Cooking seasonally
Jeremy Round's basic idea is this:
If there is one overriding strategy that I would like you to take away from this book, it is hardly to plan meals in advance at all. Good eating is based on good shopping. If you decide what you are going to cook before you go shopping, you may just be lucky in finding that every shop you visit has exactly what you need in prime condition. But more often you will find yourself having to put up with at least a degree of second- or third-best in order to fit your plan. Instead, go out to shop with a clear idea of good produce you can expect to find, using the monthly shopping lists as a guide, and have one or two flexible schemes floating around in your head, then adjust them to fit the very best of what is available.
This is very close to what Jane Grigson says in her seminal book, Fish Cookery. Basically, go out to the market, buy fresh things and then come back and work out how you're going to cook it.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has done this more latterly, of course, but though I like his style and the River Cottage idyll is very, well, idyllic, he is not quite as good as Jeremy Round and there is a degree of dressing things up for the telly market (sorry, Hugh).
More latterly, I note that the BBC has devoted some pages to the art of seasonal cooking, which can only be a good thing.