{"id":9807,"date":"2017-09-15T10:36:51","date_gmt":"2017-09-15T14:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/?p=9807"},"modified":"2017-09-15T10:36:51","modified_gmt":"2017-09-15T14:36:51","slug":"toronto-book-awards-2017-i-hear-shes-a-real-bitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thewordonthestreet.ca\/toronto\/toronto-book-awards-2017-i-hear-shes-a-real-bitch\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Book Awards 2017: I Hear She’s a Real Bitch"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Word On The Street Toronto will\u00a0be hosting the\u00a0authors and editors of all five finalists for the\u00a02017 Toronto Book Awards\u00a0at this year\u2019s festival on\u00a0Sunday, September 24,<\/strong>\u00a0at Harbourfront Centre. As a special treat, we\u2019ll be posting reviews of the nominated books in the weeks leading up to the festival\u00a0from a panel of writers, reviewers, and editors working in Toronto today.<\/p>\n

Our next review is of\u00a0I Hear She’s a Real Bitch\u00a0<\/em>by\u00a0Jen Agg<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0reviewed by Khashayar Mohammadi. Khashayar, the fourth of five 2017 Toronto Book Awards reviewers, works as a chef and as an editor for Inspiritus Press<\/a>. Jen Agg will be reading at The Word On the Street at Harbourfront Centre on September 24, from 2:00pm \u2013 2:30pm<\/a>\u00a0and again from 4:30pm \u2013 5:00pm<\/a> at the Toronto Book Awards Tent. This year\u2019s Toronto Book Awards will be awarded on\u00a0October 12, 2017<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Take a walk down Queen west, Yorkville, the Junction, or any other culinary hub of Toronto and notice all of the\u00a0fashionable bars burgeoning onto the culinary scene. Certain trends tend\u00a0to develop.<\/p>\n

The word \u201ccasual\u201d is scribed into live-edge wooden bars; candle-lit tables hold lukewarm water served in recycled liquor bottles; every other bar offers a minimalist single page menu featuring lesser known cuts of meat, prepared in absurdly innovative ways, and it has become an implicit requirement for reputable bars to offer charcuterie boards with seasonal preserves to help diners cut the sting of signature house cocktails. Sharply dressed servers professionally ease diners into this contemporary dining experience with warm smiles and inhibited eloquence, and all the while, the diner is oblivious to those operating behind the ever-swinging doors. Dining culture has changed rapidly.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where Jen Agg\u2019s I Hear She\u2019s a Real Bitch <\/em>comes in. A book that depicts the evolution of dining experience in the city of Toronto, exposing personal truths about its author as it does so.<\/p>\n

Growing up as a rebellious girl in Scarborough, Agg never dreamed of the restaurant business. Although she made regular meals for her own household, it was mostly due to the fact that her parents were \u201cdreadful cooks.\u201d Even her early experiences as a bartender were just efforts to support herself. But through necessity, she developed a love for the craft of cocktail-making. Now, as an influential restaurateur, she has decided to share her insights on the industry in her book I Hear She\u2019s A Real Bitch.<\/em><\/p>\n

After a few chapters on the art of restaurant management, the narrative shifts towards her childhood and her rebellion against the mundane. From music to relationships and family, the reader is treated to the origin of the rebellion that eventually birthed The Black Hoof, where she displayed her \u201cyouthful, ridiculous disdain for the regular.\u201d As Agg mentions at the time of its opening, The Black Hoof\u2019s innovative menu was considered \u201cweird food,\u201d or \u201cdare food for white people.\u201d The Hoof\u2019s no-reservation policy was new to Toronto, which made long wait-times on busy days and line-ups that led to the creation of an annexed cocktail bar, where customers could enjoy refreshing drinks while waiting for tables. The Hoof was also pivotal in introducing Toronto to charcuterie, an item that has slowly become intimately infused with the zeitgeist of Toronto bar culture.<\/p>\n

As refreshing and illuminating as it is to acquaint oneself with Toronto\u2019s culinary past, I Hear She\u2019s a Real Bitch<\/em> does not narrow its scope just to the industry it represents. Agg explores issues that follow us out of the restaurant and into the streets.<\/p>\n

Agg tells tales of sexual harassment in the industry, bringing attention to struggles of women in the workplace.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe men (and they are mostly men) who trained this generation\u2019s chefs spent time in the kinds of European kitchens where the physical abuses would shock you– pots and pans being thrown at heads, hot tongs pressed onto forearms, and actual fistfights. I\u2019ve heard stories about young cooks being taken into walk-in fridges and slapped, and a certain very famous chef is well known for his repetitive, hard chest pokes, exercised with all fingers pointed, bruising, whether intentional or not, being the obvious result. And if that\u2019s how the young men are treated, just imagine what happens to women entering these testosterone-and-gas-fueled spaces, where the abuses often take on a sexual character.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking examples from her youth, where close friends of hers blamed her for the abuse she was being subjected to in a past relationship, Agg states: \u201cGiven how we as a society react to women who come forward about abusive men, it seems little has changed in twenty years.\u201d<\/p>\n

I Hear She\u2019s a Real Bitch<\/em> will take you by surprise. Although it contains numerous local references that act as extra incentive for Torontonians, it\u2019s a book with a complex, eclectic narrative that caters to a much wider audience. From gender roles, to cocktail trivia, it\u2019s an engrossing book that holds interesting facts and bitter truths, stimulating you in the most unexpected ways.<\/p>\n

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Khashayar Mohammadi is an Iranian born Writer\/Translator based in Toronto. He wears the chef hat during the day, following a passion for cooking. He currently works as an editor for the independent publishing company Inspiritus Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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What is the name of Jen Agg’s successful restaurant in Toronto, as mentioned above?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the review above and send the answer to \u00a0justin@thewordonthestreet.ca<\/a>\u00a0to be entered into a draw to win a signed copy of I Hear She’s a Real Bitch <\/i>by Jen Agg!<\/p>\n

Contest Rules<\/strong><\/p>\n