"As soon as (my family) sees me back they say, 'OK, we're going to get some good food,'" Perez said. "All my cooking skills, I learned in here."

Some of Perez's specialties include pastries like cheesecake, key lime pie and lemon meringue pie.

The meals may not be steak and lobster - or much else that will be found on Main Avenue today during Taste of Durango - but they are balanced and rival some restaurants'.

On Wednesday's menu: eggs, sausage and hash browns for breakfast; beef stew, pudding and bread for lunch; and chicken fajitas, Spanish rice and sweet rice for dinner.

The jail prepares about 510 meals per day, or 185,000 meals per year. And for the most part, everyone eats the same meal, including prisoners, jail guards and Sheriff Duke Schirard.

"It's wholesome, it's good, it's well-balanced," Schirard said. "We've never had serious complaints about the food."

To prepare all those meals, the jail relies on 13 inmates - called trustees - to do most of the work. They are overseen by Jerry Rodri, food service manager for the jail, who has 25 years experience cooking for prisoners, including 19 years at the La Plata County Jail.

Rodri says a well-fed inmate is a compliant inmate.

"We're not here to punish people," he said. "The court system does that. I'm here to feed people."

Trustees work 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week. As a reward, their jail sentences are reduced by 10 days per month.

And there are other perks.

Trustees can move about the detention center without supervision. And Rodri allows them to eat whatever they want - as long as it is available in the kitchen. So if the general jail population has lasagna for dinner, a trustee can make himself a hamburger.

"These guys want to be here," Rodri said. "There's nothing worse than rotting in the cell. Can you imagine sitting in a cell for 24 hours a day?"

In order to work in the kitchen, inmates must be cleared by the jail nurse, and they cannot be charged with or convicted of a high-level felony. Anyone who has assaulted a police officer or has been charged with domestic violence is ineligible.

They have to prove themselves as model inmates, because in the kitchen, they have access to numerous knives and other tools that can be used as weapons.

In his 19 years at the La Plata County Jail, Rodri said there have been no major incidents, such as a prisoner stabbing another prisoner or a prisoner attempting to poison the food.

Rodri selects a "lead man" to direct other trustees. That way, prisoners take orders from peers rather than from someone they view as a "cop," Rodri said.

The jail has an outstanding record for food-safety practices, said Marian Schaub, food program manager with the San Juan Basin Health Department, which conducts regular inspections at the jail. "They have to be very careful about their food safety, which they are," Schaub said. "They don't have any (violations) of any significance."

Over the years, a few inmates have managed to find jobs at local restaurants, thanks to the skills they have learned in jail, Rodri said.

Perez, for example, is considering applying to be a cook at the new Sky Ute Casino in Ignacio. Whether he actually obtains a job is another question. Beside his repeat offenses, it's tough to find a job as a cook without formal training in the culinary arts.

Rodri said most of the trustees are repeat offenders. For them, jail is a revolving door. He has worked at the jail long enough to see some prisoners' children report to jail.

Methamphetamine, he said, is the leading cause of recidivism.

"Dope isn't marijuana anymore," he said. "People still smoke it a little bit, but it's predominantly, by far, meth.

"It's not a happy place - jail."

As prisoners come and go, Rodri will be there with a hot meal waiting.

"The one humanizing factor we have is food," he said. "Everybody eats."

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