Justice Radio

Cooking Across Prison Walls with Nicole Lund

Host: Catherine Besteman

Guest: Nicole Lund

Topic: Don’t miss Catherine’s interview this Sunday with Nicole Lund, visual artist, writer, prison abolition advocate, graduate student at the University Maine of Farmington, and former volunteer at the Maine State Prison, as they talk about her new book co-authored with Buddy Bieler and Esder Chong titled “Stuffed behind Bars: Secret Recipes from inside Maine State Prison” which speaks to the importance of community, connection, and food.

Duration:: 30m
Broadcast on:: 05 Jan 2025
Audio Format:: other

(upbeat music) - This is Justice Radio. I'm Catherine Bestaman, an abolitionist educator at Colby College, the coordinator of the Freedom and Captivity Initiative, and a current Soros Justice Fellow. Today, I am delighted to be talking with Nicole Lund, who is a visual artist, writer, prison abolition advocate, and graduate student at the University of Maine at Farmington. She's been volunteering at the Maine State Prison, helping residents tell their stories through visual narrative. And today, we're gonna talk about her newest project, an unusual cookbook that she's co-authored with her friend, Buddy Beeler, called "Stuffed Behind Bars" colon. Secret recipes from inside Maine State Prison. Welcome to the show, Nicole. - Hi, thank you, Catherine, for having me here. - So delighted to have this conversation. I wanna start off by saying that I know that we're both really sorry that Buddy is not allowed to join us today from Maine State Prison to record this episode, and I just wanna acknowledge his absence. So, greetings to Buddy. I wanna start by reading the online description of your remarkable cookbook. This comes directly from its page on Amazon. "Stuffed Behind Bars", secret recipes from inside Maine State Prison is a collection of recipes, tips, tricks, and conversations between Buddy and Nicole. It's no secret prison food is terrible, but Buddy took the time to figure out how to make better meals for him and his friends with what they had available. More than a cookbook, "Stuffed Behind Bars" speaks to the importance of community, connection, and food. If you've fallen on hard times and have little more than a microwave and hope for a better tomorrow, this book is for you. So, let's get some history for this project. How did you and Buddy first meet? - So, I met Buddy while I was interning at the Maine State Prison. I was facilitating an art workshop for the residents inside over the summer, and Buddy's job at the time was the art room facilitator. And so, he was the one who made sure that the class was advertised and how the arts supplies were available and ready and the room was set up. And yeah, we just, I don't know, we were kind of like really fast friends. Yeah, he's a really great sense of humor and he's so personable and he made me feel very comfortable there. And we just chatted a lot and talked and yeah. - So, you both clearly have a creative spirit. And so, can you talk a little bit about what was the road between you giving an art workshop and Buddy setting up the room and facilitating, you know, sort of the logistics of the room and writing a cookbook together? That's kind of a long road. (laughing) - Well, so it was a three month workshop that I was running. And it was actually for an internship for my undergrad. And, you know, after the summer workshop was over, he, you know, we kind of realized we were gonna miss each other, we're gonna miss working together. And so, you know, he was like, what could I call you? And I didn't really see why not. I mean, the way I saw we were colleagues, we, you know, I came in and ran a workshop. He was helping me facilitate it and we were friends. So, I didn't really see much wrong with that. My, you know, my workshop was over. I wasn't actively volunteering at the time. And so, he did, he started calling me. I mean, we were talking on the phone a lot and just laughing. And, you know, the more we got to know each other, the more we realized how well we got along. And then we really could work well together. So, unfortunately, I was not supposed to be shocking to him on a phone. And when I went back in in the fall to start another workshop series, I became banned for volunteering because the administration found out about the phone calls we were having that were prohibited. Yeah, but because it wasn't really anything beyond phone calls that I did, that kind of broke the volunteer agreement. We were allowed to continue being friends and talking on the phone. They did block my phone number for a while and mail and communication. But once that was, once they put me through a whole investigation and once that was over, they kind of were like, "Oh, she didn't really do that one." Or then talk on the phone. So, you know, we just continued talking and realized, it was kind of like, we kind of had this idea like, "Oh, hey, wouldn't it be fun to write a cookbook?" And because he kept telling me about food and like what they make from commissary ingredients inside, it kind of just seemed like a fun idea. And it was, we had