Cork and Knife
We are beyond excited to announce our first cookbook —Cork and Knife! We’ve put together seventy-five delicious and easy-to-follow recipes, each using a little splash of something that you probably already have in your liquor cabinet. Learn how to use wine, beer, tequila, bourbon and more to make your dishes pop with flavor! We have dishes for appetizers, entrees, desserts and party favorites, and every recipe has a mouth-watering full-page photo.

From the back cover of the book:
“Alcohol isn’t just an accompaniment to a great meal, but the secret ingredient to make dishes pop with flavor, added depth and complexity. Emily and Matt Clifton, founders of the blog Nerds with Knives, show you how to use vodka to make extra crispy batter in Ultra-Crispy Fish with Vodka and Beer Batter, heighten the aroma of the spicy, garlicky sauce in the Tequila and Lime Scampi and bring perfect balance to dishes like Vermouth-Braised Leeks or Classic Chicken Piccata just by adding white wine.
Through their knowledge of booze cooking science, you’ll make classic dishes that pack a delicious punch. So put on your apron, pop a cork, raise your glass and get ready to cook.”

From the Introduction:
“Our path to these recipes was a long and winding one that ran through many pubs, bars, restaurants and our own tiny kitchens. We gained a keen appreciation of beer, wine and spirits before we even knew we wanted to write a book about cooking with them. (And frankly, if we’d known a book was in our future, we would have expensed those boozy evenings a lot sooner.) We’re enthusiastic and proud home cooks, not professional chefs, and over the last few years of running Nerds with Knives, our cooking blog, we’ve gradually developed and refined the kinds of food we love to cook and eat. Each of us has a different background in culinary matters: Emily grew up on the Upper West Side of New York, and she loved the flavors she found in the kitchens of her Korean and Puerto Rican friends. Matt brings a love of sweet desserts and warm comfort dishes from his native Britain.
When we looked back over our favorite recipes, we realized that many of them had one thing in common: booze. Our favorite barbecue sauce? Bourbon. Our favorite pasta sauce? Vodka. Our favorite cheesecake? Rum. You get the idea. We started to really look at why alcohol plays such an important role in developing flavor. We’re not talking about getting drunk off your pan sauce (although we won’t judge, if that’s your thing), but about layering flavors to add complexity and depth to dishes.”

Published by Page Street Publishing. 192pp softcover, 75 recipes with fold-flat pages for convenient kitchen work!
PRESS MENTIONS
Read Local with Cork and Knife — A Little Beacon Blog
Nerds with Knives (And Booze) — Highlands Current
The Nerds with Knives wrote a Cookbook! — Serious Eats
AJC Books for Home Cooks — Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tequila flambeed for Mexican twist on shrimp scampi — Winston-Salem Journal
Plum and Rum-Glazed Chicken Wings — Imbibe Magazine
Refrigerator Rye Whiskey Pickles — Imbibe Magazine
Build flavor profile with spirits — Parkersburg News and Sentinel
Learn how to cook with alcohol – The Valley Table
Coq au Riesling — The San Diego Union-Tribune
Eight Hudson Valley Books to Gift this Holiday Season — Chronogram
“Matt and Emily’s work isn’t just great ideas and pretty photos, as so many other food blogs are. They back up those great ideas with recipes that work. They understand the science (and can help you get there too), they’ve tested thoroughly, and have a writing style that is not dry, but precise and easy to follow. Rock solid recipes that deliver big flavor with the home cook in mind are the kind that make it into your regular rotation. That the recipes in this book happen to explore the science of booze and its interaction with food is just the icing on the cake (or maybe the rum in the Banoffee Foster Pie).”

“I want to cook and eat every recipe that Emily and Matt dream up and photograph. It is no surprise that their first book is an homage to an often-overlooked culinary ingredient – booze – because this duo knows all the tricks for imbuing food with a maximum amount of flavor. They use alcohol (in its myriad forms) to up the ante of each recipe, creating a spirited trove that shines a light on this magical kitchen elixir.”

This is the book I have been waiting for. I mean … booze in food? Bring it on! A book with so many amazing recipes … hearty, delicious and pure taste!