Cooking, Post Abyssea

Category:GuidesCategory:Cooking
Cooking Guide Post Abyssea
By Elizara
...This has been my main craft for quite some time now. A friend of mine (Kikkyo of Fenrir, formerly Nymphadora of Unicorn) reminded me things have had some major seismic shifts in this craft as well...
...So it's time for a new guide, since no one has updated the old ones.
With me, what attracted me to this craft when I was a bitty little newbie was at the time, I wanted to make my own juice/food for whm. It's actually pretty cheap to level if you play your cards right. Also now a days, it can be highly profitable if you find a good niche. I managed to afford a novia with some smart farming + cooking. Just mind if you do that, undercutting is very rampant, so please don't add to the problem and undercut by a lot. Also you will want to sell stuff on mules as well; you can end up with lots of merch to sell. And a word of warning; it can take quite a while/a lot of running around to gather your mats, so keep that in mind.
FARMING IN GENERAL:
There are places in this guide where I'll say “Farm this” or “Farm that”. The sad truth is now a days you may find yourself farming a lot because there's less stuff on the ah (like honey) than when I started. If your server is different with X mat, then go buy it if you're not like me and got more gil than time. If you do the farming method, get thf up to 49 at least; TH2 helps a LOT. (Of course, if you take it to 99 and get all the TH gear, it's even better, but I wouldn’t recommend anyone do that unless you like THF.) If you don't have the time or inclination to farm; you got a lot of homework to do, sirrah. There are ways around it to a certain extent, but if you have to go that route, do your research. I've tried to pick things that are common drops to make it simpler and to give alternates when I can that require minimal farming. 
However, on the later levels there is some HELM'ing you will have to do and I see no effing way around it; Square is very fond lately of HELM mats for cooks. (Winterflower and butterpears would like a word with you about that..those are in the last two magic skillup foods...) Grumble all you like, but after 100, it's either HELM or mess with an even rarer meat than dragon(And even then, you'll have to finish up with that meat.)...Also feel lucky. Cooking is the only craft that you can get the mats to go beyond 100 straight up without waiting for people to do VW or Legion. And if anything, blame the fact that Aby and the dynamis changes made it really easy for most people to make wads of gil, so they consider HELM a waste of time...Which right now HURTS. {I'm sorry.} but it means you have to do it if you want those last 10 levels. Also if you're like me and ever skilled on sweet rice cakes before, that part will bring back nightmares of trying to get the mugwort.
Crystals can also cost a lot, so I highly recommend if you have {sky} and if you really got time to burn, go farm clusters. But of course, same thing applies; if time is more important to you than gil..go ahead and buy them. Another option would be to garden them; yes you can grow crystals. That might be more to people's taste if they don't have the time to go up to {sky}; check Wiki for info on that. (Sadly Pikko's Pots may be RIP.)
 
NPC mats:
I highly recommend you memorize where npcs are that sell common mats, like sandy flour. It will save you time looking stuff up. Best place to look up where to find things tho until you do is wiki/gamerescape.
Sub/Supplementary crafts to level:
There are five main crafts to level for cooking besides cooking, tho you don't have to take most of them to 60 if you don't want to. Mind, these are not all subcrafts; sometimes it's just to make X mat for X synth. I recommend you level alchemy to 60 (for Holy Water and there's a really oddball synth that takes alchemy; you won't be skilling on it but you'll need the holy water for skills late in reaching 100 if you don't want to mess with sweet rice cakes. Believe me, you don't wanna.), woodworking to 21 (It's used for a really odd skillup synth and so you don't have to depend on the conquest to get maple sugar), leathercraft (for a really late synth to save yourself a huge headache), goldsmithing (For same very late synth) and bonecraft to 28 (For gelatin; do this unless you know a very nice and patient boneworker.). Optional is to also level clothcraft for one REALLY odd synth that is signable, but you don't need to for this guide. It is something to consider though. Another to consider is fishing; Fishing and Cooking go together like peanut butter and jelly, so keep that in mind! By the way, you do NOT need to do synergy to make a profit in cooking, so don't worry about it.