a great time doing it together. It was really difficult being able to do it because we were only allowed to talk on the phone and text and snail mail. I mean, this is really, it is a labor of love. It's also a labor of enormous creativity. I want to pause before we go on to talking about the cookbook to just recognize the story that you just told, which has a pathos to it. You know, you go in as a volunteer, you form a relationship with a person on the inside, you care about each other, and that's criminalized. That's determined to be something that is unacceptable. Like, you're not allowed to do that. It's against volunteer policy. You can't form relationships with people if you're a volunteer, even if you are aligned with each other in a colleague's status. And so I want to just pause to know the weirdness of that. You know, what-- - Yeah, and as you're saying too, like a colleague's status, right? So I was just a volunteer facilitating a workshop. He was facilitating, he was our room facilitator. So I mean, we very much kind of saw each other's peers working together. But when I was being interrogated, it was interesting the language that the detective used because he says, so I want to set up, you know, I want to understand what the situation is here. He goes, you were teaching a course at MSP, and buddy was one of your students. And I thought that was really interesting language. You know, he kind of wanted to put it in those terms of, you know, where there was some sort of, like, differential in-- - Right, so it's a power inequity. Because the prison is unable to recognize that people who are incarcerated there might actually be colleagues with people with whom they're working. And that's a real shortcoming, I think, in our prison system just to editorialize for a minute because people, when they get out, need to know how to have collegial relationships, you know? And if they're forbidden from doing that on the inside with people with whom they're working on the outside, that strikes me as a major shortcoming. So thanks for mentioning that. I'm sorry that happened to you. It can't have been fun to be subjected to an investigation. I know myself, something about that. And I'm glad that my understanding is, you're no longer allowed to be a volunteer, but you can be now a visitor and a friend. - Yes, yeah. So that was what ended up happening. They made me wait a year before I could submit a visitor application. So then after the year, they respected it and let me do that. So yeah, what's your motivation for a year away? Do you know? - I'm not really sure. I mean, we've had some conversations about it. And I almost feel like it was, I think it was kind of a test, it felt like, which I'm silly, but it sort of felt a little bit like that. You know, like, "Oh, you wanna be friend with them?" Like, "Well, we'll make you wait a year and see if you still wanna be friend with them." - You think I'm right, so I'm okay, right. I'm gonna believe that that's possible. Well, I'm glad you waited a year. I'm glad that you came to your friendship. And I'm really delighted about, you know, what has come out of that? So first, you started with a YouTube channel. Can you tell us about that? - We did, yeah. So I was really, that was a real challenge. I was actually learning video editing through our YouTube channel. Yeah, we wanted to go with me on it. And obviously, and so was our project together. I mean, we were kind of, you know, we were new, we were gonna be doing this cookbook. And so we've been working on it. We wanted to get, kind of get some hype up around it. And we thought it would be really fun to do some, you know, kind of like teasers about the cookbook coming out. So it was challenging 'cause I had, you know, my iPhone and a MacBook and that's kind of what I did it all on. So I would record our phone calls and then go in and edit them into the videos. And I'm terribly camera shy too, is why you don't really see my face on any of them. - No, I remember seeing some videos and we're watching you prepare the food that buddy's telling you what to do. And so, and he's calling in and he's giving him instructions. And all we can see is you basically from the neck down or from the waist down, mixing up the instructions that buddy's narrating over the phone. They're delight videos if anybody wants to go watch them. - Thank you. The interesting thing too about, you know, our original intention was to, you know, have it be kind of like a little cooking show sort of a thing. But there are so many things that occur in the prison that felt like important issues to talk about. And so that video that we have a clips burrito about when we had the solar clips here in Maine and the guys were promised glasses and they were gonna be able to go out and witness it. And then kind of last minute they all got locked in. And so that actually happened on a day that we were supposed to be just filming a video about making burritos in prison. And so it felt like that was a more important issue to highlight than burritos. - Yeah, that's super interesting. And, you know, the sort of the trilogy that you