Adrenaline is a Bad Guest

[READER]( [Food & Drink]( In the early weeks of the pandemic I felt like I was thrust to the height of my creative powers, snatching perfect combinations of words and sentences out of thin air and lining them up like ants on a log. That didn’t last. Adrenaline is a bad guest, always sneaking her boyfriend Exhaustion into the party. But on days I feel dead inside it hasn’t been difficult to find jolts of inspiration on my beat. Just as there were too many restaurants to keep up with in the Before, so too are there too many chefs doing amazing things outside the traditional restaurant now. I wrote about a handful of them this week, operating under the [Snack Collective]( rubric. One of them, Darlene Phan, told me that she’s simply been drawing on ideas she’s been keeping in her back pocket for years that didn’t have a home in any of the restaurants she was working for. Same is true for Tony Balestreri, who was the head chef at the Welcome Back Lounge when COVID-19 struck, but before that had worked a bunch of places like Marz Community Brewing and Kimski. When he got the axe this spring, he had an idea incubating too. “We can’t sit still,” he says. “We can’t just wait for the government to hand us a check. We have to go out even if we’re sitting in a bathtub eating cheeseburgers and smoking grass.” (If you want to know what he means by that, check out his Instagram alter-ego [@grubtubtony]( which he adopted three years ago after he quit drinking). Balestreri was doing R&D a few years ago when “a mix of the jazz cabbage and doing something incorrectly” led to inspiration. “I’m from Wisconsin,” he says. “I grew up eating beef jerky as a snack and always thought it would be cool to put it on a menu someday.” One day he screwed up, rendering thinly shaved eye of round into something almost entirely devoid of fat and moisture: meat in a crunchy chip form. Tony B’s Steak Chips were born. In the spring Balestreri began giving them away to his friends, and they took off almost immediately. “I had one dehydrator at the time,” he says. “So I was making them every day and I was selling out every day. It was a constant hamster wheel of making them and selling, then making them and selling them.” Balestreri scaled up with another dehydrator and a couple more prep tables and began making 100 bags of Sichuan Peppercorn and Coconut Curry steak chips at a time, deliverable via [Instagram]( and available for retail at a handful of outlets such as Antique Taco in Bridgeport and Off Premise Liquors in Lincoln Park. “I had no intentions of actually selling these,” he says.“I just wanted to get my product out there and I knew I was gonna take a little loss. But the response from everybody was ‘I need to buy these.” The response has been so good, Balestreri has been working with a distributor and a co-packer to go full-on retail. Until then he’s put a pause on developing new flavors, but that only meant there was a world of dips to explore. He recommends hummus with the Coconut Curry. And for Sichuan Peppercorn? “As a midwesterner I have to go with the canned nacho cheese,” he says. “The fatty creamy cheese dances in your mouth with the floral notes in the Sichuan [peppercorns].” See what I mean about chefs? Always inspiring. Sincerely, [Quarantinis delivered]( Here’s where you can get to-go cocktails around Chicago. By [Jenna Rimensnyder]( [@j_rimensnyder]( [You don’t mess with Teta at Evette’s]( Grandma would approve of this Lincoln Park Lebanese-Mexican mashup. By [Mike Sula]( [@MikeSula]( [Meet Dinkey DaDiva, creator of the Jerk Chicken Egg Roll]( The Egg Roll Lady has 75 varieties in her arsenal. By [Mike Sula]( [@MikeSula]( [Stay pizza-positive with Crust Fund Pizza]( Food writer John Carruthers auctions his tavern-style pies for social justice. By [Mike Sula]( [@MikeSula]( 2016 [Tastee-Freez makes friendships better than its food]( [Issue of Nov 12-25, 2020 Vol. 50, No. 4]( [Bound to the Point]( [Tales of the Southside Pod swimmers]( By [S. Nicole Lane]( [Best of Chicago 2020: Nominate now!]( [Download Issue]( (PDF) [View this e-mail as a web page]( [DONATE]( Like most people prone to feelings of powerlessness when confronted with world events, I started growing out all of my hair at the beginning of the pandemic. It was one small measure I could take to make it through the days with some fractional illusion of control. The look got enough encouragement from my pod that I started imagining myself—maybe not so much like a silver fox—but more like a gracefully aging Afghan hound. I made a personal commitment to keep it going until it was reasonably less risky to swap spit with strangers again. But then, just as the Proud Boys ruined the perfectly good collection of vintage Hawaiian shirts on my rack, a conspiracy of bearded mouthbreathers got arrested for plotting to kidnap the governor of Michigan. I wasn’t comfortable with the look anymore. I resolved that the day the Cheeto-in-Chief got wheeled out of the White House in a Hannibal Lecter bite mask I’d reward myself with a shave and a haircut. On Saturday morning, when the city’s car horns started to blow, I could almost feel the cold, bracing slap of [Aqua Velva]( on my naked chops. But now the Loser looks like he’s trying to mount a coup, and here I am again centering the world’s problems on my mug. But I know it’s not all about me. Despite the hurricane of diarrhea the Trump cult is lathering in, COVID-19 is feasting on us like never before. Restaurants, clubs, theaters, concerts, festivals, jobs—our lives—aren’t coming back until we get it under control. And there are things we insignificant individuals can do. Better than growing a beard, we can wear masks, of course (and get out of the way if you won’t). Wash your hands. Keep your distance. And as Crust Fund Pizza jefe John Carruthers told me [last month]( “Help however you can help.” This month the entire staff of the Reader took pay cuts and furloughs to help the paper stay alive—and to help each other keep our jobs. Since March we’ve lost more than 90 percent of our ad revenue, but through a myriad of methods we’ve managed to stay alive and not lose anyone. We’re doing what we can to help. You can help too: We’re almost a full nonprofit now. [Become a member. Or make a donation](. Anything you give between now and December 31st has the chance to be matched by NewsMatch. Or buy some [merch](. Not to bring it all back around to me again, but buy [my book]( If we sell a few more copies I might feel good enough to scrape off this scraggly old flavor saver after all. Sincerely, [DONATE]( [@chicago_reader]( [/chicagoreader]( [@chicago_reader]( [Chicago Reader on LinkedIn]( [/chicagoreader]( [chicagoreader.com]( [Forward this e-mail to a friend](. 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