Travel to the first of the Main cities for your faction listed below. There is no need to visit any other than these three cities.

For Alliance: 1) Stormwind, 2) Ironforge, 3) Darnassus.
For the Horde: 1) Undercity, 2) Orgrimmar, 3) Thunder Bluff.

You will find the special Pilgrim’s Bounty area  just outside or inside the front entrance of each city.

Stormwind or Undercity:

Start by training your Apprentice Cooking skill and learning the basic Spice Bread recipe with the Cooking Trainer at the Pilgrim’s Bounty area.

Next, purchase a Bountiful Cookbook from one of the Bountiful Barrels in the Pilgrim’s Bounty area. The cookbook contains the Pilgrim’s Bounty recipes you will need. The barrels also contain most of the special ingredients you will need for the special recipes. You will have to travel to all three main cities for your faction to obtain all of the ingredients to make all of the recipes.

In Stormwind or Undercity you can obtain the ingredients to make the Spice Bread Stuffing, Pumpkin Pie, and Slow-Roasted Turkey.

While in Stormwind or Undercity you will need to hunt down and kill the wild turkeys that you will find nearby in Elwyn Forest or Tirisfal Glades. Get at least 50 – 100 turkeys for the recipes and daily quests.

Make the Spice Bread recipe for 85 Spice Breads and then turn 80 0f the Spice Bread into Spice Bread Stuffing. You will reach 75 cooking skill during this, so return to the trainer and train your skill up to Journeyman Cooking, and then continue with the Spice Bread Stuffing until you reach 100.

Next learn the Pumpkin Pie recipe and purchase enough pumpkins and honey from the barrel to make 100 pumpkin pies. Make this recipe until you reach 160. (Remember to train at skill 150 to train Expert Cooking, so that you can continue to level up.) Save the ingredients for at least five of the pies until you reach Orgrimmar or Ironforge; you need to pick up the quest before you make the recipe for it to count.

When you reach 160 you can learn the Cranberry Chutney recipe. You will need to move on to Orgrimmar or Ironforge in order to obtain the cranberries necessary to make this recipe.

Orgrimmar or Ironforge:

Purchase cranberries and make Cranberry Chutney until you reach skill 220. Keep enough cranberries to make 20 more chutneys, but don’t make them yet. Remember to train to Artisan Cooking at skill 200. At skill 220 you can learn the Candied Sweet Potato recipe from your Bountiful Cookbook. You will need to visit Darnassus or Thunder Bluff to obtain sweet potatoes to make this recipe.

Thunder Bluff or Darnassus:

Purchase sweet potatoes and make Candied Sweet Potatoes until you reach skill 280. At skill 275 you can train for Master Cooking.

At skill 280 you can learn the final Bountiful Cookbook recipe Slow-Roasted Turkey. Return to Undercity or Stormwind and pick up the Slow-Roasted Turkey quest before you make the Slow-Roasted Turkey. Make this recipe until it no longer levels you up, but note a couple of things:

1. You get 2 skill points per turkey cooked
2. The recipe goes grey at 370 or so and it still gives you 2 points of skill per turkey.
   
3. At 405 it drops to 1 pt of skill per turkey and start to slow down after 410 or so. It’s really slow after 425. With enough turkey you should be able to hit 430.

Here’s a pic of my level 3 Warlock with 429 cooking skill:

Congratulations! You’ve gone from 1 to over 425, from Apprentice to Illustrious GrandMaster, in one day!

Click here for a guide to all of the Pilgrim’s Bounty quests: Pilgrim’s Bounty Quests Guide .

On April 6, 2011, sixty of the world’s greatest chefs gathered at the Palace at Versailles to help prepare a $1,270-a-head dinner for 650 guests in black tie and fancy dress. The results were apparently a little less than impressive.

Guests muttered that the caviar dollops on the lightly smoked sea bass were too cold, the gelled Breton lobster claws too bland and the canard de Challans too naked. “Where were the great sauces to celebrate history and tradition?” said Jean-Claude Ribaut, the food critic for Le Monde. “Everything was a little flat, just average.”

Admittedly, they were trying to prepare haute cuisine “on portable work stations, each consisting of one table, one oven and one electric burner, but no gas or running water.”

It is important to remember why we enjoy sharing a meal with friends. I like the sentiments expressed by Chef Edouard Loubet (below) and I will endeavor to remember them the next time my pie crust is a little below par, or the sauce is not done at the same time as the main course.

