Get it off the back burners

Ok, people. You now have no excuse. If you have neglected your cooking skill to date, shame on you. With the new Pilgrim’s Bounty world event, you are given a chance at a reprieve. With the purchase of 1 recipe book, a bit of capital city traveling, and a minimal amount of coin to buy the vendor sold mats, you can now effectively level your cooking from level 1 to 350 in one day.

That’s right folks. You can take a newbie chef in the making and have them Wrath buff food enabled in one sitting. Level is irrelevant. For example I took my humble level 29 paladin all the way from level 129 cooking to a few points past 350. She is now ready to make all of the Wrath buff foods that don’t require Northern Spices.

So if you’ve ignored your cooking, GET ON IT! You now have absolutely NO EXCUSE to come into any party with out a cheese head buff. In fact if I have lead, and you don’t have a cheese head, I may be tempted to kick you. I’ll go Harvey Dent on you and toss my Titanium Seal. Heads I win, tails you lose. Don’t be that guy. Raise it, cook it munch it, crunch it.

Kudos Blizzard!
I think Blizzard took the perfect course with this one. The biggest problem most people have is getting the mats needed to level cooking to a viable useable level. This circumvents that. All of the mats needed are easily obtained from vendors or from abundant turkey critters in the starter areas.

Another problem people have with cooking is that it shares a symbiosis with fishing. Having fishing makes it easier to level cooking. But even I must admit that leveling fishing is tedious. The holiday cooking removes this need. You can go from start to finish without ever seeing a bobber. Bliz has removed the necessity of fishing for cooking with the holiday so that excuse is now removed as well. However, fishing is still one of the ways to get some of the most potent Wrath food buffs so I wouldn’t completely ignore it.

I love also that Blizzard tied cooking so plentifully into the world event. Food is a big part of the holiday tradtions around Thanksgiving so I find it so fitting. When I think of family Thanksgiving get-togethers, I think of traveling about to be with friends and family, loved ones hovering in and out of the kitchen, helping with the cooking, and sitting down together to feast with merriment. All of those WoW-heads gathered outside town, cooking fires ablaze, and achievements abounding, it felt like Blizzard captured a good essence of the event and holiday.

Plus all of the cooking quests make the Chef Hat a much loved accessory! Few things more smile inducing than blowing through 20 slow roasted turkeys in less than 7 seconds.

Well done, Bliz. Well done indeed.

The Where, when, and how
There are probably already a few guides written to accommodate the holiday cooking quests and mat guides. You can Google them on your own if need be. But to get you started, head outside your capital city and look for the holiday cooking trainer & vendor. Then buy the Bountiful Cookbook. Inside this delicious book are all of the recipes you will need to make you a skilled gastronome. These recipes will take you incrementally all the way up to 300 cooking. At that point you will need to head to either Outland or Dalaran to train and level it further.

I hope this is helpful and that you all can enjoy the holiday, both in game and out. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Now, could someone pass me the sweet potato pie and a port to Exodar? It seems the space goats are out of turkey.