Guild Points:
I highly recommend you start soon as you get novice. Some of the higher GP items can be a pain in the freaking tail to get, tho most of the time, I can tell you right now; you'll be buying your gp items from NPCs most of the time. When you don't; you'll be fishing for mats/getting mats weird places, etc which can get quite annoying. I recommend key item wise you get Patissier, Noodle Kneading, and Raw Fish Handling. The final key item is not really useful for profit and can be ignored for quite some time, tho if you think about it; those AoE melee foods you can make with Stewpot Mastery might actually be useful in low level GoV burns. (We cooks gotta spread the word though..)
As for the gp gettable gear; Get it! The Chef's Hat, the Chef's Apron, and the Chef's Ring (good for if you make tacos or coeurl subs) are are useful items to have, so get them.
As for the furniture, at this time I have the Cordon Bleu cooking set, the Culinarian's Signboard and Culinarians' Stall. Quick rundown; you can only have one mogenhancement at a time. So having both/all four does NOT give you more cooking skill than what the stall does, but a theory I've got; if you got all the furnishings (cooking set, stall, sign, stewpot), it'll make it easier to keep the megamog cooking if you change your mog house around for looks. However, megamogifcation; cooking gives you +4 skill, not just +1 from the cooking set, so don't be afraid to get the mats and get the stall synergized. (Most synergists will help you do it for free on Quetz if you shout and have your crucible already, which isn't a bad thing. Just be polite about it.) Oh and one more thing; Get some stuff to put on the stall (A cake furnishing and a windy tea set, perhaps?). It looks kinda bare without anything on it, imo. What's a food stall without foodish stuff on it? Also keep in mind all cooking furniture is WIND aura so a little wind furniture is not a bad idea. (Don't go overboard though.) Any extra skill does help reduce your breaks and help with hqing, so it is worth it to gp enough to get some of the furniture. Just mind, if you don't change your mh around a lot, it may not be worth it to get all four pieces (stewpot, cooking set, stall, sign). Only get them all if you change your mog house around now and then to strengthen the mogenhancement so you won't get rid of it so easily. If you don't change it around a lot, just get the stall. (and some stuff to put on it)
You will need GP to break the final cap; make sure you save 21k gp once you hit 100!
Oh and one more thing; there are very few foods that you can sign. They must be notstacky and not juice. It isn't really useful to sign food, but if you're like me, you'd do it for friends on occasion for presents/laughs. (I've done a couple signed Lebkuchen Houses for a couple friends to make them smile after one of them got a terrible Christmas present from SE (don't ask), and I did a couple people signed chocolate cakes.) For the most part however; why sign what someone's going to eat? 
Mog Garden:
Not too much to say about this, but if you cook, you're going to LUUUV your Mog Garden. You can get a lot of rare mats from here (tho it is random; no one has figured out how to ensure a certain thing) so I suggest you hightail it there early and get it built up as much as you can. You can get some of the rare mats that before, you'd have to HELM here. Rundown on that:
Cactus stems at Rank 7 furrow can get you Dragon Fruit..and some other things
Vegetable seeds as early as rank 5-6 furrow can get you burdock among other things
Rank 5-6 grove can get you walnuts (I didn't notice them until then): Rank 7 fertilized with grove cuttings(I also had the meeble on the grove) can get you Dragon Fruit too.
There is a thread on bg about this. So build it up, get your helpers and save stuff up! It'll save you some HELM headaches later tho prolly won't completely get rid of the need to do so since higher levels take a lot of synths to level up.
Crafting Kits:
Square added some presents that may give you some relief from some farming up to 50. I'll check synthstack prices but as of now, I think they're worth it..to a point. Eventually they get pricy enough that you'd better have buckets and buckets of gil because you will be going though it like water on the later leveled kits. Give me some time to check and I'll add those as alts later..if said kit is worth it. 
Extra Cooking Gear/Crafting Gear:
There is some cooking skill gear/crafting gear out there that you can quest or buy. Lemme give you the rundown.
