The power of the Snack Collective pivot

Three Vietnamese American chefs do it their way and offer a boost to their friends.

By MIKE SULA

Iused to struggle to keep up with the number of restaurants that opened each week in Chicago. It was thrilling but exhausting, and, putting aside the expense of opening a brick and mortar, it was downright amazing given how di cult the city made the process. The pandemic put a stop to that obviously, but the city continues to make things impossible, shutting down indoor dining for a second time since March just weeks ago. And yet I continue to be amazed at the creative ways food professionals keep feeding people. It seems like every day I come across some furloughed chef, bartender, or server who’s slipped the shackles of the conventional restaurant industry and found a way to do something wholly original and desirable. It’s almost too much to keep up with, but it’s well worth trying, because this is a new generation of hospitality workers who are going to emerge from the pandemic and reshape the food scene in Chicago.

Joey Pham, Lorraine Nguyen, and Darlene Phan each individually had a jump on this in early October when they joined forces and formed Snack Collective, a weekly pop-up at the Ukrainian Village plant shop InFlorEscence. “We were just spitballing,” says Pham, who has a long history in Chicago underground dining but since April has been selling dazzling cakes under the Instagram handle @flavorsupreme. “What do we want to see right now in this pandemic, when the hope of getting a job is not really possible or attainable?”

Part of the answer was the Vietnamese food each grew up eating. “We get to make things we miss, or can’t find, or things that we only get from family events,” says Darlene Phan (@banh_chanh_99), a savory chef who’s cooked all over the country. Phan has since pivoted to pastry, often employing French technique with southeast Asian flavors, such as her pandan or ube knots that sell out each time they’re o ered.

“I brought my own experience as a Vietnamese American and presented lesser-known Vietnamese dishes to restaurants I’ve worked for,” says Pham. “But since the people above me weren’t familiar with them or didn’t understand, they didn’t really see the potential. We have a sense of freedom with Snack Collective where we can bring that to the forefront and we can familiarize people with things that we know as comfort.”

Over the weeks, that’s meant things like Pham’s shrimp and leek wonton soup with scallion chili oil, or Phan’s bánh chuôi , a banana and coconut milk bread pudding that she spices, sugars, and sears like a French pain perdu. “If you were to go up to Argyle now you can probably find it, but you’d probably have to look pretty hard,” she says. “That’s something I’ve always had in mind, but I never had a chance to make it.”

The Snack Collective, with Phan’s partner C.J. Campos helping out, drops a new menu each Wednesday. Usually there’s a noodle soup, such as bún bò huê, or bo ko; a cocktail like a Manhattan riff inspired by the sweet tamarind drink nuóc á , and pastries, like Vietnamese egg co ee or pumpkin mochi.

The collective was selling out regularly at the pop-ups, but when COVID-19 started to resurge in late October, they pivoted to a delivery model, though the plant shop still serves as a pickup point. And they’ve used their growing platform to bring friends along for the ride, collaborating with Mom’s, and nascent alternative-economy producers such as chai maker Freeman House, and Can Sa Bakery, which makes cannabis-infused pastries.

“We saw a second wave of people getting furloughed only weeks ago and lots of people trying to figure out how to survive,” says Nguyen. “A lot of them are really great at creating these products but they haven’t had the chance to put themselves out there. Part of us doing this is to support them so that we can share their projects and also give them a place to start and feel like the community supports them.”

One of those people given a boost by the Snack Collective was bartender Roshelley Mayen, who sells bottled milk punch cocktails under the handle @juanitasbebidas. Milk punch is a centuries-old preservation technique that calls for curdling, clarifying, and straining fat solids from milk. Traditionally it was mixed with whiskey or brandy for a classic cocktail that had some shelf life, but it’s infinitely variable and sustainable, using juices that might otherwise spoil if they sat around unused behind the bar.

“The beauty of the milk punch is that it kind of mellows out the harshness of the alcohol,” says Mayen, who’s bartended all over the city, most recently at Proxi and Sepia. “Even when I use tequila, which can have a pretty abrasive flavor, it really mellows it out. You pick up on the nuances. It’s soothing and relaxing, and you get a really great velvety mouthfeel.”

