'America Could Be Less Fastly Fastly'

For those of you unfamiliar with the "And the Pursuit of Happiness" column by artist Maira Kalman on the New York Times Website, I recommend a visit. I especially recommend a visit to her most recent offering, "Back to the Land," the Thanksgiving edition of her whimsically illustrated column.

The charming piece uses photographs and a funny, poetic, present-tense narration to chronicle her trip to California to visit Alice Waters' Edible Schoolyard program. Kalman gets an in-kitchen meal at Chez Panisse. "The comings and goings of this restaurant kitchen warm my heart," she writes in her characteristic scrawl. She visits Bob Cannard's farm, where she goes on a walk with Michael Pollan. "Oh course," she writes, "he finds mushrooms." She visits the Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley: "The children sow and reap. They pick beans and kale and pineapple guava."

Despite her funky and simple presentation, Kalman grapples with some deep and serious issues that leave the reader thinking. Her final paragraph (stanza?) sums it up: "The United States of America could be less fastly fastly and more slowly slowly. We could think small and shift to a new (old) way of growing food and eating and being. Something that would make the founders happy."

Photo courtesy of di_the_huntress via flickr