Zoldaman's Cooking Guide -or- This is Disgusting, Please Don't Make Me Eat It

Cooking is an easy skill to level very quickly and cheaply, with a little planning. As most people won't be maxing out their skill, this guide will just focus on how to get your skill up to a reasonable level, quickly and cheaply, with very little effort. If you are leveling up an alt, you won't even have to do much in the way of farming for parts, just solo for exp in common zones to get what you need. Having some skill in cooking is worthwhile as it saves you downtime while soloing and gives you a way to top off your health bar while the casters in the party med up, without costing anyone mana. Also, many of the dishes give you a stats boost for a few minutes, often to spirit and stamina.

Our plan is to hunt mostly in Alliance zones that drop animal parts that are common drops from very common mobs. If you are cooking while you are leveling, then these mobs will also give you exp., making this a very worthwhile venture. It's also important to pick recipes that use few and common ingredients. For example "Westfall Stew" and "Crab Cake" both turn green at 115. But, the stew requires drops from three different mobs, while the cakes require a common drop from a single mob. We will save a lot of time killing crabs as fast as they spawn up and down the coast, instead of trying to get equal drops from three different mobs.

So, let's get started. A good source of recipe information is Allakhazam's Trade Skills list, if you want to check into a recipe before buying it. Assuming you are doing this with a new alt or main that has a few levels under his or her belt (and is out of the noob zone), we'll start our guide in Westfall. Before we can start baking crispy delights in the golden glow of a campfire, we'll need to fly to Stormwind and chat with Stephen Ryback in the Old Town at the Pig & Whistle Tavern , then come back to Westfall. Make sure that you let Stephen get you started in cooking and also learn how to make all of the green recipes, as you never know when they will come in handy. This is a quick trip, since there is a griff guy right by Sentinel Tower. We will have to stop by and see Stephen again when our skill hits 75, to advance to the next level of cooking.

Now, our first dish will be roasted boar meat. So, go forth and cleanse Westfall of Goretusks. Save the Chunks of Boar Meat, Boar Ribs and Goretusk Livers as well, since we will be needing all of them soon. The meat stacks up to sets of ten, so keep killing the Goretusks until you have six or seven stacks in your backpack. Once you get all of these stacks of boar meat, wander back towards Sentinel Tower. Just south of the tower, across the road from the griff guy, is a campfire you can use. Stand near it and go to your cooking tradeskill option. Now, we are going to make roasted boar meat until it turns green, which is around cooking skill lvl 60. Since it costs us almost nothing to make most recipes, I'll even make the green ones, if I have the parts, since it is still possible to skill up off of them. Why waste a stack of meat or eggs or liver that isn't going to sell for much anyway, when it might mean an extra skill point or two? Besides, some of the completed dishes sell for more to vendors than the raw ingredients, so you get a few silver for your efforts. If you vendor most of the food you make, it will pretty much cover the cost of your cooking adventure.

Once roasted boar meat isn't worth the effort anymore, swing by the Saldean Farm, north of the Tower, and talk to Salma Saldean. She will give you a quest for Goretusk Liver Pie in exchange for eight of your livers. Well, not your character's liver, as he probably needs that, but eight of the ones from the Goretusks. Then you can click the recipe to learn it and go back to the campfire to make your second dish. Now, for the Goretusk Liver Pie, you need a vendor sold ingredient. The good news is that the NPC girl, standing right beside you at the fire, will sell you the Mild Spices that you need, five for 10 copper. We will be using these spices for the next few dishes, so don't be afraid to stock up if you want. So livers + mild spices = pie. Feel free to make pies until the recipe turns green, or you do from the smell of baking livers. Don't forget to fly back to Stormwind at cooking lvl 75 to chat with Stephen Ryback again so that you can keep leveling until your cooking skill hits 150. ( He will also let you learn some more recipes, so pick up those at some point, especially Dry Pork Ribs, Crab Cake and Cooked Crab Claw. ) Then it's back to Westfall to make the rest of your pies and start on Dry Pork Ribs, which also require Mild Spices.

Once you just can't stand Westfall anymore or the exp isn't worth it, head to Darkshore. Now, this is where things get good. Basically, head up and down the coast killing crabs. The farther you get from town, the harder the crabs get. Save all of the crab meat and crab claws that drop while you kill, kill, kill in order to protect the good citizens of Auberdine from this non-agro mob. At level 22, I was still getting 100-150ish exp from the harder crabs towards the far ends of the beach, so don't be afraid to mow these guys down for a while. Once you have a few stacks of claws and meat, head back to the campfire in Auberdine and mix each one with "Mild Spices" to crank through cooking levels. Even though these will eventually turn green before skill lvl 150, It was so easy to farm them, I just stayed and maxed out my skill there.

Now, to get past cooking skill lvl 150, you need a book, the Expert Cookbook. It will cost you one gold in Ashenvale or one gold and a few silver at the AH. I got mine at the Auction House to save time. Since our easy recipes are now all green, we'll have to move again. There are really only two good choices that I know of. It's either Duskwood or the Wetlands. If you go to Duskwood, you will be using the Lean Wolf Flank drop with mild spices to make Lean Wolf Steaks. A slightly more expensive option is collecting raptor eggs in the Wetlands to combine with the more expensive Hot Spices to make a Curiously Tasty Omelet. You can even get the Omelet recipe from a quest (Ormer's Revenge) at the excavation site in the Wetlands if you don't want to buy it in Stormwind. Either one of these will get your skill up close to 200 and now you have a few stacks of an item that heals over 500 health and gives you a 6 point boost to stamina and spirit. Not bad for a couple of days worth of work.