remark on about, you know, the relationship between community connection and food is really, I think resonant here with the ways in which you two are cooking together across prison walls, which is remarkable. And you're building a cookbook together. But then it's also an opportunity to talk about these kinds of like just basically human issues around what happens behind prison walls. And what are the sorts of ongoing daily disappointments that somebody's gotta navigate about something as seemingly minors being allowed to see a once in a lifetime eclipse. So I'm sure that was really meaningful for both of you to have that ability to connect through food and then allow food to be your conduit to talk about life and what you're both experiencing. So the YouTube videos are teasers. - What were some of the topics that you talked about as you were cooking together over YouTube or over, over the phone and across prison walls? - I mean, some of the topics, like, you know, in regards to food, I was really excited to hear that since COVID they don't eat in the mess hall together anymore. - Right. - That was really striking to me, you know, you talk about community and the concept of, you know, being able to share a meal with people. And it was just, it was being really sad to think about all these guys kind of eating a loan off a tray in their room. - And so for our listeners, since COVID, when the when the cell hall was shut down, now prisoners are called to chow at in groups and you go in, you get your food and you go back to your cell and you eat it there. - Yeah, it's sad, just kind of, you know, it just, it just, it made me, you know, made me sad to hear that. 'Cause I feel like such a big part of, of food and cooking is being able to share with people you care about. - Yeah, yeah, I agree. And so the cookbook, I think it's 88 pages, how many recipes is in it? - Oh, oh, gosh, I forget. (laughs) It's about 30. (laughs) - About three dozen. And is it about like, what's the structure? Did you divide it into like the classic cookbook divisions, appetizer, soups, stews, you know, casserole? - That's kind of what we did. We have, we did, yeah, we have like breakfast and, you know, small plates and snacks, entrees, desserts. And we have, we have an intro that kind of talks about the theme of community and connection and how it relates to food. And there's a beautiful forward written by Esther Chong who is a DACA advocate. And she really bridges that concept of community across, you know, like across different issues, right? Because I mean, that's something that, you know, like connection is hugely important to everybody. And where immigration was her advocacy. And for so long, it's so relevant to that as well. - Yeah, absolutely. So can you talk a little bit about how food, like sort of the politics of food in prison? How, we already talked about how people get food from the Chow Hall, but the idea that prisoners are cooking. And can you tell us a little bit about how they do that? Like, what resources do they have access to? What are they allowed to cook with? And what do they cook in? How do they get their food to cook? (laughs) - Well, yeah, so we have some of the tips and tricks that we have in our cookbook, actually, is how to, how, the how to. So how they, you know, make a colander and make a stinger and all these different things to be able to cook. But I mean, it's like a microwave and plastic ware, essentially, that they have access to. And sometimes they can swipe stuff from the kitchen, but mostly it's just things that they get out of commissary, which are ingredients that are, you know, kind of equivalent to like what you would buy at a gas station convenience store. - Mm-hmm. - Because you only get a rice and like summer sausage and those kinds of things. So because the prison food is so terrible (laughs) and it's often to the same companies that provide food to the kitchen, that provide the food to commissary. So, you know, they don't necessarily happen in their interest, like financially to care (laughs) if the food that they're getting in the kitchen is enough or because of for-profit company that they're getting their food from. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, so the guys, you know, they have to use their money and have their books to buy things out of commissary and then they kind of have to make it better 'cause it's not very good food. But they come up and there's a lot of things they miss too, you know, I mean, so we have a recipe in there for spare ribs and fried rice 'cause like, who doesn't love Chinese food? You know, like classic American Chinese food. So they've been so creative in the ways that they are able to replicate these sorts of things inside. This is a microwave and, again, plastic ware. - It's amazing. (upbeat music) This is Justice Radio and today I'm talking with Nicole Lund, co-author with Buddy Beeler of the new cookbook called "Stuffed Behind Barbers", secret recipes from Inside Main State Prison. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - So let's get to the recipes themselves, Nicole. So we know that people who have money on the books can buy food from commissary and they can take food out of the child hall they're not really supposed to, but you know, it'll pass a butter, catch up jam, peanut butter, stuff like that. And then in their cells mix it together to create new dishes that maybe are never available to them. And so you just talked about spare ribs and fried rice. Can you tell us another couple of recipes that maybe are particularly creative or particularly inventive that surprised you when Buddy said, "All right, this is what we're cooking today?" - Well, then the salmon recipe, this is something that kind of surprised me 'cause I was like, "How did you get salmon?" And his response was, "Don't ask questions, I can't answer." (laughs) It kind of got me up, but it's delicious. It's great. I made it at home in my own microwave and it was fantastic. Slaw one's exceptionally good. And then you always hear about like prison cakes and so there's a couple cake recipes in there and a lot of dessert things. - Tell us about a prison cake. What is a prison cake? - A prison cake? Well, so they kind of take apart other desserts (laughs) reform it into a cake. And so we have one of them, cookies. And so you kind of like separate the Oreos from the cream and change it all around in order to make a birthday cake for somebody. - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And you can put coffee powder, whip it into the Oreo centers, turn that into a coffee cream that you can frost something with. It's amazing how an interview can be with what you can, with the-- - Yeah. - Drop, you can buy out a commissary. - It is really good, yeah. - So, Sona Cola, you volunteered inside the prison. You have a longstanding relationship now with Buddy around food and sharing the sorts of inventive creative use of food that Buddy's engineered inside with his colleagues on the inside, sharing that with an outside audience, making the point about how it's possible to create community through food with actually very, very little and the importance of food for creating community. And all of this, I think, is interesting in relationship to the way that you describe yourself as a prison abolition advocate. So, I wanted to get to that too. And ask you what you mean by that. What does it mean to be a prison abolition advocate? - Well, you know, so you hear about prison reform and you hear about prison abolition. And prison reform is the assumption that we can take the system we already have and kind of make it better. Prison abolition is no. We need to just tear it down to the ground and rebuild it. And that's really what I feel like we need to do. The prison system, it's like using up resources that could be better diverted to just preventing people from ever needing to go to prison, which is the way I see it. When you think about, especially in Maine, like the lack of social services that we have and the lack of like special education services and housing crisis. And there's so many things going on that we would be so much better off diverting our resources towards than keeping people who have been rehabilitated, locked up for the rest of their lives. - So that's interesting. Keeping people who have been rehabilitated. What does it mean to be rehabilitated? - Well, there's so many people on there who came from this terrible situations, developed trauma, developed substance abuse, kind of got caught up in the system at an incredibly young age. I mean, there were guys in there who, the first time they were incarcerated, they were 13 years old, back at the Maine Youth Center, which is now Long Creek. And when somebody's caught up in the system, it's incredibly difficult to get out, realize get out of control, something major happens. And now they suddenly have a 50-year sentence, a 75-year sentence or life sentence. And they're in their early 20s at this time, and they're gonna be in prison for us through their lives. I mean, you think about who you were when you were 20, but I'm guessing you're gonna be the same person right now. You know, and I think about that with myself. I mean, like, it's, you know, it'd be like constantly punished for your life for a mistake you made when you were 20, 21, 22 years old is insane. And so it said people outgrow crime. And they, you know, someone, basically prison, when it does, it kind of just puts, you know, like hits the pause button on your life. And, you know, you get removed from society. And you're still growing up. You're just growing up in this different environment now. So I mean, by the time someone's 35, 40 years old, like they're a completely different person. You know, and a lot of times like they're no longer on substances at this point. And they've spent a lot of time alone thinking about who they were and who they wanna be. And they'll never have the opportunity to be able to come back to society and contribute to their community. And really a tone for making amends for the harm that they caused. They're just caged. - Yeah. - It's a shame. - Yeah, it's a shame. It's a shame for all of us. And one of the things that you alluded to earlier, I wanna bring