Trainee Knife = Get through the quest, The Dawn of Delectability. This is good until you hit level 40 in cooking, then you lose the latent. (+1 cooking skill without support on pre-40) But by then you should be able to use advanced support anyway if you need it. After level 40, store this at the porter moogle. ^^
Hocho – A lot of cooks level NIN to 57 so they can use this knife. +3 cooking skill is very very nice. Two ways to get this; pay a pretty insane price on ah for one or deal with pretty bad (or so I hear) drop rates from Sozu Sarberry. Your choice if you want to get one. (I don't but have been toying with the idea, even tho I dislike ninja. IF I get one that is.)
Craftkeeper's Ring -- If the Inventor's Coalition on your server is at level 2 or better, you can get this for 20k bayld at that coalition. It reduces mat loss on breaks (The guess is at 1% but every little bit helps). I'd say get this for the more expensive mats.
Craftmaster's Ring -- If the Inventor's Coalition on your server is at level 2 or better, you can get this for 20k bayld at that coalition. This increases hq chances by 1%. Get if you try to hq stuff a lot; I swear HQ is luck!
Artificer's Ring -- If the Inventor's Coalition on your server is at level 2 or better, you can get this for 20k bayld at that coalition. This decreases breaks/ups success rate by 1%. Get if you hate breaks/have expensive mats.
Shaper's Shawl -- I never got this but if you want to save time on the higher levels it might be worth getting. This is gotten via gutting Matsya via the quest, Inside the Belly, at a low rate. It increases your skillup rates. 
References:
Dasher's Cooking Guide
 
Wiki in General for their recipe list
 
Cooking Guide By Crawlerbasher
Thanks to Kadiann of Midgard/Quetz; I recently actually have retired from FFXI, but even tho the game is winding down, I want to keep this as updated as I can. Since she's still playing, and since flour now stacks, I asked her to test Cloudy Wheat Broth for me and see if it's a viable skillup now that the pesty flour stacks. It is. Thank you ye dark angel!
Also thanks to Kikkyo/Nympahadora of Fenrir; I wouldn't be doing this if she hadn't warned me.
Credit for "synthstack" goes to Miyasha of Midgardsormr/Quetz; It's just what it sounds like. Going though enough mats to go though a stack of crystals. 
Also thanks to the guys on BG for helping guess caps for recipes. I'll have to verify though..that will take time! I don't level that fast so be patient, this could take me a good while.
Final warning: Never follow any guide blindly. This guide was based on the Quetzalcoatl/Fenrir markets as of April 3, 2012. Markets are fluid and always changing; also your server's market could be different. So be sure to do your research, always. ^^
Enough beating around the bush.. Allez cuisine! (Ok, channeling the Iron Chef here!)
0-3 Carrot Broth – Water Crystal, San d'Orian Carrot x 4 = Does not sell, npc it unless you're low leveling bst. 
3-6 Grilled Hare -Fire Crystal, Dried Marjoram, Hare Meat = Go and farm up a few stacks of hare meat if there's not a lot of hare meat on the ah. Dried Marjoram is available from Zukheim region merchants or from either the sandy grocery store or Ensasa's Catalyst Shop, depending on conquest ranks. Check the AH for how well this sells; if it hardly does, it's a npc dump. Pretty much a bridge synth here, you can skip if you're comfortable with a huge level gap. 
6-10 Orange Juice – Water Crystal, Saruta Orange X4 = Doesn't get simpler than this. Go to Windy Waters with a bunch of water crystals, go to the saru gate. Turn around, there's a taru in the grass that sells the oranges. (He can be hard to see). NPC results or use for low leveling a mage job. 
Turn in a Salmon Sub sandwich for your test, then keep on cookin' ^^. 
10-11 Sliced Sardine – Wind Crystal, Bastore Sardine = Lazy fishermen will buy this, so it's profit. Get out your pole and catch the sardines yourself. 
11-20 Selbina Butter – Ice Crystal, Selbina Milk, Rock Salt = Save for later synths or sell on the ah. It sells VERY slowly in my experience but will sell. 
Make a Pea Soup for your test, then off you go again. 
20-22 Baked Popotes – Fire Crystal, Popoto, Selbina Butter = No one wants this so it's a npc dump. You can skip this if you want; it's pretty much a bridge synth. 
