And again, how about the DDL for the table, sample data for the table (not production data, and about 10 rows or so), and the expected results based on the...

Several things looking at the execution plans.
One, drop the (nolock) hint.  This is not a "go fast button" and could potentially cause erroneous data to be returned.
Two are...

And depending on the code it may also be worthwhile to set things up in an infinite loop with a break to exit when processing is done or an error...

Based just on your post, I would say when run from your code that the EF is running it inside a transaction.  When everything is completed and returns to your...

I really wish Mr. Celko would just go away.

Looking at another one of your posts, are you talking about the transaction log of a database?  Yes, you can configure how large that can become, but if you fix...