OP: The River Cottage Cookbook (signed)

If you’ve ever harbored the impulse to leave everything behind to live on a farm where you grow your own food and raise animals, English chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has done just that—and turned the venture into a successful TV show and cookery school.

Fearnley-Whittingstall’s dedication to self-sufficiency and environmental awareness are throughlines through all his work, including his many cookbooks.  The River Cottage Cookbook (2001), one of the earliest, does a tremendous job of building recipes into the River Cottage ethos.

Here you will not only gain a recipe for salsa verde but also instructions on how to grow your herbs either in a pot or garden. In order to prepare a boudin noir, lamb kidney chili, or chicken croquettes, you will, of course, need to learn how to raise your animals, maintain their herds, and kill and butcher them first. Recipes involving fish are preceded with advice on catching, salting, and smoking—or purchasing, if you must—a variety of species.