Please shift your attention to delicious cheese sticks

By LEAH ESKIN

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

I drive stick. Because I like to. True, it’s outmoded and unnecessary and more work. But it’s also more fun. It takes some foot/eye coordination and likely imposes wear and tear on those joints not yet worn and torn. But driving stick counts as driving. Whereas driving automatic counts as sitting.

Of course there’s some downside to this anachronistic activity. As the manual-transmission rolls toward extinction, so does the supply of manual-transmission operators. Expecting someone else to take the wheel — like the sitter girl or valet guy — gets sticky.

Which is why I prefer sitters from far-flung hamlets, like Puntarenas or Dubuque, where drivers are still stuck on stick. The city carpark is harder to negotiate. At one spot I frequent, manual-shifts idle in the drop-off zone, unable to find an escort to the lot.

Stick offers the illusion of control. I can rev. Torque. Shift. Grind. Stall. Back up, scrape the adjacent bumper, incur a staggering repair bill and a chance to meet — via our respective representatives — Dorothy Hamill, mother of the owner of the offended five-speed. Someone who knows torque.

Stick offers opportunity for discussion — endless, heated, marital discord — regarding when to engage that enticing sixth gear. Like the 160-mile-per-hour mark on the speedometer. Largely theoretical.

As a new driver, I first negotiated clutch and tachometer during rush hour on Chicago’s Rush Street, prompting such thoughts as: Oh. No. But after the initial learning curve has been banked, shifting — like typing — works best without thinking. It’s, well, automatic.

Automatic, on the other hand, shares something with autopilot. And gives me the same uneasy feeling. While the plane is held aloft by flimsy radar rays, what is the actual pilot up to? Mapquesting Starbucks?

Standard-shift, it seems to me, ought to come standard. Unlike all that optional primping: passenger-side fridge, glove-compartment espresso maker, integrated Toast-R-Oven. Recipe for a hot, crunchy disaster.

After a shift on shift, I speed home, satisfied I’ve guided my station wagon with the verve and acumen of the driver accustomed to jumpsuit and helmet. I parallel park, neatly. Then swagger inside to crisp a cheese stick in the Toast-R-Oven. One that’s solidly stationary. And manual shift.

CHEESE STICKS

2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese

1⁄4 teaspoon ground red pepper

1⁄2 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 pound (or one package) frozen puff pastry, defrosted

Toss: In a small bowl, toss together cheese, red pepper and cumin seeds. Set aside.

Roll: On a lightly floured work surface, roll out puff pastry into a large rectangle. Position the rectangle vertically. Scatter the bottom two-thirds with half the cheese mixture. Cover with wax paper and press in cheese by rolling gently with a rolling pin. Set aside wax paper.

Fold: Fold the blank top third down and the embossed bottom third up, like a cheesy love letter.

Repeat: Roll out into a big rectangle again. Scatter the remaining cheese across the bottom two-thirds. Press in cheese, as before. Fold, as before. Roll into a big rectangle again.

Cut: Using a pizza cutter, cut the rectangle in half lengthwise. Set one half on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Turn it lengthwise. Starting at the bottom, cut the dough into 1⁄2-inch thick strips, stopping 1 inch short of the top edge. All the strips will remain attached to this top border, fringe style. Repeat with remaining dough.

Twist: Grasp each strip at the free end and twist. Rest the handle of a wooden spoon on the finished free ends, to prevent untwisting.

Freeze: Slide the pans of twisted cheese sticks into the freezer. Freeze at least 1 hour (or, later secured in a plastic container, up to 1 month).

Bake: Snap the frozen cheese twists off the backbone. Separate slightly on the parchment-lined pans and bake at 375 degrees until just crisp, 14-15 minutes. Cool on a rack. These make wonderfully crunchy hors d’oeuvres and get along well with soup.

Makes about 60.

Provenance: I developed an interest in this recipe early, when caught snagging cheese sticks from a grown-up party. The 3-fold cheese-embedding technique is detailed in the 2006 “Joy of Cooking.” The rest comes from much delicious trial and error.