Isle McElroy’s Grub Street Diet

The title of Isle McElroy’s sophomore novel, People Collide, reflects the larger themes of the book: body-switching, self-expression, learning to navigate the world in a new way. But it could also be described as a testament to how McElroy spends their days. “I definitely orient my life around hanging out,” they say, laughing. Food, then, comes after: “I’m like a planet, and meals are gravitationally pulled toward me as I’m biking around.” It makes for a slightly chaotic approach to eating, but, ultimately, “I love spontaneity, and New York has definitely allowed for that. I feel like I have the right metabolism for this city,” they add. “And so much of that is, How can I get meals with people?”

Friday, September 13
I have a pretty standard morning routine. I wake up around 6:30, brew coffee in a French press while Heidi sleeps, and drink two full cups while writing fiction. I pair the coffee with two digestive cookies — preferably dark chocolate. For the past three weeks, contractors have been arriving every morning at eight to install an HVAC system in my apartment. This morning, I suck down a cup of coffee and flee the house.

I’m not normally a lunch person — I’m on the record against it — but my friend Sanaë tells me I need to try the fried-chicken sandwich at Peaches. We split the sandwich — hot; we’re both too nervous to try extra hot — and a kale salad. The sandwich is as good as she promised, spicy and sweetened with a touch of honey, the chicken crispy beneath a bramble of purple cabbage. Before we leave, Sanaë is recognized by her high-school boyfriend’s sister at the table next to us. Sanaë hasn’t seen her since she was 17.

Sanaë gets a coffee at Chicky’s General Store across the street, and I get a cinnamon walnut mini-cake. I walk her home, then amble to Corto. I read while drinking a black coffee, occasionally sneaking bites of my contraband mini-cake.

That evening, Heidi and I head to the West Village for drinks at L’Accolade, a French natural wine bar with an unbeatable happy hour and the sexiest Heimlich-maneuver sign in all of New York — you need to see it for yourself.

Heidi works for the wine distributor Super Glou, and she’s close with the owners of L’Accolade, along with many other beverage directors across the city. It’s not uncommon to receive a few pours on the house when we go out. I order a gin martini — dry with a twist, my standard — and Heidi gets a paper plane. We split a half-dozen oysters, arancini, and calamari fritters off the happy-hour menu, and though happy hour has ended by this point, the server discounts two final glasses of sparkling wine.

We’re in the West Village to see the premier of Shuchi Talati’s debut feature, Girls Will Be Girls, at Film Forum. We arrive minutes before the showing, but still I wait in line for popcorn — and a last-second impulse purchase of a Rice Krispies treat. Heidi and I eat the popcorn ravenously — the only way to eat it, in my opinion — and the bag is nearly empty by the time the opening credits have ended. Girls Will Be Girls is surprising and beautiful. What begins as a coming-of-age story evolves into a fraught portrait of a daughter learning to love her mother’s complexity. Heidi goes right home after the movie, and I join a group at Tio Pepe for the after-party, where I slurp down one hibiscus margarita.

Saturday, September 14
I pick at what’s left of my cinnamon mini-cake — I have a habit of eating half of a pastry in public, saving the rest for the following morning — over coffee at my desk. I make a smoothie, too, not because I necessarily want one now, but because once the contractors arrive, my kitchen will be covered in plastic sheets. My recipe hasn’t changed in years: frozen berries, frozen spinach, bananas, yogurt, coconut water, and almond butter/peanut butter/tahini (depending on which one I have).

This morning, I use the last of the bananas in my freezer. I’d slowly been working through two full ziplocks of bananas for months after ordering a Too Good to Go box from my local grocery store. I am obsessed with Too Good to Go — it’s an app where you buy leftover food from restaurants, bakeries, and grocery stores at a discount price to prevent them from throwing it all out. The box from my grocery store was almost entirely browning bananas, all of which required emergency peeling and freezing. I never thought I’d get through the bags — but here I am.

As I’m finishing the smoothie, the contractors arrive — just in time. I’m getting a manicure for the paperback launch of my second novel, People Collide, from a friend who just started painting nails professionally. She creates an intricate pattern modeled on the book cover — a white base with pink and blue brush strokes. She adds a luminescent buff to the surface to give my nails a pearly shine. It’s gorgeous.

I bike to Park Slope to meet up with Amy Rose at McMahon’s Public House. We came here once on a whim, and I ordered what I believe is a perfect meal: a large green salad and mozzarella sticks. Every time I pass McMahon’s, I text a photo to Amy Rose. Today is our day. I order my perfect meal and a Lagunitas IPA, which I sip slowly over the next two hours while Amy Rose and I talk about love and books.

Afterward, I head to Vanessa’s for a rooftop party. She’s prepared a spread of Malaysian snacks for the party: sliders, onde onde, curry puffs, pandan cake, cassava donuts. I try everything but the sliders — they have anchovies, I’m not a fan — while throwing back cans of club soda. Vanessa hosts rooftop parties twice a year. They’re perfect settings for letting the day drift into the night, but this afternoon, I have plans for happy-hour drinks with Adam, Maris, and Josh. Adam is at the party too, so we split a car to Gertrude’s. Maris and Josh are waiting outside.