22-25 (caps at 29, if you wanna keep at it that long and are not inclined to level mages) Insect Ball X99 – Earth Crystal, Millioncorn, Little Worm, Distilled Water = Use to catch ya some moat carps or sell. Depends on how much ya like fishin'. NOTE: Someone told me the level to start this synth may of changed. Please comment and let me know if I got the level to start wrong, it's something I wouldn't know offhand. ^^
25-30 Pineapple Juice –Water Crystal, Kazham Pineapple X2 = Use on a mage job. Can't say how well this sells since that's what I did. ^^ 
ALTERNATE: 25-29 Pet Food Gamma – Fire Crystal, Bird Egg, Dhalmel Meat, Distilled Water, Horo Flour = If you don't like leveling mage jobs, either do this or take Insect Balls to 29. 
Make a Vegetable Gruel for your test, then let's go. 
30-33 Trout Balls x99 – Earth Crystal, Distilled Water, Rye Flour, Shining Trout = Pretty much a bridge synth here; fair warning, the trout might make you cuss up a storm because it's kinda hard to get on the ah. You will proly end up catching it. 
ALTERNATE: 30-34 Black Bread – Fire Crystal, Distilled Water, Rye Flour, Rock Salt = If you can't find the blasted trout, this is a good alternative and rather cheap. NPC dump pretty much though. 
33-39 Pet Food Delta – Earth Crystal, Rye Flour, Distilled Water, Bird Egg, Land Crab Meat = Check the AH before you npc this, be nice to bsts. ^^ 
Turn in a Meat Mithkabob at or before 40 for your guild test. 
39-42 Pie Dough – Water Crystal, San d'Orian Flour, Rock Salt, Selbina Butter = Save on a mule. You'll prolly end up making a lot of pie later, so you'll come back to this. If you're comfortable with a huge level gap, you can start this at 30 with synth support. 
42- 47 Cinna-cookie – Fire Crystal, Lizard Egg, Maple Sugar, Selbina Butter, San d'Orian Flour, Cinnamon, Distilled Water = I did pickled herrings at this stage, but the herring is a @#$%^ to get, especially now a days. Sell to NPC or use on a low level mage job. Go get your THF or /thf on and go farm the eggs in CN (watch out for xpers!) and cook it up. 
47-50 Apple Pie – Fire Crystal, Bird Egg, Faerie Apple, Cinnamon, Maple Sugar, Pie Dough = If you saved the pie dough, you're in business. Just go running with this, it should sell OK on ah. Save one for your guild test. This also could be a spot where you'll want woodworking for that sugar, it all depends on the conquest. 
Turn in a Apple Pie for your guild test and let'er buck. 
50-56 Mulsum – Ice Crystal, Distilled Water, Honey, Grape Juice = Smart mages who cure people love this for bcs. Go to your fav place to maul bees and bring wind crystals. Use a wind crystal on 4 beehive chips; will give you some honey(which will speed your farming time); you should hq that like mad now. Go to Jueno after and sit by the NPC who sells grape juice and just synth it up and AH it. Sells a bit slowly now, but it will sell. 
ALTERNATES: 50-55 Egg Soup – Fire Crystal, Rock Salt, Lizard Egg, Distilled Water = Go to CN (Again, watch out for xpers!) and farm up a bunch of lizard eggs. Then head to Whitegate so you can get the rest of the mats conveniently, then cook it up and npc it. This isn't a insane loss to npc, so if musulm is not selling this could be a alternate. 
OR 50-55 Beaugreen Sautee- Fire Crystal, Beaugreens, Selbina Butter = This is what I actually did. NPC dump, doesn't sell, and I pretty much hated it. But if you're powering, this may be the way to go. 
56-60 Yagudo Drink – Dark Crystal, Buburimu Grape x3, Yagudo Cherry = Nice seller. Go farm the dark crystals in Xarc or {sky} if dark crystals are expensive. In any case, find the vendor for Kolshushu for whoever's got it, park in front of it, and go to it. Save one for your guild test. 
ALTERNATES: 56-61 Stone Cheese – Dark Crystal, Selbina Milk, Rock Salt = If dark crystals aren't a insane price (They are on quetz), or you farm your crystals, this could be a decent skillup. Dump to NPC, it doesn't sell and is only used in a couple pasta dishes anyway.