up, it's not just that prisons cause harm by eating up resources that could be perhaps you're arguing better used to stop harm from happening in the first place. But also that prisons are vehicles for profitability for the corporations that provision prisons. And so has Buddy shared with you anything about the costs of commissary items? - Well, I know from sending, I've sent him new care packages from outside website that you can, you know, you can send care packages. And when I was dumbfounded, because it's like the same stuff you can get up with Walmart, only much more expensive. And then you get to pay for shipping on top of it, which is crazy. You know, I tried to say I'm hot sauce one time off Amazon and it got sent back. They wouldn't give it to. It's kind of full of my mind, but I was like, it's the same hot sauce. What's the difference? But you know, I'm not giving them money to the right company, basically. - I was gonna say the difference is who gets the profit. - Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it is. You know, in all of these companies, I mean, they say that, you know, technically we have a non-profit prison system here in Maine, but all of these companies that supply to the prison and wait, like, you know, GTL, like with their phones and texting and in the Kief group and WellPath and all these other organizations, those are all for-profit companies that are making a huge amount of money off of these people being incarcerated. - So not only is Buddy paying the commissary prices to produce the meals that he's making for himself and his comrades inside, but he's also paying for the phone calls to call you to be able to tell you what to cook in your kitchen and to have the conversations around cookbooks. Can you talk a little bit about the cost of phone calls? - Yeah, so it's pretty expensive. It was $3 for 30 minutes, which really adds up. You're trying to write an entire book with somebody. And a 15 cents a text message. Now they actually just got a new, they got these new tablets and the promise of the new tablets that they would be able to make phone calls from their room and they'd be able to, you know, people on the outside could send pictures and they could video call, but the reception is really terrible. So he's trying to call me from his room before and it cuts out, it calls drop and it's just as expensive for really terrible service. So it's been tough. - And one of the things, sorry? - It's been tough and expensive, yeah. - I guess so trying to maintain a relationship around food and cooking. Yeah, and this is, I think, a really relevant point for the larger point that you're making again about food connection and community, which is all these barriers that are put in place for people on the outside to maintain connections with people on the inside and your connection with buddies started through art and it blossomed through food. But what you had to be willing to do to maintain that connection, the high cost of the items that buddies buying to teach you how to cook with it, the high cost of the phone calls, obviously the year-long waiting period that you had to be put through, it's just remarkable to me how difficult it is made for people on the inside to have healthy, loving relationships with people on the outside because of these kinds of barriers and walls and interruptions and disruptions. And I'm wondering if you have any way of making sense of that. Why is it so hard? I don't know, you know, I've thought about it. It's, I think that, I almost feel like the Department of Corrections, if they really saw these guys succeeding in meaningful ways and being able to maintain healthy relationships with people and all these things and it would kind of prove that their existence is pointless, you know, it's a sick way like that, but it is kind of, you know, it's like they need to believe that these people are all monsters and that they're not capable of succeeding, they're not capable of, you know, being members of community, 'cause if they are, then why are they there? Wow, that's, that's very hard hitting, thank you. Let's turn back to the cookbook. What's your favorite recipe? Oh, my favorite recipe, I really like the fat bastard, and honestly, I like the fat bastard. I don't have that in prison, but it's a fat bastard. It's a bagel sandwich with like cheese sauce, fried eggs, fried meat, jalapeno, I love jalapenos, I mean, milk and cheese, yeah. That's the name that you two gave to it, or is that the name inside that's given to them? So that's the name, that's the name the buddy told me. It's funny because I've seen other prison recipes, I guess like it's kind of a thing, you're going to be like trash bag soup, like that's another one of those like prison, like kind of classic prison recipes, apparently, fat bastard is sort of a classic prison recipe too, which just, you know, it's made differently across different facilities and in different states, but it's kind of one of those titles. (laughs) - Is there an recipe that that buddy was narrating to you and you were like, this looks terrible. I cannot imagine somebody came up with