The River Cottage Year

You've got to warm to a man who gives placenta pate a go (famously in one of his early TV programmes) and weeps over the lot of battery hens. And he knows his stuff. Friends who went to one of his River Cottage workshops on how to raise a pig and prepare proscuitto report that it was extremely good and technically spot on. See www.rivercottage.net. Hugh's books are always educational in the best possible way, with seriously good recipes using seasonal ingredients and some evocative photographs. His re-working of panzanella, listed as tomato and bread salad, is barely a recipe but just the sort of inspiration needed to produce something a bit different for the mid-week supper.

Some lovely recipes and general good advice about growing the food that goes into them. A book I'm happy to dip back into on a regular basis, although there is something a bit too smug about HFW himself, to my mind.