Because I would be away for my normal interviewing deadline, I thought it might be fun and expedient to interview someone in New Orleans and somehow make a connection to Saratoga and Los Gatos through food available in both places. It occurred to me that praline (praw-leen)—that wonderful patty-shaped pecan candy that becomes fudge-like by beating a still warm sugar mixture—might be the perfect subject. The humidity in the "Big Easy" gives the concoction a special texture that melts in your mouth. A more brittle variety is available here.

An acquaintance heard of my interest and told me about a news story he had read in the New Orleans Times Picayune last year about a prison inmate who perfected a praline recipe while "in stir for 11 years." The idea of a praline with a past intrigued me. It was all the information I had, but the paper's librarian instantly recalled the story. He referred me to the reporter who was happy to give me the man's name and number. I couldn't believe the ease with which I was making connections as Robert King Wilkerson answered the phone on the third ring.

"It wasn't 11 years, it was 30," he said quietly, referring to the time he spent at Louisiana State Prison, also known as "The Farm," a complex of plantations where inmates are used for hard farm labor. It also is known as Angola, named after the African country where 75 percent of America's former slaves originated. Three quarters of Angola's prison population is African American.

It was to this place in 1972 that Wilkerson, known to authorities as a prison activist, was brought and immediately put into solitary confinement while "under investigation." He stayed in solitary for the entire duration of his confinement at Angola and didn't know the true nature of his charges for 28 years. "I was being kept for something I didn't do," he says. Now 61, he was released in 2001.

During his confinement, Wilkerson perfected a recipe for pralines that he had learned from a fellow inmate when he was 17 and working as a kitchen helper during his "first trip" to Angola in 1961. At that time, he made the candy mixture in big aluminum pans over big gas stoves. But in the small quarters of his solitary confinement in later years, he made pralines using bits of butter, milk and peanuts that he and other inmates squirreled away, using a stove made of an empty soda can and toilet tissue. "I was in prison," he recalls, "but I wasn't going to let the prison get into me." He read everything he could get his hands on, "from cowboy to Karl Marx." He studied law, and all the while he developed his pralines. His first "customers" were family and friends. "People seemed to love them," he says.

So now he is free, and he no longer makes pralines. "These are Freelines," he says of his candies. "Now I can make life a little sweeter for you," he says with a smile. He mixes evaporated milk with sugar, pecans, butter and baking soda—not unusual ingredients. So what is he adding that makes his Freelines so special? "Love," he says simply. "You don't just make it. Something of you goes into it. You have to if you want it done right."

Evidently, he's doing it right. Wilkerson's Freelines—made in flavors like pecan vanilla and coconut (or vegan, using soy milk, for those who want dairy-free)—are shipped anywhere. He charges $5 for up to a 4-ounce square or package, plus shipping. Prices are reduced with larger quantities.

While some of his proceeds help him live, a portion goes to support the cause of two friends still in solitary confinement back at "The Farm." He has set up a fund to "Free the Angola 3" and has traveled to seven countries to tell the story of what he says was a frame-up and the continued incarceration of Black Panthers for political reasons. As he said those words, it dawned on me slowly—he was one of the three. I remember the '70s, albeit, through the starry eyes of a suburban den mother. Wilkerson, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox were prison Black Panthers. Their story is legend.

Freelines, 312 S. Genois, New Orleans, LA 70119. Call for orders: 504.484.7131 or e-mail Wilkerson at: kingwilkerson@hotmail.com or visit his website: http://www.prisonactivist.org/angola/freelines.shtml.