Martha Stewart "smuggled food" from prison cafeteria to bake for fellow inmates

“Everyone smuggles food out of kitchens. I mean what else are you going to make?"

By Ashlie D. Stevens

Food Editor

Published February 2, 2024 2:32PM (EST)

Martha Stewart attends the WSJ Magazine 2023 Innovator Awards at Museum of Modern Art on November 01, 2023 in New York City. (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)
Martha Stewart attends the WSJ Magazine 2023 Innovator Awards at Museum of Modern Art on November 01, 2023 in New York City. (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

The new CNN miniseries, “The Many Lives of Martha Stewart,” explores how the homemaking mogul came to be, chronicling the highs and lows of her far-reaching career — including the five months she spent in federal prison after being found guilty of conspiracy, obstruction and two counts of lying to federal investigators regarding the sale of a stock in 2004. 

The final episode of the series airs on Sunday and, according to an exclusive clip published by PEOPLE Magazine, it will feature accounts from Stewart’s fellow inmates at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. The most interesting, perhaps, being that Stewart would smuggle food from the cafeteria and transform it into sweet treats. One of the women who was incarcerated along Stewart, Mag Phipps, described receiving a note from Stewart accompanied with a baked apple, “which meant she had already tackled the idea of cooking in your dorm or cottage by using the microwave and what resources that you could find,” Phipps said. “Because the baked apple had caramel on it and probably some cinnamon.” 

She continued: “I suspect some of this may have come from the cafeteria, which we’re not supposed to do,” Phipps added.” Susan Spry, another former inmate, told the series creators that was the only way to cook. “Everyone smuggles food out of kitchens. I mean what else are you going to make? Unless it’s smuggled food,” she said.

The final two episodes of “The Many Lives of Martha Stewart” will air Sunday, Feb. 4 at 9 p.m. ET.
 


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