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While I was in prison, I was the food procurement clerk. It was my job to work with the first cook to design the daily food menu (a 6-week cycle) and then make sure the men were fed on a budget of $2.60 per person per day. The Best Xmas prison meal, a thread...
Believe it or not, it was relatively easy to serve 3 fairly healthy, hearty meals to men for only $2.60 per person per day - because I was buying in bulk.
My goal throughout the year was to average $2.45 per person per day, that way I could splurge on holiday meals like Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, etc.
In 2011, my last Christmas in prison, I wanted to make it special. I got permission from the Lieutenant to use my grandmother’s recipes for the meal served to my fellow incarcerated men.
I procured ten large turkeys and stayed up all night in the kitchen baking and carving them. The stuffing was made like stuffing should be made - inside the turkey.
The meal also had green bean casserole with French fried onions and freshly mashed potatoes. There was pumpkin pie. I even made a fresh cranberry sauce for the guys.
It was the best Christmas meal I ever had in prison, not just because it tasted good - but because it was made with my grandmother’s recipes and came from my heart.
And I realize this job of mine probably sounds strange, but it gets even weirder. It was my job to negotiate prices with vendors. Change purchases when the market shifted. Apply for purchase orders. AND go to town and actually shop for the food (with C/O escort, of course).
Yes - I went grocery shopping every week, at Smart & Final, while I was incarcerated (the last 2+ years of my term).
As an aside, procuring the turkeys had to happen in a back door deal because the prison budgeting office wouldn’t allow whole turkeys as a purchase (“too fancy for inmates”). So I worked with the @LACOFD to have the turkeys donated for our Christmas meal.
I don’t want to give the impression that I was the only one cooking. I’m not that badass. There were five or six other men who did the cooking as well. If anything, I was helping them cook because I was better at budgeting than baking.
I do write stories about my time in prison. Some of them are at this website. Here’s one: https://hahnscratch.com/2017/02/25/scrambled-eggs-tortillas-and-salsa/
But I've been transitioning away from prison-specific writing to writing focused on personal transformation. https://hahnscratch.com/2020/12/26/dirty-hands-clean/
Clearly, I need to write a story about all the weird things I did when I had this job. From food procurement clerk to guard’s family court lawyer to CO overtime biller to math tutor for CO’s children to illegal firearm paperwork manipulator to firefighter to disciplinary clerk.
Every time I write one of my story tweets, people seem to like it. Makes me think my stories are worth hearing. I really need to finish this book already.
Someone mentioned "taste memories" in a comment and I can't find it. I wrote about that once - while smuggling vegetables into Folsom Prison. https://hahnscratch.com/2017/02/24/the-men-of-china-hill/
