Who among us has not had a big secret that we bottled up for weeks? And what was your secret? A pregnancy? A For Sale sign going up on your lawn next week? A church calling?

And there you sat, your lips buttoned up, letting on nothing while you frolicked with your friends, dipping chips into the dip.

Piper Kerman had a big secret too. She kept it for years. Um, a while ago, I smuggled drugs. Yeah, I know, I don’t look like the type. But I’m headed for prison one of these days, not sure when.

You might have watched the Netflix series based on Kernan’s book, Orange is the New Black. The book, in spite of Kerman’s youthful “romantic peccadilloes with appetizing girls and boys,” is blander than the show, but still an absorbing, even  a heart-warming read.

When Kerman finally surrendered herself to the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, I buckled in for a tale of hazing. Watch out for the girl gangs, Piper!

I was wrong. Kerman might have faced worse if she had joined a sorority.

Certainly she met up with some hardened women. Kerman nicknamed one clique “the Eminemlettes”: “Caucasian girls from the wrong side of the tracks with big mouths and big attitudes, who weren’t taking

[crap] from anyone (except the men in their lives).”

When I run into girls like that, all I see is imminent injury to myself. But Kerman got past the hard shell.  A youngster called Pennsatucky wanted to send a letter to the judge. She asked the Kerman for help. Kerman wrote a glowing epistle, essentially putting words in Pennsatucky’s mouth—I’m sorry for what I did, I want to be a better mother, no more cocaine for me. Then, when she showed the letter, the girl teared up and said, “How did you know all this?”

That these woman forged a great camaraderie is not to say that prison life was peachy. The confinement, the food, the shame, the nasty shower floors—Kerman never forgot that she was paying for a big mistake. Would her parents and friends stand by her? Would her boyfriend, Larry, stay true?

And yet all these locked-up ladies found ways to make the stay bearable. Kerman herself learned how to whip up “Prison Cheesecake” from scrounged ingredients. You start with “four pats of margarine stolen from the dining hall.” Check out the book for the rest of this adventurous recipe.

Finally, the inmates counted down the days until they could go home. The closer that day loomed, the more each woman froze up with fear. You can get a little too used to living on the inside.

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Since the Danbury women had a couple microwaves, maybe they could have treated themselves to this cake. microwave cake blog readyWhen you get to the link, you’ll find a concoction so fluffy and pink, you’d never guess there was chocolate under there. What a missed opportunity!

I used a 1/2 recipe of Glossy Chocolate Frosting.

texmex chicken pasta blog ready

The pile of Tex-Mex Chicken Pasta might have been a harder to come by in a prison dorm. But those of us who steer clear of the drug trade get to enjoy fancier dinners.