OR: 56-59 Pet Food Zeta - Fire Crystal,Lizard Egg, Coeurl Meat, Distilled Water, San d'Orian Flour = This is also a very good alternate. Coeurl meat drops decently, so do lizard eggs, and this sells for a very nice profit if you aren't leveling bst. (Be nice to 'em okay?) Anyway, take to cap, then finish up with either yag drinks or stone cheese. 
If you were doing Yagudo Drinks, take one out and turn it in for the guild test. (Otherwise, make one!) Then, let's mosey on. 
60-64 Melon Pie – Fire Crystal, Bird Egg, Cinnamon, Pie Dough, Thundermelon, Maple Sugar = Mages love this. It's a slow seller, but will sell. At least last I checked. Also mind there is a version that takes Lizard Egg instead of the bird egg; that's a lower cap tho.
ALTERNATE: 60-65 Pumpkin Soup – Fire Crystal, Ogre Pumpkin, Sage, Selbina Milk, Rock Salt, Distilled Water = Wish I knew about this one skilling up. If you don't pay too much for fire crystals, it's a profit to sell to npcs. 
65-67 Raisin Bread – Fire Crystal, San d'Orian Grapes, San d'Orian Flour, Selbina Butter, Maple Sugar, Rock Salt, Distilled Water = Break even selling this to npcs if fire crystals aren't insane or you farm your crystals. Save one for your guild test. 
67-72 Pear Au Lait – Water Crystal, Derfland Pear, Honey, Selbina Milk = More bee mauling/synthing beehive chips into honey. NPC this but let your melee friends know you're making it; I had a Cydori (A certain dragoon I know) buy some off me for a bc! 
ALTERNATES:65-70 San d'orian Tea – Fire Crystal, Selbina Milk, Maple Sugar, Distilled Water, Sage, Windurstian Tea Leaves – This is what I did. Sells VERY slowly, so might end up being a npc dump. Cheap to make however; Just cap on this, then finish up with the au lait.
OR: 65-69 Pet Food Eta - Fire Crystal, Distilled Water, San d'Orian Flour, Buffalo Meat, Apkallu Egg = This isn't a bad profit selling on the AH (Be nice to bsts!), tho the eggs and meat are a lot harder to farm. Buffalo meat is a slow dropper no matter where you farm it(At least in my experience with a 99 thf with full TH gear; YRMV.), and 'puku eggs can only be farmed in aby without consequences. Abyssea-Misereaux, to be precise. Your choice if you wanna do this; again, finish up with the au lait.
Turn in a Raisin Bread when you hit 70 and get cookin' ^^ 
This is also where it can start getting a biiit tricky. ^^ 
72-77 Navarin – Fire Crystal, Black Pepper, Distilled Water, Giant Sheep Meat, Mithran Tomato, Olive Oil, Popoto, Rock Salt, Wild Onion = Go farm or grow a lot of wild onions. The rest can be bought from npc's. This sells really slowly as I recall, you may end up npc dumping it out of annoyance. 
ALTERNATE: 72-78 Cloudy Wheat Broth -- Fire Crystal, San d'Orian Flour, Coriander, Imperial Flour, Distilled Water = I would of added this when it came out, but at that time, flour did not stack, which made this recipe too big a pain in the butt. Now a days there are better juggies so it doesn't sell fast, so it's a npc dump. But it's cheap to make, so you won't be losing much gil at all, depending on the cost of fire crystals or if you farm your crystals. Anyway buy the flour in Sandy, and get the coriander at the Tenshido in Bastok. Then head to Whitegate for sake of convenience, cook it up and toss it at the NPC..or if you play bst, save for a trash/throwaway pet if you're so inclined.
77-80 Shallops Tropicale – Fire Crystal, Bay Leaves, Kazham Pineapple, Rock Salt, Selbina Butter, Shall Shell X2 = Go buy the shall shells at the Fishing Guild by Bikibi Bay. Sells slowly now a days, so you may end up npc dumping it again in frustration. I had a certain PLD friend who loved me for making these though. 
