How do I cook that? Let me count the Ways
How do I cook that? Let me count the Ways.
I cook that with a Pot, an Oven, Grill,
Steaming, Brewing, with hoak and Wok, zen skill
With meats, fish, veggies from my soil arrays.
I cook that rice pudding and turtle braised
With help from my bee-eff-effs at Halfhill.
I cook that bloodied, as toons seek for kills;
I cook that patiently, with Pagle's praise.
I cook that with a focus I often use
In my endgame and with my guildmates phased.
I cook that for a dish I must not lose
For my buff -- I cook that with the great grasp,
Chaos of all my taps! -- and if say Blues,
I shall cook that better in Legion's clasp.
My apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I haven't attempted to write a sonnet in five or six years. But the first line got stuck in my head after I summarized for my guildmates how exactly the 525-600 cooking process works.
Meet the Ironpaws
The Ironpaw family runs the cooking center of Halfhill Market. Other farmers in the Tillers Union attend to market, but they will come and go depending on the days. The Ironpaws will always be there, if roaming around the triangle a bit.
Sungshin Ironpaw you might already know from leveling your cooking skill to 525 as the generic cooking trainer and seller of basic pandaren ingredients.
Nam Ironpaw deals with Ironpaw Tokens, the cooking currency for Pandaria. He sells key cooking ingredients for banquets and the best foods, as well as fun items like the Flippable Table. Additionally, players can buy sacks of meat, fish, or vegetables for 1 Ironpaw Token each.
The other Ironpaws are each a Master of a particular Way of cooking:
Jian is Master of the Oven.
Bobo is Master of the Brew.
Anthea is Master of the Wok.
Yan is Master of the Steamer.
Mei Mei is Master of the Pot.
Kol is Master of the Grill.
Jian wanders from time to time to the center near Gina Mudclaw, but the others stay where they are. All but Bobo are standing near cooking pots.
Follow basic instructions
To unlock the Ways, you must show Sungshin that you can follow a recipe. First, she'll have the quest So You Want to Be a Chef... for you. The quest is simple:
Learn the Sliced Peaches recipe from her.
Buy 5 Pandaren Peaches from her.
Cook 5 Sliced Peaches.
Next, Sungshin wants to make sure you are Ready for Greatness. This quest follows the same pattern as the previous: learn Rice Pudding, buy enough Rice and Yak Milk, and make 5 of it. You must be 85 or higher for this quest.
Now you've unlocked the Ways, and you can proceed through each one at your leisure. You can do one at a time or all simultaneously: it's up to you. Each Way will have a quest to gather ingredients for a special dish, and then another quest to cook that dish using the ingredients you gathered. It's just like Sungshin's quests: bring the ingredients, learn the recipe, cook the recipe, turn in the quest!
You'll notice your cooking profession window change a little after you learn a Way. Each Way has its own skill level, and then you have an overall cooking skill. At the top, you'll find your overall cooking skill, just like before Mists of Pandaria. Hovering over the bar for each Way will show you the exact number your skill is in that Way.
For example, as of writing I have 550 Grill, 576 Wok, 600 Pot, 550 Steamer, 575 Oven, and 550 Brew. My overall cooking skill is the highest number of any Way I've progressed in; in this case, it's 600, the level of my Pot skill. Before I leveled my Pot up, however, my cooking skill was my Wok skill.
What Way should I follow?
Each of the Ways is dedicated to a particular primary stat. Which Way you do first can be your personal favored buff or whichever buff your raid would prefer you cook. If you like ...
Agility, then try the Wok.
Intellect, then try the Pot.
Spirit, then try the Steamer.
Strength, then try the Grill.
Stamina, then try the Oven.
Way of the Brew doesn't focus on a primary stat, but instead provides food that restores health and mana while buffing the player with a fun buff.
It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!
