things I remember consuming in the States

I did try to stay toward the keto/carnivore end of the spectrum when I was in my Manassas hotel. I ate a lot of deli meat, and while I'd bought a package of fat sausages to cook, I hadn't eaten them by the time I'd moved over to Mike's place, so I gave them to his family.

• deli meats (shaved, sliced)—ketoish
• sliced deli cheeses—ketoish
• Walmart premade salads—barely ketoish
• Jamaican beef patties from 7-Eleven—not keto at all
• a big ole hot dog—not keto
• Mexican food—not keto
• Chinese food from an old favorite resto—not keto

The Chinese food consisted of fried dumplings, fried wontons, and crispy beef. That was pretty much the end of my blood sugar. Then I moved over to Mike's place

• home-cooked proteins and salads + carbs—not keto, but normal
• Moroccan-inspired chicken with couscous—not keto
• gyros—not keto thanks to the flatbread
• bibimbap—not keto thanks to the rice
• Tim's II seafood (mostly fried: calamari, shrimp, omnibus plate)—so not keto
• Foode "Fredericksburger" with tater tots—definitely not keto
• Pimenta: curried goat, plantains, mac & cheese + beef patties—antiketo
• various diet sodas (2 versions of Dr. Pepper, Cherry Coke Zero, Goslings, etc.)
• a lot of random grapes—not keto
• oatmeal cookies with Craisins, made with BochaSweet—not keto (oatmeal, Craisins)
• snacks from the pantry (nuts, cookies, trail mix, etc.—not keto)

By this point, my blood sugar has been thoroughly Guatanamo'ed. It's curled up in a fetal position in the dark corner of an unlit cinder-block cell, bloody, beaten, whimpering in misery, ranting incoherently, snot and saliva coming out one end, shit and piss coming out the other. I probably spent two of my three weeks at a blood-sugar average of over 230. God only knows what my arteries look like on the inside.

I would have liked to take cases of Cherry Coke Zero back with me: the American version is more strongly flavored than the Korean version, something I couldn't have known without the ability to compare the two. I'll eventually get used to the Korean version again, but for the moment, sucking a bottle down produces more disappointment than satisfaction.

There were a couple of things I'd contemplated eating but never got around to: an ever-dwindling slice of lemon cake that had looked promising, plus some blueberry muffins that smelled divine (both Mike and his Missus are talented cooks). I just might have to make those things for myself. Those and other, more human things are aspects of America that I'll miss.