Whilst I spent some time procrastinating on my campaign plans, thinking stuff over, waiting for my Wanderer sheets to get laminated and painting Candy, the newest sale arrived and brought along not only the nuclear lope and a kickass mouse but also 3 more recipe cards to discover and collect whenever you order something from the HQ warehouse!

I am still planning on putting together a page for all the new recipes, but it not only took the community a minute to discover these delicious morsels, I also was a tad too preoccupied with things to worry about and tend to both in KD:M and otherwise over the last week.
But for right now, as I put down the Sim for a moment, we are here to have a look at what the Dark Chef will be helping all of us prepare for our settlements in the future!

With input from Team Death, we have come to know shortly after the first of these three new recipes had been spotted out in the wild that Node 4 monsters had not been up for consideration this time around, and that we should not wait for Smog Singers recipe as those had a lore reason to not be included as well.
One of the community members still put forth a great idea for the smoggies though: Shrimp Fried Rice a.k.a. rice fried by a shrimp – and I personally love that.
Poor Slenderman, neglected and forgotten as always. I would have so gone for some Dark Water soup.
There’s another joke in there somewhere.

If you want a quick reminder of the other 4 recipes and/or the Cooking Innovation as a whole before we get to the new stuff, head over here!

With deliveries arriving we now know that we are looking at a chance at getting these 3 new delicious meals from now on as well: Radiant Kabayaki (Dragon King), Braised Shark Tongue (Sunstalker) and Crocsteak and Fingerling Frites (Crimson Crocodile)

If your mind went immediately to PotStars and getting a Dragon Trait, then disappointment either already followed the realization that you can’t hunt Dragon Kings in a Tyrant settlement or you are experiencing it right now. However, there is some hope yet: there should be some PotStars shenanigans you can get up to with both Dung Beetle Knight and Aeneas.
For all other campaigns this ability represents a total of up to +3 armor for anyone in the mid- and late-game. More likely than not it should even out at +2 armor on average.
Between the slightly awkward Lvl2+ dependent Strange Resource, which is also needed for the Red Power Core, and the inability to pass this ability on to later generations without Bloodline (I) available to you, this one feels a little difficult to make work.
I do love me some Iridescent Hide though and it is, at the very least, a safe add-on to any survivor once you have reached a point of resources piling up. More armor = more good in a world where Keen exists.
Don’t scoff at it too hard even if it is expensive to get.

Braised Shark Tongue
1 Shark Tongue (Sunstalker)
1 Bugfish
1 Monster Organ
1 Fresh Acanthus

Benefit: You cannot suffer Frenzy & +3 understanding.

This is another interesting one, as it is our first cooking recipe actually incorporating a Sky Fishing resource!
Overall it does not seem that expensive resource-wise, just potentially rather rare. The Shark Tongue is a one-of in the Sunstalker’s resource deck which you might want to save as it is used to craft the Shadow Saliva Shawl. On the other hand this is also the only item this particular resource is used for.
As for the ability you gain, it is a little bit of a hard-counter to KillyB, and overall it will keep your survival safe from that pesky frenzy effect hitting you out on the hunt (looking at you Madflies basic HE52 )or as an inopportune brain trauma. Of course you will also miss out on the positive effects of Frenzy.
Lastly, I think its also worth mentioning that in any non-Graves + Saga(I) settlement, this meal also represents an Insight trigger to gain Tinker on a fresh survivor.

Crocsteak and Fingerling Frites
1 Nightmare Tick
1 Pale Flesh (Crimson Crocodile)
1 Pale Fingers (Crimson Crocodile)
1 Fresh Acanthus

Benefit: Gain Hemostasis (+1 bleed needed to kill you, stackable) & +15 insanity.

As I still lack access to the GCE, I am unfortunately not able to give too much insight on the cooking materials for this one. As I understand it, Pale Flesh is mainly used for croc armor parts and the Pale Fingers are for either a thrown weapon or a katar.
The benefits on the other hand do only seem like a fairly large upsides to me compared to the cost. Being able to potentially pile on a stacking ‘+1 extra bleed needed to be killed’ on a survivor sounds incredible and I know at least one person who won’t be able to get enough of this.
This should also synergize nicely with a lot of croc-based effects if I’m not mistaken.
It should also be mentioned that if you own Aeneas you can potentially craft this recipe entirely from fighting Lvl3 lopes.

***

With all 7 recipes now spotted out in the wild the only question left to ask is “Which one is your favorite?”
I am a big fan of both the Dragon King and Spidicules one, though I am just really happy something like this exists. Perhaps that is the old trading-card-gamer in me speaking.
Should you however not be in a position to order from HQ right now (or ever) and feel a little left out because of this, keep in mind that you can use any online resource with the recipes to just make any of them in your games! A good one to use would be the bookmark/settlement-location-esque cheat sheet Bra Mithra shared over on his own discord.
And crowdsourcing the recipes is Team Death approved as well! No worrying about the Poots-Police on this one!

And that might just be the way to go, because if you have any means to cheat cooking ingredients in your campaign (like Aeneas or DBK’s Black Harvest event) the range of what you can do with Cooking (I) will go up tremendously as none of the monsters actually need to be in your campaign for you to be able to cook any of these recipes!
The cards are functionally additions to the Cooking event in the rule book and are always available when you activate the event via the Innovation!
Oh, and as I mentioned it last time as well – if you are playing a campaign with Sunstalker as your Node 3 Quarry, you can take it one step further still and also add 1 Salt to any of these recipes for an extra +1STR on top of all their regular bonuses.

There have been also some very subtle hints at an upcoming Wanderer (no ETA) that could be a wandering chef of sorts. But we know virtually nothing else about this potential product at this time.

***

But I will be leaving it at that for the time being and I won’t get started speculating wildly for a change.
Instead I will make myself comfy and continue my wait for my copy of the Nukealope Vignette to arrive as I make my final preparations for Season 3.
The Feline Entity seemed like she was looking forward to knocking more survivors over when I first told her!
I am sure she will make one hell of a tag-team with Braal.

A quick picture of Candy and my finished Squires to show what I have been up to in the last week.
Speaking of pictures – I will be adding pics of the recipe cards to all of them if I own a card. That will take a while though, I’m sure.

Thank you very much for your time, and, once more, I do hope you get the recipe you desire most with your next order from the HQ!
Amathul