a break:

Dear readers, today is Paczki day here in the midwest (pronounced "poonch-kee"). This has nothing to do with my cooking mission, but since it's an important midwestern food holiday, I thought it was worth mentioning. Paczki day is a polish tradition, wherein you attempt to use up all of the fruit, sugar, and lard in the house, which is forbidden during lent. Stalwart Paczki day observers will only eat paczki's on paczki day; and although some stores have had paczki's for a week or two, many only carry them on paczki day.


I had some extra cheese that was just starting to get moldy, so I decided to make deep fried cheese sticks. At $13 a pound for gruyere cheese, you'd expect them to be pretty good - and they were. Maybe I'll make them every year in honor of Paczki day.