And for Mains: Recipes, Stories and Pints with an Irish Butcher and a Chef by Gaz Smith and Rick Higgins is one of three finalists in the Chefs & Restaurants category of the prestigious IACP Cookbook Awards 2022.

The finalists were announced last month in Los Angeles at the Now Serving cookbook and culinary store.

The IACP Cookbook Awards honour the authors, publishers and other contributors behind the best cookbooks published each year. Their programme requires multi-step, rigorous recipe testing in all relevant awards categories. Awards are given in fifteen categories. And every year one cookbook will be selected by the judges as the IACP Book of the Year.

Nine Bean Rows publisher Kristin Jensen says, ‘Gaz and Rick have put Irish food on a world stage with And for Mains. As far as I’m aware, it’s the first Irish cookbook to be shortlisted in these awards.’

Kristin continues, ‘It’s incredible that our very first book. Nine Bean Rows is in the company of renowned and well-established publishing houses such as Ten Speed Press and Hardie Grant Books. As a new start-up, some days, I feel like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. Running the whole show by myself. But it just goes to show that with a small but mighty team of talented, passionate people, you can produce books that are up there with the best in the world.’

Author Gaz Smith said in a press release, ‘To think that this book was dreamed up over a butcher block on a drizzly Monday evening. We were nervous, but hands were shook. A pint was had, and we started without a fecking clue what we were at. But we knew what we wanted, and we got it done as a team in just a few months. It really shouldn’t have worked, but now we’re finalists among the biggest, most respected multinational powerhouses in the publishing world. It’s pretty mind-blowing, to be honest.’

‘Gaz and I dove in head first without knowing a thing about putting a book together,’ says author Rick Higgins. ‘The only thing we were 100% sure about was the type of book we wanted. The team we wanted around us and that there would be no shortcuts. It still hasn’t sunk in what we have achieved.’

A list of all nominees can be found on the IACP website at www.iacp.com. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in the early autumn. The date and location still to be announced.

And for Mains: Recipes, Stories and Pints with an Irish Butcher and a Chef by Gaz Smith and Rick Higgins is published by Nine Bean Rows and costs just under forty euros.

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