Fran Tirado’s Grub Street Diet

July was supposed to be a post-Pride recovery period, which makes it all the more annoying for Fran Tirado, editor-in-chief of Them magazine, to find herself sick in bed — especially since giggling on Slack is often the most fun she’ll have all week. Queer news coverage isn’t exactly light-hearted these days, but Tirado’s aim is to find room for levity. She and her team “all push each other to try and find a sense of humor when we can,” she says. In search of more levity after a couple of sick days, Tirado managed to make it out to Fire Island, where her first corned beef sandwich turned out to be a revelation, rounded out by lobster and pluot crumble, courtesy of chef friends. “I am spoiled rotten,” she says.

Wednesday, July 23
I wake up late, around 8:30 a.m., in a stupor, with a headache that I’m not sure is from being sick, being dehydrated, sleeping next to the air conditioner, or some combination of all three. I start my day drinking a strawberry flavored Liquid I.V. from a powder packet. I’ve been chipping away at the Costco-size bag all week.

Against my better judgement, I also have a cold brew. I was gifted the Emma Chamberlain cold-brew bags, and I pour myself a glass with oat milk. To be honest with you, I don’t love it. It’s possible that I’ve been oversteeping it, but the overall profile is a bit too sweet and also tastes a bit like paper. I throw some coconut sugar and a splash of water in the microwave for a quick simple syrup to improve it.

The magazine is without a news editor right now, and so mornings typically have me plugged into Slack for the first half of the day. When I look up at the clock, it’s 1 p.m., which means I’ve been looking at my computer for an uninterrupted four hours. I eat a bowl of lemon-cake-flavored Magic Spoon “protein cereal.” This was also from Costco, but unlike the hydration packets, it was a bit of an impulse purchase. It’s disgusting, and the prospect of finishing two huge bags is incredibly daunting. I dress it up with plain Greek yogurt, dried blueberries, and golden raisins. Due to illness, I’d moved most meetings off my calendar, so by 4:30, miraculously, I can log off early. I go back to bed.

I wake up and it’s dark out. Do I feel better or worse? I make a sandwich for dinner. Sandwiches are my favorite food, which is something that has stayed with me since I was a kid. My mom and dad’s first meal as a married couple was a one-dollar French baguette with a slice of avocado, lime juice, sliced cheddar cheese, and rotisserie chicken, and that became a staple meal of mine growing up. I used to request it every year on my birthday. In this particular era of my life, I don’t really have spare minutes or hours to cook anymore. Making a really juiced-up sandwich is an easy way for me to have something that is indulgent and delicious.

I assemble chunks of rotisserie chicken, cheddar cheese, avocado, thin-sliced red onion, bacon, hummus, whole-grain mustard, kewpie mayo, salt and pepper, butter lettuce, and a splash of a leftover homemade salad dressing that I have found in a tiny mason jar in my fridge. I have no idea what kind of dressing it is, how long it’s been in there, or who made it, but it wasn’t me. My theory is that either my friend Cherry or Justin made it for a cookout we had on the Fourth of July and, somehow, I inherited it. Dressing doesn’t expire for a while, right? I taste it and it is good, acidic, a little sweet. I finish with bread-and-butter pickles (I prefer a sweet pickle, sue me!), sliced horizontally, with salt-and-pepper kettle chips.

Thursday, July 24
I wake up feeling way, way worse. Sometime in the afternoon I’m able to drag myself to my favorite bodega to get my go-to smoothie, the “Chunky Monkey,” which has banana, peanut butter, blueberries, cashews, and almond milk. Per my usual order, I add spinach and kale. When I get home, I stir in vanilla-flavored protein powder.

I also buy several Gatorade Zeros for sick reasons, but even when I’m not sick, Gatorade is one of my favorite beverages. I never had a pivotal “aha” moment with Gatorade. When I lived in Los Angeles for three years — which ended up being two years too long — I became kind of a butch workout queen, really trying to gain muscle. Maybe I picked up the Gatorade habit doing that. I get a berry, an orange, and a lime cucumber, which they don’t always have. Score.

Friday, July 25
I’m feeling a little better, which is good because nothing will stand between me and Fire Island tomorrow.

My calendar reminds me that it’s a microdose day. I’m in the process of getting off Lexapro and onto psilocybin through a weekslong process of cross-titration. My schedule is one day on, two days off. I use a brand called Psilo that currently offers gummies covered in Nerds candy. A very delicious way to cover up a mushroom’s dirt undertones.

