Source: The Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/6717424.html
As if a Mediterranean breeze wafted through Wallace Pack Unit's steel-reinforced walls and columns, the aromas of hummus, falafel and fattoush permeated the prison's classroom.
“I've forgotten food could taste this good,” said inmate Albert Mason, savoring a bite from his pita sandwich.
While inmate Dusty Russell filled his fifth plate of fresh mixed fruits, Michael Wooldridge munched on a leafy green salad, his first in six years of incarceration.
“I was moved; I wanted to cry — something so small could be huge and make them so happy,” said the Rev. Myokei Caine-Barrett, a Houston Buddhist priest who brought the vegetarian meal for the first time during her five-year ministry at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's correctional facility outside Navasota.
To her 21-member congregation behind bars, Caine-Barrett brought foods that pleased more than their palates.
In this classroom that the inmates called “a little heaven” found in “a hellhole,” they feast on food for the soul Friday evenings and the occasional Sunday when Caine-Barrett makes the two-hour drive for her ministry.