Per Diem, Rhode Island, and the Onion Rings That Broke Me

 

If you haven’t been following along, here’s the quick recap:

On deployment, I get $68 a day for food. Whatever I don’t spend, I get to keep — and with kids in college, that money matters. Plus, I’m a man who can eat for a lot less than $68 a day. Tuna packets and dignity are basically free.

But… when in Rome, right?

And Rhode Island has its own Rome — a Roman Empire made of chowder, clam cakes, pizza, and milkshakes promoted like folklore. I tried the famous Awful Awful because everyone said you had to. Didn’t live up to the hype. Not bad — just… I’m from an area with real milkshake chops. We don’t hand out superlatives lightly.

This deployment was also my first time being out solo for ten full days. I met up with a teammate a few times, and one night he suggested dinner. We hit up Shannon View Inn, an Irish bar close to my hotel. Good call on his part.

I ordered fish and chips that came with a mountain of French fries. The kind of mountain that would’ve made my mother’s voice appear in my head, reminding me to finish everything on my plate. I know every culture has their version of “eat your dinner, there are starving kids somewhere,” but with the government shutdown talk and SNAP in the news, I can’t help but wonder if moms in other countries are now telling their kids, “Finish that, there are starving children in America.”

Anyway — I told you all that to tell you this:

I got fish and chips.
My teammate got a burger with onion rings.

Now, I love onion rings. The way other people love their pets or their firstborn child. And he slid one across the table to me — not that my fat ass needed more food — but it was spectacular. Absolutely flawless.

And listen, there are many ways to mess up onion rings:

• Too crispy

• Too soggy

• Slimy onion that doesn’t break

• Grease bombs

• Flavorless fry jacket misery

But these? These were golden brown halos delivered straight from the deep fryer of heaven.

So the next night, we went back.

Sure, it was 35-cent wing night, which sounds like the main attraction, but we all know why I really returned:
The onion rings.

Perfect again.

Night three?
Buy-one-get-one burger night.
And of course — onion rings.

Listen, I am a man of simple habits. There was a three-week stretch once where I ate nothing but chicken salad on tortillas. I ate the same “baconeggandcheese” (all one word, because I’m a New Yorker) every day for nine years.

So I can absolutely eat onion rings three nights in a row without blinking.

And no, you’re not here for hard-hitting journalism.
But I will give you something poetic about those onion rings:
They were delicious, golden-brown promises, fried circles of comfort, and I chased them with joy.

So yeah, I ate out more than I planned.

But I still kept the budget intact — Hampton Inn breakfast every morning, a few bananas and muffins smuggled out for lunch, and then whatever Rhode Island had to offer for dinner.

And Rhode Island?
Shockingly Italian.

I stumbled into four slices of damn-near perfect pizza while out in the world — and even as a proud, stubborn, judgmental New York pizza snob, I’ve got to say… Rhode Island held its own.

 A perfect bowl of chowder, and a few Clam cakes from Chellos

Then there  the Wimpy Skippy from Caserta Pizzaria in Little Italy section of Federal Hill — spinach, pepperoni, and olives baked into something that should not taste as good as it does. Worth the line. Worth the wait.

And worth breaking the per diem discipline for.

If you need me, I’ll be somewhere pretending I have self-control and failing gloriously at it.
— Nate