I have my orange Gatorade before going to the bodega, where I brave a salmon burger with sweet-potato fries, no peppers, add avocado. This bodega has one of the most robust menus in the neighborhood, which is why I bravely walk past two other bodegas (over two blocks) to get to it. My appetite is still a little low, so I only manage to eat half of it — very unlike me!

Around midnight, I go to the Munchies, a halal place on Fulton. My order is a chicken plate (usually a double but not this time) with hummus, cucumber-tomato salad, pita (usually two but not this time) and all the sauces (totaling six).

During the summer, I like to keep a variety of Popsicles at home. It’s always a beautiful moment at the end of a rough day to think, “Oh right! I have Popsicles.” In my freezer, I currently have: 365-brand strawberry fruit bar popsicles, orange creamsicles from some healthy brand that is actually good, Melona bars (out of strawberry, but one mango and tons of honeydew), some very underwhelmingly straightforward watermelon pops, and a variety pack of grape, orange, and cherry. Tonight, I choose grape.

Saturday, July 26
Before 8:30 this morning, I stomach yet another Emma Chamberlain cold brew. I bring my ass back to my fave bodega and order another go-to. Cinnamon-raisin bagel double toasted with four eggs scrambled, round turkey-sausage patty (they don’t have pork at this bodega), and a hash brown with scallion cream cheese. In the car to the Sayville Ferry Service, I chug another Gatorade Zero.

I’m on Fire Island for the weekend because Doll Invasion — an annual trans fund-rager I helped create — is shooting a cover for a local magazine. It’s a bit of a go-go-go day as the photographer, and nine members of my team are daytripping for the shoot. The vibe is vintage Abercrombie, dolls in sand, wet, sexy, playful. The team is set to be photographed in the Meat Rack, in showers, on the beach, on a boat. It’s a little bit of work, but mostly play.

By late afternoon, a producer makes a run to the only grocery store in the Pines — the Pantry — for a crew lunch order. For some reason, I said I didn’t need a sandwich, so I graze on Garden Salsa Sun Chips, then-and-vinegar chips. I chug a mango-lemonade Celsius, sip a Fresca, take drags of other people’s Marlboros. Later, I add some tequila to the Fresca. Guess I’m officially healed.

When the shoot wraps by 7 p.m. or so, I’m packing things up and find half of someone’s leftover sandwich: corned beef on rye with Russian dressing and coleslaw. This is a sandwich I have never and would never order; I have never been a corned-beef girlie. I am skeptical but desperate. I figure it hadn’t been there for more than a couple of hours and wasn’t in the blistering sun. I eat it, washing it down with a lemon-lime Gatorade on ice. It’s fucking delicious. A really, really stunning sandwich. It felt like that scene in Ratatouille where Remy transports to a different time and place. Note to self: Order corned-beef sandwiches more.

By 9 p.m., it’s a marvel that I’m still standing. I return to a house where my head of production, Mars, is staying on vacation. He is one of those friends who is not a professional chef but inexplicably an extremely talented one. Pork chops from the grill marinated in fish sauce and lime over vermicelli noodles with lettuce wraps, grilled orange squeezed over it all, and some kind of coconut sauce on the side. I realize it is the first home-cooked meal I’ve had in recent memory. I could cry.

Sunday, July 27
My go-to breakfast order at the Pantry is a large cold brew, which they have on tap, topped with a sweet, rich Coffee-Mate vanilla creamer. I opt for that instead of my typical oat milk because the only oat they offer at the bar is Planet Oat, which I find disgusting. The coffee is great, though, and very acidic. Plus, you get a couple of bucks off a breakfast sandwich as part of a daily combo special. My secret move is to ask the bakery for a fresh croissant and ask the deli to build the sandwich on it. It’s literally hot out of the oven. Not warm, hot. I ask for sliced ham, cheese, and eggs with hot sauce. Sublime.

I spend the first three hours of the day answering emails, and then I accompany the Doll Invasion team on various site visits to the locations hosting our events this year. I forget to eat lunch, a fact that only occurs to me later as I’m drinking a canned paloma on the beach at BOFFO’s Sunday Sounds party on the beach. I’ve never had a canned paloma before, but I find all canned cocktails to be revolting, and this one is no exception. I have a second one.

For dinner, Mars cooks again at the house: grilled corn, shallots, and summer squash. And lobster with rice and two different kinds of nam prik! A green and a red. The red one has a little more heat and is therefore my favorite. My friend Cherry, a professional chef, made a pluot — a cross between a plum and an apricot — crumble for dessert with French vanilla ice cream. We watch Moulin Rouge, and I go back for seconds.

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