“A dinner is all about pleasure-sharing,” said Edouard Loubet, chef of the Domaine de Capelongue, the Michelin two-star restaurant in Provence. “The food counts for only 20 percent, only 20 percent, no matter how extraordinary it is. Most of the rest is conversation, bringing together friends and family. It’s no good to dine alone.”

Read the entire article here:  Sixty Chefs in the Palace, and Still “Just Average” – NYTimes.com.

• Chocolate Square
• Dalaran Brownie
• Dalaran Doughnut
• Delicious Chocolate Cake
• Galgar’s Cactus Apple Surprise
• Ironforge Bread Pudding
• Murloc Eye Pie
• Tigule & Foror’s Strawberry Ice Cream

Murloc Eye Pie and Ironforge Bread Pudding are two exclusive Tauren Chef recipes and are already available for free! Yipee! You can find Ironforge Bread Pudding right here on this site.   Murloc Eye Pie is available in the free pdf that will give you a taste of the cookbook to come.

Chocolate Square is smooth, chocolately, and very easy to make as I’m sure you will be glad to know. This is an Apprentice level dessert that beginners can make with no problems.

Dalaran Brownie is also very easy to make, sort of Journeyman level dessert. You probably won’t even make a great mess of the kitchen, which your housemates will be happy about. You will fill the house with the delicious scents of baking chocolate stuff, and your housemates will probably forgive any mess because of this. Oh, and you will have to share the brownies.

The Dalaran Doughnut is a Master level recipe as it combines aspects of bread making with deep frying. It is quite delicious and allows you to try a variety of flavored glazes and sprinkles. Yumm! Homemade doughnuts!

Delicious Chocolate Cake is just like the name says: delicious and chocolate. This recipe makes a rich, very moist cake with all the right WoW ingredients. It is an Artisan level recipe, but well worth making from scratch. You won’t get this cake from a box mix!

I’ll bet you didn’t know that Galgar’s Cactus Apple Surprise is a dessert. Well, it is, and a very cool and refreshing one at that.I would classify this as a Journeyman recipe, possibly bordering on Expert.

Ironforge Bread Pudding is great on a cold winter night (and it’s also good first thing in the morning!) Journeyman level.

Murloc Eye Pie is a very different kind of pie. Think of a pie . . . filled with murloc eyes . . . sound good? Well, it really is. You just have to use really sweet, fresh murloc eyes. Make one and dare your friends to try it! This is classified as an Artisan level recipe due to the pie crust. But it could be Journeyman level if you buy a ready made crust. The filling is fairly simple to put together.

Tigule & Foror’s Strawberry Ice Cream is rich, creamy, and very strawberry. Yum! I love homemade ice cream. This is a Journeyman, bordering on Expert level recipe. Here’s a picture:

Tigule & Foror's Strawberry Ice Cream

I’m still trying to decide on whether the Burning Soufflé will be a dessert (Chocolate Soufflé or Grand Marnier Soufflé) or a main course soufflé (cheese soufflé, vegetable or seafood soufflé.) Any requests?

The videos are courtesy of Breville, a company that makes espresso machines, among other culinary products. I happen to have one of Breville’s espresso machines, (though not the top of the line,) and I am very happy with it.

The five hearts latte art looks fairly easy to do. I’ll let you know after I try it.

Five Hearts Latte Art

I’ve been working on a couple of the last few recipes this week. Yesterday I made Mead Basted Caribou, and oh that was good, if I do say so myself. We like it rare, and it was definitely red and juicy!

Today I made Carrion Surprise. This is a delicious and warming dish, great for a cold winter’s night. It is also good re-heated. (I know this because I’ve made it before, but I didn’t get any photos then. I think we ate it too fast.)

I still have to make Murloc Tacos, and Tracker Snacks this week, and here it is nearly Thursday. I will make the Burning Soufflé and Northern Stew next.

Here’s a picture of the Mead Basted Caribou. As you probably know, Mead Basted Caribou is a recipe from the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

Mead Basted Caribou

Fortunately, we had a backup of our database (with all the posts and such.)

Unfortunately, it was a July backup.

Fortunately, with a little copy and paste (the front page posts appeared to be fine, despite the links being broken) we were able to grab the posts made since late July.

