My masterplan

Time for an update on my progress in the great quest to master every recipe the gamemakers can throw at us players.

I've discussed my method of mastery previously, but it's worth recapping. Rather than picking a dish and cooking it till those two gems drop out, and then moving on to the next recipe, I like to master all the dishes together. This allows me to bag a bucketful of gems in one go, while also keeping a nice variety of food on my counters.

Kitchen section of The Garlic Tree

The downside to this is that in the main gem production is pretty slow. However I aim to master any new recipes to the fourth level soon after their release, just in case they get removed at some point, so this keeps my gem bag ticking over. With six goal recipes and usually three or four additional recipes on the basic appliances every month, that gives enough gems to keep me poised when the weekly update rolls around.

So what stage am I at in this epic journey? Well I've already mastered all of the special appliances with the exception of the current goal ones, and have reached level three on each of the three basic cookers. So you could say I'm on the finish straight!

But the final furlong is actually a test of endurance. To carry the mastery meter from level three to level four requires 40 cooks of a dish, so it's a bit of a marathon. But I'm well on the way, having already sweated it out on the Basic Stove:

Cookbook for Basic Stove

I achieved this around a month ago, but you'll spot a couple of things. Firstly, I've yet to commence mastering the Biscuits and Gravy. Having been added this week, I've yet to get going with it, but will do shortly.

The other thing to observe is that I've not actually mastered the stove's recipes. That's a completely tactical decision based on the fact that I don't desperately need the gems right now. There's really no point in accruing them and then sitting on them as this just runs the risk of falling into a perilous gem trap. So I'm keeping the recipes one short of full-on mastery, and will take the gems as and when I need them. In truth I've got a fair amount of gems in the bank at present anyway, so it could be a while before I decide to haul out the stoves and finish them off - maybe for Black Friday?!

I'm currently working on the Basic Oven, the most populous of the main appliances:

Cookbook for Basic Oven

As you can see, I'm only around a quarter of the way to mastery across the foods on the oven, so plenty to be getting on with here. And I haven't even started the arduous task of cranking the mastery meter up from level three on the Basic Grill!

From my traipses around the community, it seems this strategy is quite rare. Most players seem to cook a recipe to death and then move on to the next. Such a tactic does give you a steady income of gems, but it also increases the danger of gem traps. Plus the customers must surely get bored of eating the same stuff time and again!