Mayen showed up at an early Snack Collective pop-up at InFlorEscence, where she was able to evangelize these pleasures to potential customers mask-to-mask. “Milk in a cocktail sounds disgusting, but it’s really quite fantastic,” she says. “I was able to talk to people about it and explain it.” Now Mayen is doing her own weekly milk punch menus for pickup in Logan Square, featuring things like the Cayenne Workout Plan, a milk punch with tequila, ginger, cayenne, and brown sugar syrup, or a vegan version like the Met Gala, with bourbon, sherry, apple cider, chai syrup, and clarified oat and almond milk.

She eventually wants to open an agave-based brick-and-mortar bar—“because there’s just not a lot of agave bars owned by Latin or Hispanic people”—but she wants Juanita’s Bebidas to go big: “My goal is for Juanita’s is to be like Goya or La Preferida.”

Support

Photosynthesis and other life lessons

By Jackson C. Santy

I’m walking down the aisle of the frozen food section; my line of sight locked on the frost tinted windows of tasty tundra as I look for my two best friends Ben, and Jerry. My stomach, aching for the rich delicacy my tongue, tantalized by anticipation of half-baked heaven.

And then he approaches.

Eyes that invade my entire body, a scowl that turns sweetness into sour, a map of wrinkles that today I wish I could navigate to find who hurt him. He asks me what I am, and I say nothing.

Lurching towards me I glare down towards linoleum.

He tells me that God wouldn’t make something like me.

My stomach still aches, but my desire for sweetness has subsided, my tongue stays limp and even when I am out of the frozen food section-I still feel cold.

I do not suffer from dwarfism; because to suffer is to experience something unpleasant.

I do not suffer from dwarfism; I suffer from the maltreatment imposed upon me because of my dwarfism.

And that pain is not pinpointed to my genetic makeup, it is deeper than my scalpel-drawn scars.

The pain that I experience is from the ignorance of others.

It is from the tourist who follows me down the street; incessantly demanding that I stop for a picture, needlessly inquiring the sizes of things she cannot see from staring me down deadpan on the train-platform.

It is the club goer who told me:

“I’ve always wanted to do a midget.”

It is from the six men who have assaulted me.

This letter cannot allow you to fully understand my personal experience— that is why it’s personal.

My experience remains my own; but my oppression is shared.

769-9299

Years pass and I still yearn for the meaning of my existence. I try to seek solace within the covers of my other identities, but masculinity has a height requirement. I spend half my life writing to him.

Half my life throwing pain onto pages, painting stanzas into self-portrait.

I find myself for the first time in twenty years writing an open letter:

I am not a dwarf; I am a person with dwarfism.

Find hundreds of Readerrecommended restaurants, exclusive video features, and sign up for weekly news at chicagoreader.com/ food.

I was one of the many who was born in the dirt; but when you throw your s*** on us it only makes the soil grow stronger.

When you rip out our blossoms; they will grow back and remind us that we can still create beauty.

So when you push me down; you push us all down.

When you try to bury us; you forget that we are the seeds.

Jackson is a poet and essayist with a professional background in Student Success Coaching. As both a writer and youth advocate, his work hopes to echo and uplift our unique capacities for resilience. Jackson resides in Chicago with his partner, and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Social Work to become certified as an Attachment-Based Family Therapist. For more stories and poems, follow him on @TheGreatSantyni on Instagram.

Poem curated by Nikki Patin: Featured in The Guardian, Chicago Tribune, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and on international television and radio, writer, producer, designer and survivor Nikki Patin has been advocating, performing and educating for 20 years. She has performed at the National Black Theater in Harlem, Brooklyn Museum, the Goodman Theater, EXPO Chicago and many other spaces throughout the US, New Zealand and Australia. Nikki Patin holds an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from the University of Southern Maine. Patin is the Community Engagement Director for the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation and the founder and Executive Producer of Surviving the Mic, a survivor-led organization that crafts brave and affirming space for survivors of sexual trauma. Her work can be found at nikkipatin.com.

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