Go ahead and cheat a little; Buy the Whitefish Stew you need for the guild test from Timber Timbers when you hit level 80 and turn it in, then push on, push on. 
80-85 Yellow Curry – Fire Crystal, Coeurl Meat, Wild Onion, Selbina Milk, Curry Powder, Distilled Water, Popoto, Turmeric = Bun this by synthing it with yet another Fire Crystal, San d'Orian Flour, Olive Oil, and a Bird Egg. The buns sell like, well, hotcakes and generally for a good profit. Don't undercut too much! Oh and go farm the Coeurl Meat and Wild Onions. :) 
ALTERNATE: 80-85 Pumpkin Pie – Fire Crystal, Bird Egg, Cinnamon, Distilled Water, Maple Sugar, Ogre Pumpkin, Pie Dough, Selbina Milk = If you hate farming, this is the way to go. It sold pretty well when I skilled on it (Yellow curry buns did not exist) but sadly now a days it's a possible NPC dump. (Like you only see it up once every three weeks on Quetz.)
OR: 80-85? Fruit Parfait (REQUIRES PATISSIER) Wind Crystal, Yagudo Cherry, Apple Mint, Faerie Apple, Saruta Orange, Kazham Pineapple, Pamamas, Uleguerand Milk, Maple Sugar -- This is the only recipe I'll mention that requires a GP related key item. However, Patissier is so darn cheap and this recipe is so high profit with EXTREMELY easy to get mats that it is worth the trouble. Consider this if you hate farming with a passion and have been keeping up with your guild points. Fair warning, it doesn't stack, so use your mules to sell this; it's going to be really bag cloggy. Oh and if people wanna know what this does; it's the first ever MAB food in the game. MAB +6. Not 100% sure where this caps, but best guess right now is at 85. (Please confirm if you can!)
85-90 Rolanberry Pie – Fire Crystal, Bird Egg, Gelatin, Maple Sugar, Pie Dough, Rolanberry, San d'Orian Flour, Selbina Milk = This is NO FREAKING JOKE for any low level mage jobs; I mean 50 mp then? Sells slowly but does sell. And I hope to bleep you don't get a +1. Best to make your own gelatin here if you can. (Farm or buy the giant femurs, depending on time, the rest is NPC. Just make sure you got bonecraft leveled.) And yes, this may be your best option if you don't really like to HELM; if it don't sell on your server, it's a npc dump instead.
ALTERNATE: 85-91 Tavnazian Salad – Wind Crystal, Apple Vinegar, Bastore Bream, Beaugreens, Flint Caviar, Frost Turnip, Grimmonite, Noble Lady, San d'Orian Carrot = Prepare for the AH waiting game unless you got a fisherman friend or you fish. For some reason, probably because fishermen NPC fish, the fish are hard to come by. I did this because of my paly friend (she was fond of notstackys because she kept forgetting to eat), but it sells well if you taco it. Heck now a days because of the mobbie that gives out random items, you NEED to taco them to make a profit, at least on Quetz. (Need a earth crystal, salsa, and two tortillas per salad to taco it) If you plan on tacoing this I hope you have the Chef's Ring; the HQ version will not taco, does not sell, and will cause you to cuss a lot if you don't have a friend like I had who will gobble that up. 
OR: 85-91 Shadowy Broth - Water Crystal, Dragon Meat, Nopales, Agaricus Mushroom = Newer jug that Square added a bit ago. The nopales must be harvested in Fort Karugo-Narugo; mushrooms must be farmed in past areas and as I recall, they don't stack. Also working with dragon meat early..hoo boy. A note about that. I STRONGLY suggest you go farm almonds from rats or Aht Urghan birds and cook up some Kitron Macarons to use.(reduces breaks at the price of less hqs; some say it also helps with skills tho I wouldn't swear to that part.) I swear that helps at least save you some money in the long run tho Kitrons are pricer than they used to be. ^^ It's very high profit though; people like this turtle. Oh and save any holy water you get from harvesting for the final stretch. 
Turn in a Seafood Stew for your second to last test and let's rock it. You're almost a Iron Chef yourself, keep it up! 
