Coffee Cake

Today may have been the fastest day since I started my sentence back on July 12th. Earlier this week I was debating whether or not I should take today off as I did last week. However; the menu (peanut lunch day) and the fact that it was the kitchen supervisor’s last day convinced me to go to work today. I made a very good decision. The menu for breakfast on Sundays is always the same: fried eggs (ugh!), sausage (ugh again!), triangle tater tots, cold cereal, banana, toast and skim milk.

This is a very easy day for me on the ovens because only the tater tots and sausages go in the oven. Also, there is no need for preparation of these items in order for them to be placed on the front line. The tater tots are cooked on a 2 x 1 cookie sheets and the sausages are cooked in six inch pots. Both of these are then placed directly onto the front line from the oven. In addition, today just like yesterday, we only serviced one side of the dining hall. I am not clear on the reason why but it appears the main line cellblocks were on some type of lockdown status and this being a weekend the staffing level of the C/O’s are lower.

The fact that we serviced only one dining hall slowed everything precipitously. We were done cooking the items well before the second (out of six) service had been completed. We had a lot of time to clean the areas near the ovens and the ovens themselves. Normally we are done with all the services by 8:00 am but today we were done at 10:15 am. My area was done with all the cleaning by 9:00 am. Just because we were done with our area did not mean we could return to the dormitory. Everyone must be completed as well because the C/O’s are responsible for all of us. It is much easier to keep all of us in a controlled environment until everyone is ready to go back to the dorm.

I did pace myself and took my time; however, I was looking for something else to do around 10:00 am. Much to my surprise a supervisor from the main kitchen came and asked for five volunteers. Thankfully, I was in the right place at the right time and jumped at the chance to volunteer. The kitchen supervisor was looking for volunteers because the normal inmate workers who are from the main line were on lock down. Lockdown status applies to all of these main line inmates and means none of them (regardless if they have a prison job or not) can leave their cells until further notice.

The five of us from the A-Yard kitchen were filling in for the main line inmates in the central kitchen. I had no idea what we were going to do; I was just happy to do something. We are helping the kitchen supervisor gather all dinner items for this evening and breakfast items for tomorrow morning. These items were for three of the areas in the prison - A-Yard, E-Yard, and Reception Center. This was something a kin to shopping. We went around to all the freezers, refrigerators, dry storage and bakery areas with the kitchen supervisor as they checked off their list. We then loaded these on a truck which delivered these items to the areas.
This was not difficult work at all. The hardest part was reading the tags on the frozen pre-cooked entrees to ensure they were going to the correct place. I was amazed at the quantity of all the food and how big some of the bags were. The pancake mix looked like bags of cement and I think they weighed more. Also, it appeared all of the food is pre-cooked at least two days ahead of time because there were items for Tuesday already in the freezer.

We started this at 10:00 am and weren’t completed until 1:00 pm. However, as I mentioned, the work wasn’t very difficult and the kitchen supervisor treated us super nice. As we loaded up the orange juice she took out an extra crate and told us to take whatever we wanted. (A quick aside – orange juice is something all of the inmates fall all over; except for me of course. I don’t know what the big attraction is but when we serve orange juice for breakfast the supervisor usually keeps it under lock and key until we are ready to serve. Of course my taste buds being what they are, I find the orange juice horrid and I have a very difficult time getting through one four ounce serving. To me this orange juice tastes like it went bad a few days ago but I am certainly in the minority.) Because we were told to take whatever orange juice we wanted all of the other inmates grabbed seven or eight. As we went around to the other areas such as the freezer section, she took out an extra case of ice cream and sherbet (just for me). This didn’t stop as we went into the bakery area she took out a white sheet cake with white icing and also a left over tray of coffee cake.

I need to take a step back for a moment and briefly explain one of the purposes of this blog is to keep me accountable to my recovery and by doing this I am accountable to myself. (I may or may not get to this in detail in this posting but I will certainly detail this in a few days). What I am about to write may shock some people (don’t worry it has nothing to do with compulsive gambling and my abstinence) as I took out the coffee cake for the other inmates I was overwhelmed by the smell of cinnamon. Something came over me and I decided to try a piece (okay some of you can get off the floor now – I guess prison is wearing me down!). It really wasn’t bad, in fact it was good, not too sweet. I guess the bland food that I have been eating over the last 2 ½ months has broken my senses! I did not try a piece of the white sheet cake because the smell of this did nothing for me.

Now back to my working a double shift in the kitchen. We were finally finished, and as we finished the incredibly kind kitchen supervisor told us to sit and eat. I guess she didn’t realize everyone had been eating the entire time we were working but in any event we all sat down and ate some more. Prior to this we were given three lunches for all our hard work. Thankfully today was a peanut butter lunch day and also there were bags of pretzels as well. This is a double bonus and means I have lunch for the next three days and my favorite snack food. After we were finished each of us were given packets of gourmet coffee. Yes, I took the packets (no, I still don’t drink coffee, one misstep at a time!) of coffee because these are a sought after commodity and I can either give them away or trade them for something else. Most likely I will give them to my new Bunkie who drinks coffee.

At the very end we decided to cut slices of coffee cake and place them in our lunch bags. We were very concerned that we couldn’t get through the “checkpoint” with all this extra stuff so one of the other inmates spoke to the kitchen supervisor. She told us not to worry because all of us worked very hard and we deserve these extras. Then we were escorted back by a super cool C/O who knew what was going on. He didn’t have us strip down as we went through the checkpoint, but he made sure that all of us were being honest and not trying to sneak something back. He understood we worked hard and were rewarded. It was good to be treated as an adult and I felt so good when I got back to the dorm at 1:45 pm. The morning started at 4:30am and ended some 7 hours later but this 7 hours flew by. It flew by because I was doing something and didn’t feel like a prisoner. There is something to be said for mutual respect. In my book mutual respect goes a long way.

It truly was a great day and I would like to close with something I am sure I will expand upon at a later date. I touched on this earlier (accountability). A few weeks ago I posted an entry regarding a letter I received asking me to stop posting the blog. This letter came from someone near and dear to me so I took it very seriously. Since this time I have received overwhelming responses asking me NOT to stop posting. I thank everyone for their support and as long as my mom and my wife are willing to post my entries, the blog will be kept current.

However, I do need to be mindful of my situation and my number one priority which is getting back to my family in one piece sooner as opposed to later. I will be more careful in my postings and hopefully my mom and my wife will edit any entries which may cross a line.

This blog has become part of my daily routine and I am overjoyed by all of the positive feedback I have been given. I am a blessed person and surrounded by so much love, I thank everyone.