Today we’d like to introduce you to Shanti Chu.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I have always loved food and the communal aspects surrounding it. Dinner time was always the most important part of the day growing up where my mother would cook and we would all congregate around the dinner table eating the delicious food that was made with care and love. My family and I would also take weekend trips to Chicago and partake in trying some delicious cuisine the city had to offer so I became a foodie pretty early on in my life. I would write reviews of restaurants for fun as a child and when I grew older, I started taking pictures of the beautiful food I had the pleasure of eating (this is before food photography blew up and before Instagram).
However, I had a challenging time mediating my love for food with my passion for philosophical concepts and social justice, and I did not know how to bridge the gap between these two loves of mine. While I pursued the philosophical side of myself and now am a full-time philosophy professor at a community college where I can make philosophy accessible to a diverse group of students, I had an unchecked creative desire. I continued to cook at home for my friends and family while enjoying the lovely culinary delights of every city I have lived in.
Last year, my friend had sent me a food critic job description, and I realized that I would love to pursue something like this on the side. While I didn’t have any formal journalism experience beyond editing the Opinion section of my high school newspaper and had no portfolio to really prove anything, I knew I had something unique to share with the world through my writing. I had been blogging on Tumblr about philosophical, cultural, racial, and gender issues for a few years, but I knew this was a ripe time for me to blog about food in terms of its cultural, ethical, and social meanings. Ever since November 2016, I felt a tremendous sense of despair and lack of efficacy in the world and needed to regain agency by delving into something that was meaningful yet still creative and embodying the lightness of being I ever so craved. I started avidly yelping and before you know it I had 100 Yelp Reviews, became a Yelp Elite, and decided to take the plunge and start my own food blog in the fall of 2017.
But, I didn’t want my blog to be like any food blog. I knew that I could offer something unique. While Chicago is a foodie city, I wanted to explore whether it was a foodie city for everyone or only the bourgeois, meat eating kind. I had been a vegetarian for 12 years for mainly ethical reasons due to the sentience of animals that my late dog helped me realize. I also researched the horrors of the factory farming industry and knew that I wanted to have no part in sustaining an industry that not only exploits animals and human workers but also was contributing negatively to climate change. Being a vegetarian is something near and dear to my heart because it’s a way to effect social change in my daily practices even though more structural changes are needed.
I also had felt torn about being a foodie and person focused on social equity so my blog blends these two concerns of mine. I decided I would focus on life in Chicago as someone who is concerned with not just healthy or ethical or affordable living but ALL three of these categories. How can one be a foodie with a sense of ethics while still being healthy and not breaking the bank? Food is so much more than what we put in our mouths–it is how human beings have related to one another for centuries as it embodies cultural, economic, gender and race relations.
I aim to decolonize my diet through my food choices on an everyday basis. How can I be a foodie without violating my ethical principles? How can I purchase ethically made products without using up most of my paycheck? I explore these questions and concepts through my restaurant, coffee shop, and bar reviews. I also post my own vegetarian recipes since I love cooking as much as I love eating out. More recently, I have been doing collaborations with other notable Chicagoans who are doing unique and creative work in the realm of ethical consumption. Since October of 2017, I have been posting a new review, recipe, or blog every week while simultaneously featuring these pictures on my Instagram @chivegpesc. I am excited to see where this passion takes me as it’s a refreshing and creative outlet within a time of political despair and hegemony. I am currently publishing a paper that focuses on how veganism can be a postcolonial strategy for healing, agency, and respecting life. It should be published this year and will be the embodiment of two extremely meaningful aspects of our existence.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think the biggest struggle for me is gaining followers on Instagram and my blog. Because there are so many amazing blogs and projects out there, it is easy to be overlooked or be conceptually quarantined as “just another food blog” when it’s so much more than what people think. I don’t like having to market my blog on social media because it feels artificial and inauthentic, but at the same time I have to do it in order to get more people to recognize what I am doing and hopefully take something meaningful from it. While my followers are growing, it’s a slow process and can be frustrating.
I also am not the most technologically advanced person (even though I am a millennial) so I’ve had to learn a lot of WordPress, research social media techniques, and take advice from my web design friends on how to make my website more user friendly. I just want to write scintillating posts and take beautiful photographs, but I need to focus on the web design aspects of blog creation too in order to attract more followers. I need to consider all of these components in order to have the purpose of what I am doing fulfilled, which is to reach a wide audience of foodies who are motivated by ethics and social change.
Please tell us about Chiveg.
As an avid food blog reader and restaurant goer in Chicago, I often grow frustrated regarding the invisibility of ethical and budget concerns in these spaces. Sure, it’s feasible to find a decent restaurant while on a budget. Sure it’s feasible to find a decent healthy restaurant. But what about a place that is ethical AND affordable. Many of the most highly ranked restaurants in Chicago tend to be very meat-centric and expensive (hint, hint: Girl and the Goat, Publican, Smyth, Longman and Eagle, etc.). While Chicago has its fair share of delicious burger joints, steakhouses, and an odd obsession with bone marrow, what options are there for those of us who are ethical eaters? What options are there for those of us who are on a budget? I explore ethical and affordable eating and drinking in Chicago through a philosophical lens. I provide an overall rating, vegetarian and pescatarian ratings, and an affordability rating along with the menu of what I had.
I consider how many true options there are for us pescatarians and vegetarians (are we just relegated to the tasteless iceberg lettuce side salad or are there actual, hearty options for us). I also consider how affordable the restaurant/bar is in relation to the quality and quantity of food/drinks one is consuming. Some places are worth splurging at while others are not. And finally, I of course take into account the usual suspects: friendliness, service, quality, taste, quantity, ambience, etc.
I also post my own affordable vegetarian and vegan recipes – some of which I have been cooking for over 10 years! More recently, I’ve started collaborating with other creative, ethical consumers in Chicago and featuring them on my blog. I also have the philosophical reasoning behind why I choose a vegetarian lifestyle and how it not only impacts me but how it impacts the community, the world, animals, and the ecosystem.
While there are a plethora of food blogs out there, mine differs insofar as it gets into the deeper meaning behind our food choices and considers factors that meat-eaters or wealthy individuals might overlook (ethics and affordability). Also, who else thinks like a philosopher foodie?
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
As previously mentioned, my family and I would take weekend trips to Chicago from the suburbs and would try out the fine cuisine the city had to offer. My mother would always make delicious dinners and brunches even though she worked full-time, so I gained an avid appreciation for global homemade food with spices and dynamic flavors. It was the time where we would come together and just really focus on each other and the food. I absolutely cherished those moments growing up. My experiences as a child eating out in Chicago and having the privilege to eat delicious and healthy homemade meals lit the fire underneath me and I became a foodie.
In 3rd grade, we would have to do weekend journal entries and write about what we did that previous weekend. My weekend journal entries would focus on what I ate that weekend instead of the other topics that 9 year olds would typically discuss, whether it was embarking on a culinary adventure in Chicago or voraciously eating my mother’s home cooked cuisine. We would always have to read out our entries to the rest of the class. At that age, I was completed unrestrained and felt no shame or embarrassment. I remember my teacher told me that I should become a food critic and I was delighted to hear that since I really enjoyed writing those journal entries. I knew that I wanted to always write, but I just didn’t know how this would be executed in my life.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://chiveg.com
- Phone: (847) 780-6461
- Email: chiveg01@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chivegpesc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chivegpesc/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=shDDyAJPkvKl-44S3VcEew
- Other: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/shantiism
Image Credit:
Shanti Chu, Viktor Gerasimovski, Joseph Mietus
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