Unfortunately, a couple of posts were lost and all comments made since the July backup were lost.

Well, I think we’re Ok now.

Hopefully we’ll be able to start posting a lot more regularly than we have in the past. Our goal is to be posting daily, not monthly.

Are there any specific questions you’d like to have answered, about cooking or about WoW in general? Or tips you’d like to  us to provide? About leveling, PvP, PvE, grinding, gold making, or any other aspect of WoW? If we don’t have the answers right off we’ll find them.

As an example, Jon Kinens, of the Massive Wow Gold Blueprint, requested questions about his product, and got nearly 400 of them (since no one reads this blog, I don’t expect quite so many. ) They questions were about the launch, his specific characters, gold making tips, and so on. He answered them in a two hour telesminar, which you can listen in on, here (it’s in two parts.)

Oh, by the way,  he’s giving away two copies of the Massive WoW Gold Blueprint to people who leave a comment on his blog. All you have to do is tell him who you deserve a copy. The two best comments win. Go for it! Just click through the above link, sign up for the notification list, click through to the blog, find the contest post, and add your comment.

If you would like to create some fond memories like these, encourage your kids to eat better, or just get some variety and fun into your cooking and family meals check out Cooking With Your Kids, 10 Easy Steps for Great Family Memories.

Another suggestion I have, if you would like to encourage your kids to eat something other than hamburgers, pizza, and french fries, is to consider offering them main courses with names like Crocolisk Gumbo or Dig Rat Stew. They’ll probably be more interested in Savory Deviate Delight than baked fish.  And though it’s usually not a problem to get kids to eat dessert you might tempt them with Gooey Spider Cake, Strawberry-Murloc Pie, or Murloc Eye Pie just to enjoy some variety and fun after special family meals.

~Gwynne

P.S. See our free mini-cookbook for the Murloc Eye Pie recipe.

We’ve put together a mini-cookbook that’s free for the download. It’s a sample of what you’ll find in our main cookbook and a preview of the recipes that will be in the enhanced cookbook.

What’s in the mini-cookbook?

• Skyguard Rations: Normally you have to be level 70 and have and honored rep with the Sha’tari Skyguard faction in Outlands to get these babies, but we sent the Rogues in to steal the recipe. You’ll find it in the mini-cookbook.
• Warp Burgers: Most characters who’ve been through Terrokar Forest know about the warp critters and that they make darn tasty burgers, which also buff agility and spirit.
• Murloc Eye Pie: Finally you have a use for all those Murloc eyes you’ve been collecting, something other that Westfall Stew.

What’s the catch? You need to join our mailing list to get your copy. You can leave the list at anytime, but then you miss any cool letters we send and any future freebies.

Just go to the Tauren Chef homepage, scroll down to the yellow box, enter your name and email, hit the button, confirm your subscription, and the mini-cookbook is yours.

Leave your thoughts in the comment area.

Thanks!

Now, while Darnassian Bleu doesn’t have much in the way of benefits for a druid, as a Tauren Chef it made me think. Hmmm, wouldn’t it be great to know how to make your own cheese? Especially in the event of a life-as-we-know-it-is-ending apocalypse (such as the destruction of the Sunwell) that sort of knowledge would be nice to have.

During my research at the grocery store and on the internet I came across a site that gives easy to understand instructions for how to make your own cheese at home.

The recipes were written by David B. Fankhauser, Ph.D. who is Professor of Biology and Chemistry at the University of Cincinnati Clermont College in Batavia, Ohio. He also has a very informative site on homemade cheese (and so much more) titled Fankhauser’s Cheese Page.

He has cheese recipes, cheese videos, recipes for home made root beer, ginger ale, limoncello (an Italian aperitif liqueur,) and other items of interest too numerous to list. And yes, he does have a recipe for Blue cheese, though I don’t believe it is Darnassian Bleu.

His cheese recipes use rennet tablets from the Junket Company, which sounds like a good idea. They are very inexpensive and apparently quite reliable. I bought some today, but I haven’t tried them out in any recipes yet.

Of course, if you are a purist, you can always do it the old-fashioned way and use a small piece of salted and dried abomasum. (According to Dr. Fankhauser, an abomasum is the last of the four chambers of the stomach of a ruminant animal. The abomasum from a suckling kid or calf was apparently very good for making cheese.)

Or, you can always buy cheese at the store . . .