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(Feel free to move this to another forum if it fits better elsewhere.)

Final Fantasy XIV doesn't just have battle jobs, but crafting and gathering jobs as well. One of those crafting jobs is Culinarian, and there's a TON of recipes for all sorts of food in the game. Well, now you can make some of those recipes at home!

The Ultimate Final Fantasy XIV Online Cookbook: The Essential Culinarian Guide to Hydaelyn was released a few days ago, and my copy arrived today!

One thing I appreciate about Final Fantasy XIV is that it's so rich in stories. Even the crafting jobs have a storyline to them. They ran with this in the cookbook, too: it starts out with an introduction that features a Namazu who wants to improve his culinarian skills, so he travels around Hydaelyn tasting local cuisine and coming up with his own recipes. He's accompanied by a sidekick: a moogle, of course, who loves to eat and is not shy about stealing food from others, haha.

Each recipe is presented with a gorgeous photo, a brief introduction from either the Namazu or Moogle, and the recipe itself. There's also a page at the beginning of the book that gives definitions for the more unusual ingredients. Being that this is a Japanese MMO, there's plenty of Japanese ingredients - fish sauce is common, for example. Also, the recipes seem to be pretty faithful to their in-game counterparts: as an example, several recipes use birch syrup instead of the more common maple syrup, though the text does indicate that you can substitute maple if you'd like.

I flagged a couple recipes to try. Alas, I live with a picky eater, so there were some that looked appetizing to me that I wouldn't be able to do. I was also a bit disappointed that mushrooms were such a common ingredient (I'm allergic to them and I just don't like them anyway). Still, there's plenty in there that I felt it was acceptable to spend my money on the book.

I notice Amazon currently has it on sale for $22, so if anyone is thinking of getting it I'd jump on it now.

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Schedule:
Mondays & Thursdays: Final Fantasy VII -Rebirth-
Saturdays: Final Fantasy XIV Side Quests (or maybe more Rebirth, we'll see!)
7:30pm - 10:30pm Central or thereabouts

Ha ha, I looked inside it wondering if it would read like a food blog where you get a detailed story about the recipe before seeing it, after reading your post. And to an extent you do! That's pretty great.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

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