this. - There was one, so the tuna melt recipe blew my mind. He was like, we're going to make tuna melts, and I'm like, okay, so I'm thinking of like a normal tuna melt. You know, you have two pieces of bread, and melted cheese, and tuna fish. And he's like, first you get, he's like, you're going to need some ramen noodles. I'm like, what? (laughs) - Like, it doesn't make sense. - And it was, but I was surprised at how good it was. You know, it's like an open face. What's up? - I just threw it. - So it's an open face tuna melt. So you, you know, you slice a bagel in half and you have the two halves. You make the ramen noodles, you mix up the tuna fish, mix it all together with, there's some herbs and um, herbs and seasonings in there. (laughs) And everything gets hot pepper when I make it. So there's hot pepper in it. And then you put the noodles with the tuna fish on top of each bagel half, and then we've shredded cheese on top, and you microwave them to melt all the cheese and melt it all together. And it's so good. It's, I was surprised at how good it is. It's when I actually made those with Buddy's mom. We don't have a video on it, but um, it was funny, I was, I went to um, Buddy's mom's house to visit her, and we made them together her. And I were both like, wow, like we were, (laughing) Yeah. - That's shocking to me. I can't promise that I'm gonna go try it, but I might, I might. That's, it's intriguing enough. I can see how the, um, how the flavor of the ramen would intensify the sort of blandness of the tuna and make something really delicious. So wow. And what about a recipe that you tried that he told, that, you know, he narrated to you and you tried it, and you were like, no, this is terrible. This is not going in the cookbook. - There actually weren't any. There weren't any like that. The one thing I really struggled with making fried rice in the microwave, there were a lot of outtakes on that. 'Cause it, I actually used to own a Thai restaurant before. (laughing) I was, I was a Thai chef for seven years, and um, and so like I know how to make, I know how to make fried rice. And he was telling me how to do the microwave, and it was like, it was like my brain couldn't process what he was telling me. (laughing) - I think it was a bad word. - I, I struggled with that one, but I finally got the technique down and was able to do it. And so I was able to articulate in the recipe how it's done. - I would, the people who were like, how do you do this in a microwave? That's amazing. - Yeah, yeah, it took, it, that one, I struggled. I really struggled. (laughing) - That's hilarious. I'm, I'm reminded of, um, I had a fellowship in, in South Africa, and I was put up. Yeah, I have rented a room that was supposed to come with a kitchen, and the kitchen was a sink in a microwave, and that was it. And I don't have a microwave at home. I don't have no idea how to cook with a microwave. And the proprietor said to me, you can cook everything in a microwave. And I moved, I moved locations because I was like, I will, I will start to death. (laughing) I don't even know how to turn the thing on, which lets cook anything worth eating. So, - This is too bad, you didn't know Buddy, 'cause you would have turned it on. - I didn't know, this was before he thought he, (laughing) I could have, I could have eaten so well if I'd only I'd known. So were there, are there any dishes in your cookbook that are of Buddy's own design, things that he came up with himself inside? - Oh, the same a recipe. Yeah, that was his own doing. Yeah. And there were a couple of other to the, there's a fish stew recipe and a chatura recipes that he's, yeah, I mean, they're kind of, you know, some of them were joint efforts of him and the guys, but you know, there was a lot of, you know, as he puts it like years of experimenting. - Yeah. - And he was ruining his scent. (laughing) - Yeah, absolutely, oops. - Yeah. - So Nicole, do you have a good project coming along? - I'm sorry, what? - Do you have a second project? - We do. - Now that we're in charge of the visit. - So the original attention on this book, we were thinking about how, you know, if this first book goes well, we would kind of turn into a series, highlighting different aspects of people's lives. And so, you know, this first one was about cooking and connection and the next book we were talking about is a would be cuffed and buffed, how to stay prison jacked in a small space. We were talking about how, you know, the importance of health and staying in shape and taking care of your body and like what, the mind-body connection. - Wow. - You know, get your gains, even if you're limited in space. - Even if you're locked in to a tiny six by nine cell with another grown man, wow, amazing. But thank you so much for making the time to talk with us on justice radio, Nicole Lund. With thanks to Bluesman Samuel James for his gift of music that opens and closes each episode in our series. To Erin Pyle, our sound engineer, and to Daria Cullen, our executive producer. I'm Catherine Bestaman. We are justice radio. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)