Food

Depends on the facility. I thought it was generally pretty good, and I am a picky eater.

Food quality is one of the most facility-specific things there is, which is why it gets tracked per institution in the facility guide rather than answered once here.

There are medical diets available. Set it up through medical.

Get the diagnosis into your record before you report if you can. Arguing for a diet from inside with nothing documented is a much longer project than arriving with paperwork.

Yes. Set it up through religious services or the chaplain.

Religious accommodation is one of the few areas of the system with actual teeth behind it, so this is a request that tends to go somewhere.

Set it up through medical.

Most mainlines also run a no-flesh option day to day without any paperwork at all. What is approved and how is in PS 4700.08, the Food Service Manual, which nearly every warden supplements locally — so the handbook at your facility is the version that governs you.

Eat. Commissary exists, spreads exist, and men will feed you.

A meal built out of commissary ingredients, usually shared. Ramen as the base, plus whatever anyone contributes. It is the closest thing to a dinner party in there.

Being invited to one is also a social event, not just a meal. Bring something.

Usually a homemade candle and a steel plate. Microwaves where they exist.

Unofficially, yes. Kitchen access is a real economic position and it is one of the reasons those jobs are wanted.

It is also, formally, stolen government property changing hands. Nobody on the compound thinks of it that way and the paperwork does. The economy covers what happens when enforcement occasionally shows up.