Randy has shared his recipe for Superfine Cheese Straws, so I can enjoy a taste of Dixie in the City of Angels anytime.

When I moved from Alabama back to Southern California in December and listed the Dixie specialities I’d miss, I overlooked a gem: my friend Randy’s Superfine Cheese Straws. He and his partner Phillip were kind enough to give me a generous batch of these delicate treats before I left Birmingham. I’m pretty sure I ate them all (with a little sneaky help from Rascal) before the car pulled out of the driveway.

They’re that good. As I noted in an earlier crazy rant, cheese straws as they’re made in the Deep South are a savory pleasure of cheddar cheese, butter, and flour. Love ‘em with a gin and tonic, which was usually how Phillip served them to me. 

Randy’s Superfine Cheese Straws

Surprisingly, cheese straws are not the place to use your fancy English Cheddar. “The cheap stuff, like Cracker Barrel, works best for us,” says Phillip. A cookie press is a gadget that allows you to load the dough into a barrel and press out cookies–or cheese straws–in a uniform shape. Most come with an assortment of attachments for different shapes and sizes. If you don’t have one, shape the dough into little logs by hand. The results won’t look as refined as the photo above, but you’re using Cracker Barrel for crissakes, so there’s no need to be high-falutin’.

9 ounces flour (about 2 cups) 

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cayenne (or more, if you want them hotter)

4 ounces (1 stick) butter, melted

1 pound sharp cheddar cheese, grated and at room temperature

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Sift together first 4 ingredients. Place butter butter and cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment; beat until smooth. With the mixer on, slowly add flour mixture, beating until dough forms. Place dough into cookie press, squeeze desired shape. Place on 2 baking sheets covered with parchment paper. Bake at 350 degrees F for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool 2 minutes on pans. Cool completely on wire racks. Store in an airtight container for up to a week (though I can’t imagine they’d last that long). Yield: well, that depends on how the size of cheese straws you choose. I mean, don’t go overboard or anything. They’re just supposed to be a lil’ cocktail nibble.

Biscuits and chocolate gravy.

I’ll try to get Kevin to write a post about this Kentucky dish, and share his mom’s recipes.

Another great goodbye treat was a bag of cheese straws from my friend Phillip. His partner makes them, and they’re the best I’ve had–cheddary, peppery, delicate–wonderful with a gin and tonic. I’ll try to procure the recipe for that, too.

Randy's Superfine Cheese Straws

Mook's Cheese Straws, made in Alabama, are the real thing.

I just cruised over to Chef Eric Ripert’s delightlful blog, Avec Eric.  Like many, I’m seduced by his adorable prematurely gray hair, his Gallic charm, his kid-in-a-candy-store enthusiasm, his sexy accent, his way with food…let me count the ways. “The holidays are an excellent time for a cocktail,” he begins in his current post. Yes, Eric, they are, especially if you’re doing the cooking.

I scrolled through an intriguing roll call of recipes that offer Eric’s interpretation of classic American cocktail fare–chorizo-stuffed shrimp, deviled eggs with smoked salmon, and the like. Then my eyes fell on his Spicy Parmesan Cheese Straws. I clicked on the recipe to check out his spin on the iconic Southern snack. Now, I’ve been living in the Deep South for awhile, long enough to appreciate the simple, decadent pleasure of a good cheese straw. Especially when it’s served with a gin and tonic.  I’ve got a friend who regularly churns out his cheese straws, and they’re so good that I always say he should sell them. 

What Eric offers is. not. a. cheese. straw. His recipe features puff pastry (huh???) cut into strips and coated in a blend of parmesan cheese, chopped pistachios, salt, and cayenne pepper. Delicious, I’m sure. If you served me one but didn’t call it a cheese straw, I’d probably love it. Maybe it’s the language barrier, but semantics count here, and these are by no stretch true cheese straws.

A real cheese straw is a simple decadent please, little more than loads of cheese, butter, and flour. No puff pastry involved.

The real thing is cheese (often cheddar, and lots of it) and butter (lots of it) bound by flour with salt and pepper (could be cayenne), and extruded into their straw shape with a cookie press or pastry bag. Cooks may play with the proportions, the type of cheese, perhaps add herbs. (I once suggested a friend’s college-age daughter bring pot-spiked cheese straws to the family Thanksgiving. Hmm, perhaps that’s why it’s a good idea I’m no one’s parent. But I stand by the concept as a solid one.)

But there is no puff pastry in a cheese straw. Sorry, Eric.

You can buy plenty of classic, packaged cheese straws, even if you’re not in the South. Mook’s, of Florence, Alabama, makes a good one. For a classic rendition, I suggest you try Southern Living‘s Cheddar Cheese Straws. They’d be great with a gin and tonic.