My friend Matt has been bartending at Gertrude’s since it opened. The restaurant is on my way home from just about every place I might bike in the city. It’s an ideal spot for a nightcap — in the summers, I tend to stop in once a week, for a drink or a slice of the famous black-and-white cake or simply to gossip with Matt. Tonight we all spread out along the bar. Another bartender, Corey, shows off photos of his kitten, Rupert, who’s been growing preposterously over the past few months.

The four of us split a mountain of snacks: shrimp cocktail, fries, fried green tomatoes, pletzels, and a big green salad. I ignore the fries but get after everything else, especially the tomatoes and salad, which I keep heaping onto my plate. I love the tarragon dressing they put on the salad — it’s like nothing else in the city. Maris and I talk about her new book; I can’t wait for it to be published! Matt eyes my empty martini glass, asks if I want another. I order a 50/50 in an attempt to slow down — it’s not even seven o’clock.

Mina and Kayla text as I’m leaving. They’re at the Fly, and I’m close enough to walk. We take a table outside, right next to the street. Passing buses ruffle Kayla’s hair. We all order martinis. Dirty this time. I normally loathe dirty martinis. In the past, I’ve ordered them when I’ve had too much to drink, when I need to drink something I know I abhor — yes, I know it would be smarter to drink water. But the Fly has one of the rare dirty martinis I love.

Mina and Kayla haven’t eaten dinner. We order a Caesar salad, fries, and a half-chicken with green and white sauces; you gotta order them both. Though I’m full, I pick at the chicken — it’s impossible not to — slide more salad onto my plate, and pluck fries from the basket. Daniel joins for a drink, and we discuss Mina’s theory of the Mother Wound — the first breakup that really tears open your heart. It doesn’t have to be your first ever breakup, and it normally isn’t. It also doesn’t have to come at the end of a long relationship. Six years, 60, six weeks — the Mother Wound spares no one. Most importantly, according to Mina, those who are recently Mother Wounded tend to Mother Wound their next partner. It’s scary out there.

After the Fly, they walk me to a party at Tip Top, but on the way over I feel myself fading and five minutes after arriving, I leave. Mina, Kayla, and Daniel head to Doris. I once had a breakup at Doris, so now I try to avoid it.

Sunday, September 15
The contractors have the day off, so I stay in all morning drinking coffee and prepping for a class on sex writing I’m teaching at noon. Before class, I walk to the farmers’ market on Cortelyou, where I pick up vegetables for the week: green leaf lettuce, kale, carrots, broccoli, a single tomato. The egg man has run out of eggs.

I can’t teach without drinking at least two different liquids. Today I rotate between coffee, smoothie, and a massive jar of ice water — I prefer to drink water out of enormous jars. Standard glasses are not big enough. At restaurants, I am constantly refilling the petite glassware set before me.

After class, I’m starving. As a reluctant consumer of lunch, my midday meals tend to be haphazard and quick. I halve an everything bagel — my freezer is full of bagels, another Too Good to Go haul — and make toad in a hole, scooping chili crisp into the center while it cooks in a skillet. Once the pan is heated, I crack an egg into the chili-crisp nook. I eat it alongside leftover kale salad and half a cucumber, which I use to scoop out what’s left from a tub of hummus from Mimi’s.

I meet Ariela at Bar Goto Niban before seeing Max Wittert’s “I Can Steal Your Mother” at Littlefield. I’m also a regular at Bar Goto. Their kombu celery is the finest celery in the world. No one ever believes that celery could be so delicious — I get it. I sound downright unhinged when I describe how much I love it. But what I love even more are the faces that friends make when they admit that the celery is just as good as I told them.

Ariela and I round out dinner with miso wings and chizu croquettes, while I finish my sakura martini. On Sundays, Bar Goto also offers a shochu menu selected by the bartender, Koharu. I order a glass of shochu and soda based on her recommendation: Selephant, a light, floral shochu that tastes especially refreshing with soda.

At Littlefield, I get an IPA and Ariela gets a vodka and ginger ale. Wittert’s show is smart and moving and hilarious. He sits at a desk in the corner, projecting drawings that detail his life. The conceit of the show is that he’s selling his life to the audience, and it is especially poignant midway through, when Wittert abruptly pivots to the death of his mother and its impact on him and his father. A frantic riff on his father driving him home from the airport captures perfectly the mix of care and frustration that binds parents and their adult children together.

After the show, I bike back to Flatbush and read on the couch until I’m too sleepy to think.

Monday, September 16
The contractors are back. I walk to Der Pioneer on Church Avenue for my first coffee of the day. I also get a massive cinnamon scone, the kind I think will be too big to finish, but I scarf it down quickly, soaking chunks of it in my coffee before taking bites. I work on novel edits at a large wooden table in the center of the café. Working at a large table makes me feel like I’m part of a grand collective project, even on the days I procrastinate on my phone.

