You know you've been tempted. Perhaps you've even offended. However, All You Can Eat Buffet prices are per person, y'all, no cheating.
Seriously. Just ask 40-year-old Dan Linscomb of Texas City, Texas, who was arrested last week for letting his girlfriend share his buffet plate and then refusing to pay.
Linscomb's brazen attempt to save $7 cost taxpayers many times that, as he was escorted from Iron Skillet in Atlanta to the cooler. The big cooler. The cooler with bars. The slammer. The iron bar motel. The joint. The clink. The pen. The pokey. Jail.
Linscomb served two days in the Fulton County Jail and was released after pleading guilty not to "theft of service," but the the lesser charge of "disorderly conduct."
In old movies and cartoons, it was common to see someone use a cake to smuggle a file, which they could use to break themselves out, into an inmate at the local prison. At the cartoon end, the file could be replaced with anything from dynamite to a jackhammer, as the characters didn't have to be particularly subtle to get themselves out of the slammer. Things have to be done more subtle for those who want to smuggle things into prisons in real life, but food can still play a roll. A prison guard at Leflore County jail in Mississippi was arrested after he was caught smuggling in money and marijuana in a large pile of mashed potatoes (That green stuff? Those are just chives...) in at lunch time, when an unidentified woman dropped them off for him. His undoing was a food preference issue, not being careless with the contraband itself. The thing that made investigators suspicious was that the officer said that he didn't eat potatoes and couldn't explain why he was getting such a large portion of them delivered to him at work.
The New York Department of Corrections is thinking about putting some fast food on Riker's Island. The food won't be for the inmates - though some nutritionists and others who are not fans of fast food would probably feel that it could be considered a punishment - it will be for the guards and other staff members. Currently, the guards get one (free) meal per shift and eat the same food as the inmates do, but there is a demand for more variety in their meals, so the DoC is seeking "an expression of interest" from companies "that would like to operate a fast-food joint in the joint."
A teenage Taco Bell employee in Virginia has received a sentence of six months in jail for spitting in a loyal customer's Mountain Dew, according to the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star. After the customer raised a stink about the lack of iced tea, Shaleesheya G. Ford, 18, decided to lace his second choice with something of her own. According to the victim, Ford giggled and told him to have a nice day as she handed him his drink. The victim discovered the "loogie" shortly after leaving the restaurant. "Once I touched it, I knew exactly what it was," he told the FFLS. The spit in question was turned over to police. Charges stemming from the incident include assault and battery, obstruction of justice and filing a false police report. It's unclear from the FFLS story how the charges are related to spitting in a drink.
A hot breakfast was the standard prison breakfast for many, many years for the same reasons that oatmeal
is a popular breakfast food on the outside: it's healthy, filling and inexpensive. But porridge is off the menus in British prisons, replaced with a
"breakfast pack" that costs only 27p per prisoner (about 46¢ US). The reason for the change, according
to audit investigators, was "because cooked breakfasts are no longer part of contemporary eating habits in the
wider community". Since the prison officials are so on top of food trends, they found it necessary to remove the
offending breakfast cereal from their menus.
It is highly that the change was made to save money. While the breakfast pack - which includes 1 cup
of breakfast cereal, two slices of bread, jam or marmalade, margarine, tea bags, instant coffee and a small milk
cartoon - might cost slightly more per serving than oatmeal, it is given to the prisoners the night before and
prepared and eaten by them in the morning. This eliminates the need to have the kitchen staff on hand for one meal
every day.
Why this story hasn't gotten more coverage is beyond me. Global produce news site FreshPlaza recently reported on the incarceration of
Spuddy Buddy, the official mascot of Idaho potatoes, during a trade mission to Mexico. "His paperwork was not
complete," the article says. Discussions between Mexican officials and the Idaho governor and trade officials
ensued and Spuddy was eventually released from prison and granted a 48-hour pass of some sort. The newly-liberated
tuber then joined up with his cohorts, including Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne, for cooking demonstrations and a visit to one of Mexico's most popular
supermarkets. Strangely enough, The Spuddy Buddy Fan Club says
nothing of this incident.
A few months ago, I did a post about pruno,
a fermented drink often made by prison inmates. Well, here's something from the other end of the "cooking in
prison" spectrum: The Cellblock Cafe. John
"The Jailhouse Gourmet" Mandala, an inmate at Sing Sing Correctional Facilities medium security annex, hosts
this site of recipes and musings about his experiences learning to cook during more than a decade in prison. The
Cellblock Cafe is an offshoot of Friends Beyond The Wall, a
New-York-Based prison pen-pal program. Apparently Mandala and some of the other recipe contributors have limited access
to kitchen facilities, so some of the recipes aren't as dire as you might expect. While Mandala's introduction does
recount scenes of broiling hot dogs with radio antennae or heating a cup of coffee with burning toilet paper, the
recipes hosted here are a bit more refined. Things like fried rice and Jamaican stew reflect the diverse backgrounds of
the cooks, and pancake batter figures a little more heavily than I would've expected.
You know you've been tempted. Perhaps you've even offended. However, All You Can Eat Buffet prices are per person, y'all, no cheating.
In old movies and cartoons, it was common to see someone 
The New York Department of Corrections is thinking about putting some 
A teenage Taco Bell employee in Virginia has received a sentence of six months in jail for spitting in a loyal customer's Mountain Dew, according to the 
A hot breakfast was the standard prison breakfast for many, many years for the same reasons that oatmeal
is a popular breakfast food on the outside: it's healthy, filling and inexpensive. But porridge is 
Why this story hasn't gotten more coverage is beyond me. Global produce news site FreshPlaza 
A few months ago, I did a 
What Can I Get You Folks? - Eating Out for Thanksgiving
In Defense of Guy Fieri
'Top Chef Vegas' - And Then There Were Five
