My dormitory has a microwave now, and it’s the most exciting thing ever.
The last and possibly only time I was this thrilled about an appliance was about 20 years ago, when my wife and I made a four-hour drive to KitchenAid’s headquarters to purchase a refurbished pistachio green mixer for the low price of $129.99. It used to be that cheap.
It may not seem like a big deal to have a microwave. I grew up with a microwave in my kitchen; but they aren’t around in the prison dormitories, where I have lived over the past dozen years.
They are available inside our canteen or visitation area to reheat gas station-style sandwiches or warm a packaged cinnamon roll, but to have a microwave in the dorm, available for all 71 men to heat or cook anything, is nearly unbelievable. At Everglades Correctional Institution, we now have one.
Cooking in most dorms in the Florida Department of Corrections means using hot water. That’s it.
Our water comes from a spigot beside the drinking fountain, and often is fed from a 5-gallon or 10-gallon tank. Meanwhile, the water temperature is often turned down for safety reasons, so the resulting dormitory “cooking” results in tepid meals of minimal quality.
There are other solutions, like “stingers” — makeshift electrical devices that plug into wall sockets and can be immersed into water to boil it. But stingers are illicit both to make and use here.
The microwave has been saving countless meals. I still won’t eat the questionable dining hall patties, though many of my fellow residents fearlessly chop them up, mix in a ramen soup and blast away in the microwave for three minutes. Sometimes their meals smell like real food.
I have brought rice and nearly raw cauliflower back from the dining hall to season properly with a pinch of curry powder, butter and salt. Then I cooked it in the microwave. I gazed in wonder at the steam rising from my food in wispy curls. The meal was a delight.
Because the microwave is so in demand, our dorm’s 10 resident facilitators — including me — put forth five simple rules for the microwave after some polling. We did not want to reduce the joy or excitement, but instead to prolong responsible use.
The rules are easy:
- Cover your food so it doesn’t splatter everywhere.
- Use the microwave for no more than three minutes at a time.
- Don’t put metal in the microwave (some food comes from the canteen in foil pouches).
- Cook food items only (no drinks or socks).
- No fish.
We’ve had to amend a few of the rules, as residents venture outside their comfort zones (blasting a ramen soup for three minutes, for example) and into dangerous zones.
Our first learning experience came as people attempted to “toast” bread by microwaving it for about three minutes. There’s a fine line between “toasted” and “smoke filling up the dormitory,” as we learned the hard way. No more toast in the microwave after that.
The next trial was peeled hard-boiled eggs. I learned this one when I was younger, and thought it unnecessary to explain to my peers the concept of exploding eggs. Yet again, we learned the hard way. No more whole hard-boiled eggs in the microwave.
I don’t know what motivated the decision to allow responsible use of microwaves here, nor do I really care.
I suppose I could investigate, but some answers aren’t worth digging for. Asking could risk losing everything. I only care that I am able to enjoy a meal so hot that I need to carefully blow away the fractal threads of steam with each bite.
The microwave has filled me with excitement in a way I hadn’t expected, and, in prison, that’s something to cherish.