90-95 Rice Dumpling – Fire Crystal, Bamboo Stick, Coral Fungus, Dhalmel Meat, Distilled Water, Maple Sugar, Rock Salt, Sticky Rice = You prolly should grow the fungus and plan for this. Is NO joke for any low level melee jobs up to Qufim and sells decently last I checked. Has a lowish level woodworking sub (15 woodworking. Yeah it's weird), but if you leveled woodworking for maple sugar, you should have more than enough. 
95-97 Dawn Mulsum – Ice Crystal, Holy Water, Grape Juice, White Honey = Square gave us cooks a little present with a bow with this. You prolly will have to farm that white honey since no one kills the Aht Urghan bees. (at least on quetz, they don't.) The regular honey recipe does work for white honey with Pephredo Hive Chips from those bees, however. (4 chips, one wind crystal) This doesn't stack, tho it sells well. I recommend you sell this on your mules because otherwise it's very bag cloggy. ^^ Oh and you should make your own holy water for this. (Believe me tho, this is better than the traditional method of sweet rice cakes at this level. Those never sold, and don't even talk to me about fresh mugwort ><)
97-101 Red Curry – Fire Crystal, Kazham Peppers, Curry Powder, Coriander, Dragon Meat, San d'Orian Carrot, Mithran Tomato, Distilled Water = Bun this like you did the yellow curry. Sells decent as buns. Now a days the red curry is actually decent to make up since the meat drops in aby. It will take you a while to grab the singles tho but not as long as it used to. ^^ Don't forget to use Kitron Macarons! Oh and don't expect to get up and rush though this part. That dragon meat isn't cheap (tho it's cheaper than in the old bad days when it only came off HNM dragons; It used to be like 100k a slice, ouch..) and either option here are not things you can power though unless you're really loaded with gil; TAKE YOUR TIME, don't do more than one synthstack at once, and let the buns sell before you do another batch. Your wallet will thank you. Oh and if you want and you've been saving walnuts from mog gardening, you can go straight to walnut cookies (Walnuts are very common from there); but don't try to run from this before you get 98 cooking. (Thanks Aedrin!)
ALTERNATE: 97-100 Cursed Soup - Water Crystal, Kitron, Persikos, Water, Honey, Royal Jelly = I DO NOT recommend this, but it is a possibility at this level. Red Curry/Buns are a much better use of your time and gil, imo. No nice way to get Royal Jelly unless you have high thief to be honest (THAT bad a drop in my experience tho Your Results May Vary); and it can take all day to farm up enough to get though a synthstack even with TH7, which can be..maddening. Also since no one grows ore anymore (Why? When it isn't a big profit and it drops from Aby?) so you'll proly be throwing lots of gil down a hole, 100k or so at a time. (no one buys cursed soup really) Not to mention the time you'll waste farming the jelly when you could be doing something..more profitable with that time. 
OR: 97-100? Kitron Juice - Water Crystal, 4 Kitrons = I don't recommend this because kitrons are not cheap and they are pretty hard to get in very large quantities. (Not to mention it isn't very good for a such a high juice. Besides, who the bleep would drink straight lemon juice?!) Tho if you garden, this might be a good way to burn though this part. (That would be the only way to get enough kitrons to do it without spending a fortune and a lot of ah camping, since there is not a lot of them on ah at any given time. I'd save the kitrons for kitron macrons, frankly. Not juice.) Unfortunately, I am not 100% sure where this caps since it's so new, but it does cap at 100 at least. Is a npc dump sadly as far as I can tell, so it's truly a gilburn.
Okay! Almost there. I hope you've been gping, for you'll need roughly 21k gp to break the cap and for the final (as of March 28, 2012) test item. THIS MUST BE SIGNED. Get the Way of the Culinarian and then make a signed Sprightly Soup (Fire Crystal (you'll have to use Inferno Crystal for cap test tho), Rock Salt, Danceshroom, Wild Onion, Reishi Mushroom, Distilled Water, Agaricus Mushroom) Then finish that last level on the red curry. Then we go into new territory! Unfortunately the next few recipes I feel are even MORE annoying than the last ones. Why? Because you have to HELM or if you skill on the steak, have to deal with Cerberus Meat, which is incredibly rare.. {I'm sorry.} No way around it..
