"They learn how to get a job, how to write a resume, how to work with a boss, how to get promoted," says Weiner. "They're learning far more than how to hold a knife and peel an onion."

Some of the former inmates have gone on to jobs at restaurants, catering companies and on cruise ships.

Working together

Weiner says one of his favorite parts of the jail cooking competition was that each team included inmates and leaders from the county's criminal justice system.

"It was kind of showing everybody, instead of an 'us versus them,' it was a 'we can all work together and we can all work together as a team to do something creative.'"

When it came time to pick the judges for the competition, there was at least one natural for the job: Steven Hall, the presiding judge of San Mateo County.

Hall has seen some of these women before - in his courtroom.

"Everybody here is really committed to trying to get folks who are going to be coming back into the community re-employed with job skills so that if I see them again they'll be a juror, not in front of me in custody," he says.

High hopes

That's what Jenelle Delugg hopes for. She came to cheer on the women she served time with up until two months ago. In the days leading up to her release, she was allowed to leave the jail to take classes at the nonprofit's regular school.

"I only did that for a couple weeks before I was actually released. The day I was released I went to school," she says. "I had to report at school and I've not missed a day since."