At home, a smoothie. I’ve been going out too often, spending too much, so I remain at home during the day, weather the buzz of contractors sanding and drilling. In the afternoon, I go for a run — my first in weeks. I’m winded and washed. On my way back, I pass Taylor & Co Books, a local favorite. Out front, a woman is cooking arepas on a portable griddle. I don’t have any cash, but Andrew, the owner of Taylor & Co, spots me six bucks and I order a cheese arepa. While I wait for it, I buy the reissue of Renee Gladman’s TOAF. Gladman is an all-time author for me. I nearly buy her other new book, My Lesbian Novel, but I have a copy waiting for me at a different bookstore. I eat the arepa on my walk home.

After teaching, Heidi makes Chinese noodles and vegetables. Her boss gave her a bag of shishito peppers from Clove Valley Community Farm, and if we don’t cook them today, we won’t have time later this week. I blister the peppers and heat up leftover dumplings that have been in the fridge a few days. To drink, I mix a club soda with lemon-ginger kombucha and serve it over ice. Heidi finds this combination absurd and even a little repulsive, but I swear by it. The kombucha is too sweet on its own, and the club soda preserves its carbonation.

I read on the couch for the rest of the night, taking progressively smaller bites of a honey-almond nougat Tony’s chocolate bar that I found tucked in the back of a cabinet.

Tuesday, September 17
Today the paperback of People Collide launches. To commemorate the occasion, I bike to Hamlet, a café in Flatbush east of Prospect Park, where I wrote the first draft. I used to spend a lot of time in this neighborhood, and I love returning to Hamlet — its black coffee is excellent, and it’s a perfect café for working. With my coffee, I get a cinnamon crumb cake. Instead of writing, I read Katherine Packert Burke’s stunning debut novel, Still Life. I’m moderating her book launch on Thursday and need to prepare questions. I order a second coffee but leave as Hamlet starts to get crowded.

I bike to bookstores across Brooklyn to sign some copies, and after a few hours, I’m starving. I stop off at Pho Bar for lunch. I go in wanting pho, but, as always happens when I get Vietnamese, I pivot to vermicelli at the last second. (I often change my order impulsively. With friends, I love to add on an item without consulting the table.) I order the lunch special — vermicelli, sautéed veggies, two veggie egg rolls, a can of club soda — but on my way to the bathroom to wash my hands, everyone else in the restaurant is dipping spoons into pho, and I regret every choice I’ve ever made in my life. Luckily, the vermicelli is good and just the right amount of food.

Afterward, I co-write with Summer at a new coffee shop bar in Crown Heights called Word of Mouth. Summer and her friend Emily are starting a program called The Cusp Reading Series at Word of Mouth in the fall — the readers will be grouped by their astrology signs. We’re here to scout and support. I’m jittery from coffee, so I order a green juice — kale, cucumber, mint, and strawberry boba. The drink is screamingly green, served in a squat wine glass that looks like something you’d find at your most eccentric aunt’s estate sale. A full sprig of mint sticks out like a feather. The boba clings to the base of the glass. When I get through the juice, the boba explodes tartly between my molars.

Before the reading, I grab a drink with Abbi at Henry Public. Abbi is currently adapting People Collide for TV. We talk about that process and the reading she’s moderating tonight. I order a gin martini and we split fries — “french fried potatoes,” according to the menu; Abbi and I correct each other whenever we accidentally call them fries — and an order of almonds that remains disconcertingly warm long after it’s served.

Books Are Magic is full when we arrive. Paperback launches are odd creatures. Because the book has already been out for a year, they can lack the excitement of a hardcover launch. But the venue is packed with friends and former students and readers I’ve never met. I’m genuinely humbled. Marya delivers me flowers. The reading goes smoothly. Abbi and I have a great time chatting about the book and the anxieties of adaptation. I’m moved by the kindness of readers in the signing line.

I walk with Heidi and Kelley to Bohemien Bar, on Atlantic, where friends are gathered for a small after-party. I order — unsurprisingly — a gin martini, dry with a twist. But I can see how the night will end if I continue. From then on, it’s pilsners. When I hear my voice beginning to slosh, I order an emergency burger and eat it in three glorious bites.

As the crowd of friends begins to thin out, our server asks what we’re celebrating. I tell her; she offers to take a shot with me. We decide on fernet. She also gives me an espresso martini on the house, and I’m hardly halfway through when she returns with a pair of bourbon shots — they’ve run out of fernet. Reluctantly, I agree; I like feeling celebrated and overindulged.
At last call, she persaudes me and Jenny to take one more shot. Someone suggests green Chartreuse — shortage be damned! We take them together, laughing and scared. It goes down pepperishly. Everyone closes their tab.

Outside, we hug and we hug. Cars are called, cigarettes shared. “Is this one mine?” we ask. “I think this is me?” It isn’t, it isn’t, until it is.