The Mad Munchies

Food for Thought is a small restaurant along Arthur in Missoula, right across the street from Jesse Hall, that infamous and immense U of M dorm where, according to legend, a thick cloud of the most glorious and moist Portland ganja smoke hangs perpetually around the tenth floor. But this place across the street, Food for Thought, makes a mean grilled cheese. They make this masterpiece on twelve-grain bread with a blend of three cheeses, and should you desire, you can get tomato, bacon, or both added to the melty goodness. To me, part of the greatness of the Food for Thought grilled cheese with bacon is that particular dining establishment's ambiance. On a warm spring or autumn day, patrons can sit at the tables outside and watch everyone walk by on the sidewalks and be visible to those looking out of windows on the west side of the west wing of Jesse Hall. It's a kind of see-and-be-seen shangri-la. To someone from sidewalkless suburbia like me, the place has always seemed like the epitome of glamor, or perhaps the Garden City of the Northwest's answer to the Parisian cafe.

But speaking of grub in glamorous or famous locations, Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) in Ocean's Eleven really seems to have the mad munchies. The first time we see him eat in that film, he's in Los Angeles, that American pop-culture mecca to which so many people seem to dream of moving and in which so many of our movies and television shows are produced. As Rusty waits for Topher Grace to show up for the B-movie superstar poker class, he eats what appears to be an order of nachos out of one of those notorious fast-food paper boats. That food, evidently so glorious that it merits hallway finger licking, proves to be merely the beginning. When Rusty and Daniel Ocean (George Clooney) scout out Yen as part of their team, Rusty sips from a big old styrofoam cup of soda in the circus tent where Yen performs. On the way out of the tent, he's fingering cotton candy out of one of those plastic stick-bags in which cotton candy is packaged at amusement parks. Then, when he goes to Florida to recruit Saul (Carl Reiner), he mocks Saul for eating an orange and proceeds to eat some kind of jello-looking concoction with a plastic spoon in the box seats at the racetrack, a concoction which seems magically to get fuller, and by the end of the scene seems to be some kind of mixed fruit cup. But the most famous (and perhaps the most glamorous) consumption on Rusty's part has to be the shrimp cocktail at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. While Linus (Matt Damon) tells him about Benedict and Tess, Rusty munches away on a sweet-looking shrimp cocktail, the kind actually served in a cocktail glass. He even goes so far as to have the little hand towel on his arm so as not to get cocktail sauce on his ridiculously nice suit. But why all the grub? Many movies simply ignore the whole eating thing. But in Ocean's Eleven, the eating, especially the eating of such munchie-type food, creates a nice contrast with Rusty's stellar wardrobe and also compliments his laid-back demeanor. And it's glamorous as hell. I mean, who doesn't want that shrimp cocktail?

And who doesn't want that Food for Thought grilled cheese with bacon? Such thoughts remind me of Christine Scanlon's wonderful poem "The Grilled Cheese Sandwich," which was included in The Best American Poetry 2005. In it, she writes, "A well-made grilled cheese sandwich can open a vista/leading to popularity and the possibilities/for 'a good time.'" Indeed. Perhaps munching on the right thing makes us look glamorous now just as smoking cigarettes might have made us look glamorous in the 50s. And the location becomes important too. As Scanlon writes, "Where the perfect grilled cheese sandwich is/the successful party is also." So you have to look like Brad Pitt to be glamorous, then you have to munch on the right thing (a shrimp cocktail perhaps), and finally the place of your snack, something like the Bellagio in Vegas, becomes glamorous. For me, the height of glamour and sophistication is a grilled cheese and bacon on the corner of Arthur and Daly in Missoula. If you haven't had one there, I highly recommend it. It is so choice.