asked to do the cover for Shannon Hayes’ new book, Long Way On a Little. http://www.shannonhayes.info/works.htm
This job was also an opportunity for me to combine what I have been learning in photoshop with traditional illustration. To create the look of an old-fashioned sign, I painted the wood and the frame separately. 
The illustrations for both the top and bottom were also painted separately which was a good thing as the bottom panel went through some changes. Layering the wood, then the top and bottom illustrations followed by the frame. 
The illustration above was also done in layers first painting the background and adding the barn and animals after. The banner was added to pull the two sections together. I hand lettered the title which then led to the designer’s request for hand lettering all of the chapter titles along with some spot art. Very satisfying indeed.
Since Sterling (just 6) has learned to read and write, she writes all the time—sometimes an illustrated poem, notes and letters and even an illustrated version of our family tree, entitled “For a family, From a Kid”. She has her own drawing table set up with supplies in my studio so she often disappears to draw or write. During her last visit, she wrote these letters to President Obama.
And then Sterling remembered we had a sheet of sticky jewels so she came back with this letter.
We looked up the address of the White House and wrote my letter to accompany Sterling’s.
“Dear President Obama,
Our six year-old granddaughter was visiting us and overheard our joy when we learned of the Supreme Court decision to uphold the constitutionality of Obama Care. A discussion ensued and shortly after Sterling reappeared with two letters she had written to you. Having just learned how to read and write, she is an avid writer. I promised I would send them to you with her hope that you will respond.
Of course, I explained to Sterling that you are terribly busy. She suggested we send a present for your family. Enclosed are two books, Smart About the Presidents and Smart About the First Ladies. These books were the combined effort of me and three other illustrators, but I was the artist and author for both your page and Mrs. Obama’s page along with both covers. We hope you enjoy them.
We thank you so much for the wonderful job you have done and hope from the very bottom of our hearts that you will remain our president for four more years.”
This was such a fun assignment because we were supposed to be fourth graders writing and illustrating our school report.
We enclosed all of the letters and books and now Sterling is patiently awaiting her response. Even if she doesn’t hear back, we will still vote for him!