A Couple of Albert's Prison Recipes
And a Memorial Day road trip suggestion in another Saturday Shorts.
Happy Memorial Day, everyone! Have a treat on Albert and stay to the end for the best Memorial Day suggestion ever! And, please, help support America Eats! and my writing by giving that little heart a click!
I was asleep at the typewriter the other day. I should have included some recipes from this week’s story about Albert Jones’ cookbook, Our Last Meal? 25 Years San Quentin Death Row Cookbook. So here you go, a breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They may not seem so special but consider this: in most cases, Jones’s recipes add nutrition and flavor to the bland, often unhealthy, food he is given every day in prison.
Note: I’ve typed these as Jones wrote them. It seems there are no editors serving time on death row.
Breakfast
Prison Waffles & Fruit
3 prison waffles 1 oz dried apple (red) 1 oz diced peaches 1 oz dried banana 2 oz maple syrup 1 carton milk Put the fruit on each waffle stack them and pour the maple syrup on them and enjoy.
Lunch or Dinner
Stuffed Tomatoes with Tuna
2 tomatoes 3 oz tuna pouch 2 mayo packet 1 pinch red chili flakes 1 pinch salt 1 pinch black pepper 2 mustard packets 4 diced pickle chips 1 apple pie (prison) 1 cherry Kool-Aid Clean out the tomatoes. Put the tuna in a bowl add mayo, mustard, chili flakes, salt, pepper and diced pickle chips. Stir and stuff into the two tomatoes and enjoy with a apple pie and Kool-Aid.
Cucumber & Miso Soup
(A note about the next two: crackers thicken the soups and add some much needed texture.)
1 miso soup packet 1/3 chopped cucumber 1 tbs hot sauce 1 turkey beef stick (prison) 10 cheese-it crackers 1 lime orange mixed Kool Aid Boil one cup of water, pour soup packet in bowl, add hot water, stir, add cucumber, hot sauce, chopped turkey stick into several pieces stir and put crackers on top and drink the Kool Aid.
Red Apple—Red Onion & Ramen Soup
1 Ramen chili soup w/season packet 1/2 diced apple 2 oz diced onion 1/2 diced hot pickle 8 ritz crackers 1 wild purple Kool Aid Boil one cup of water add soup until cooked put in apples, onions and pickles. Crumble crackers on top and eat and drink the Kool Aid.
Your Holiday Road Trip Suggestion!
If you want to take a fun trip this weekend, head over to Boalsburg, PA for their annual celebration of when, in the midst of the Civil War, three towns women became the inspiration for Memorial Day. Boalsburg is a small town and this is a warm, small community’s festival where everyone is welcome. There is a parade, a kid reading his award-winning essay on what it means to be an American; a recitation of George Washington’s favorite prayer; a brief Civil War reenactment and, most enticing of all, an extremely good pig roast and competitive pie contest. Sure is a nice way to remember who we really are as a people in these rickety times.
The tomato stuffed with tuna sounds pretty good! I had forgotten all about those little packets of Kool-aid with the cartoon of the smiling pitcher.
Wishing you and family a nice week end this Memorial Day Holiday, Pat. Thanks for giving us a 'taste of Albert's prison fare. I had to laugh when I saw the mustard used with the tuna, as I have only fairly recently been adding mustard to both tuna and salmon dishes, like macaroni salads. My best memory of Kool-ad was when we would freeze it and feed the ice cubes to our horses. My horse, Brownie was very fond of grape Kool ad. She would keep the cube on her tongue and slather it about as it melted, then nuzzle me for another! And I was a fan of mixing the lemon and grape flavors. In those days we had Kool-ad or Hawaiian Punch just about everyday. As far as I can tell, it didn't stunt my growth or have any other ill effects. :-)