Comrades!
It is I, Melchar Asbrand! In my travels across Eorzea there were many a night where I have had to camp outside amidst the elements and eat naught but cold beef jerky or eat an aged acorn cookie. On those nights, I have longed for the solace of warmed soul and a full belly. I shudder to think that there are some adventurers who would even feast upon the raw meats and offal Eorzea’s ferocious fauna. I cannot blame them. In the face of a cooking fire alongside a veritable regiment of raw ingredients, it can be quite easy for someone like myself to become befuddled.
Today, I seek to amend this. Once, in my younger days, my adventures brought me in and around the small hamlet of Hyrstmill. An old Midlander widow on the outskirts of the hamlet permitted me to join her in humble hovel. She asked me to help her with the cooking. When she saw my fingers fumbling she smiled warmly and went to her larder. It was there that she shared with me this recipe:
Black Shroud Ossobucco (This rustic dish is a take on an old favorite from a far-off land. The antelope is braised to tenderness and simmers in a savory brown sauce):
Ingredients-
1x Antelope Shank (bone-in)
1x Thyme
1x Coerthas Carrot
1x Wild Onion
1x Ruby Tomato
1x Sour Red
EXP +3%, Magic Evasion +10% , HP +30, DEX +3, VIT +4
"Yes, of course I can cook!"
My friends! The meat was so tender and juicy. The flavor came flooding forth! The vegetables, they were full of vigor! The sauce I swabbed up with the last of my flatbread! I felt a new roegadyn. Brimming with the vitality of the noble antelope!
As we shared the food, the widow shared with me her story. She had come from a lauded house in a far distant country. In her youth, she had chased an adventurer to Eorzea out of love: forsaking all ties to her family and nobility. Though they loved greatly in the short time of their youth, the call of adventure sang to him and he met his end somewhere in the cold, lonely peaks of Dravania. This was his favorite dish, a specialty of hers and one that her mother had passed down to her. In her eyes, there seemed longing but no regret. She smiled to me and spoke “You adventurers brave the gravest dangers for nary but the promise of coin and fame. These are not enough to warm the soul when cold winds blow. Take this, all that remains of my legacy and let it warm a new world. One of adventurers!”
So get out there comrades and get cooking!
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