Follow the Cheese

Herald columnist Jim DeFede's odyssey across the United States as he delivers the Virgin Mary cheese sandwich to Las Vegas.

Coming Soon: The George Washington GCS 

The diner in Crawford, Texas stays open each night until 7:30.

Even when the town's most famous resident is away -- as he is most of the time -- his presence is never far away. There are life size cardboard pictures of George W. Bush and Laura Bush that folks can stand alongside and have their pictures taken.

The diner also sells T-shirts, key chains and all sorts of souvenirs. As you would imagine, the president is big business in this town, population 713.

On the menu, a grilled cheese sandwich sells here for $2.75.

But seeing the VMGCS caused the cook, JJ Alaniz, to think he might be able to get a little more for them. While I polished off a chicken fried steak Tuesday night, he was in the kitchen seeing if he could make a grilled cheese sandwich with the president's face on it. Any president's face.

"He's back there now trying to draw George Washington on one of the sandwiches," said Mallory McIver, a waitress who lives down the road seven miles in McGregor.

When I finished my dinner, the VMGCS and I walk back into the kitchen and catch JJ still trying to scratch an outline of a face in the toasted bread with a knife.

"It's George Washington," he says, optimistically. "See, there's his head right there. And his hair."

"I don't see anything," I tell him.

"Damn," he cries. "But do you think I could still get $50 for it?"

More on my trip to Crawford will be published in The Miami Herald on Thursday.


posted by Jim DeFede at 2:13 PM