For Ukrainian Catholics like Martha Stasiuk, nothing's as delicious as Easter morning.

It's partly the food, especially the carefully made traditional breads, sausage, ham, eggs and cheeses that families pack into baskets for a Holy Saturday blessing ceremony.

The hunger helps, too. Stasiuk and others like her abstain from meat and dairy products for a day or two before Easter. Then on Easter Sunday, they eat little or nothing before morning services that may last two or three hours at St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church in Kenmore, celebrating the resurrection of Christ.

"We appreciate the meat more, quite a bit more, because we have a big fast day the Friday before, and Saturday," said Stasiuk, who was born in Ukraine and arrived in Buffalo in 1959. Once church ends, she said, "Then you go home and have your feast."