101-103 Walnut Cookies (Or 98-103 if you don't mind breaks) (Fire Crystal, Selbina Butter, Maple Sugar, Apkallu Egg, Walnut, Imperial Flour) Ugggh. I hate farming puku eggs solo. The only place you can without...consequences...is abyssea. Abyssea-Misereaux, to be precise. I hope you got extra stones to burn or you got a few understanding friends (including a blm) that wanna skill up (more fun that way anyway). (They are like 70k a stack on Quetz if you got gil to burn; I prefer not to when I have to npc dump it. No one on quetz will buy these.) Also this is the first recipe that you might have to deal with HELM and there's no way around it unless you've been saving them from your Mog Garden. Yes they are buyable (But for anyone but cooks, it's prolly a npc dump, so they might be rare on ah), but you might be cheap like me/there's none on ah and would rather not if you got the time. If that's the case and you go to past Sandy and go log in the newbie area for them. It takes time, but get used to it (Mind, Mog Garden has eased the HELM part but it's not gone completely). I strongly suggest you use a job that has S/I, RR, and some kinda movement speed ability to HELM. WHM/BRD, high level SMN/WHM, BRD/WHM, and DNC/WHM are all solid choices if you got them leveled, otherwise make do by using sprinter boots or some kinda boots with movement speed (I had decent luck in Ronfaure[S] with THF/DNC and a pair of strider boots). There's a reason that gilsellers used to use fleehacks HELMing but I am not one to go that far when HELM'ing (and risk the account) when there's movement speed abilities/gear available. ^^ I don't recommend skipping either of the two HELM recipes; there's no escaping HELM unless you really want to gilburn. Both areas that you can get walnuts from are pretty annoying to HELM sadly, I think Jugner Forest [S] is more annoying than East Ronfaure [S] because the points are more clustered and far apart in Jugner. I suggest you don't skip this; the final synth is pretty ugly. Oh and if you don't like what's before this, you can start this early at 98 with synth support if you don't mind a big gap and possible breaking all over.
103-105 Dragon Fruit Au Lait (Water Crystal, 2 Dragon Fruit, Honey, Selbina Milk) – I think this is the least annoying recipe. I know, that area's annoying to HELM, but believe me the alternatives are worse. Anyway, same deal as pear au lait for the rest of the mats, maul bees yadda yadda yadda. At least other than the fruit, this isn't too annoying. Anyway, yadda yadda, no one bothers to HELM for the dragon fruit normally except for one quest(yet), so get out the field gear and go logging for it. Again, that's a annoying as frick area to HELM but both options at this stage require HELM, and I think date tea is worse; tho I don't blame you if you skip this one. That area is just THAT annoying to HELM.. Bring an instant retrace scroll in case you get stuck in the spot where there's no return. Even if you plan on skipping, I suggest you at least make 12 of them for the next stage to save yourself a headache/your wallet.
ALTERNATE FOR COOKIES AND THE AU LAIT:
103-107 Himesama Rice Ball(Fire Crystal, Buffalo Meat, Rock Salt, Tarutaru Rice, Pamtam Kelp, Burdock, Distilled Water) -- This is what I ended up doing after the cookies, tho you can start this at the cookies if you wish. Burdock must be HELMed, but it's no where near as annoying as the dragon fruit. Go harvest in Grauburg for it. (And you proly will get some mats for Yuly to sell along the way.) Kelp can be picked up at the fishing guild in Bibiki Bay or fished up, and buffalo meat is farmed. Go get it and go to it! Oh and btw. Unlike the other skillups on this stage, the meat and the burdock is available on the AH (since they're used in other things and burdock is a byproduct of Yuly mat farming), if you got more gil than time. HOWEVER, the rice balls do not sell very well(Well, at least on most servers), so 99% chance you will be npcing them just to get rid of them. Keep that in mind. 
105-109(107-109 if you did the rice balls)Dragon Tank (requires a sub of leatherworking; 12 is my guess b/c of what the leather caps at) (Karakul Leather, Brass Tank, Dragon Fruit au lait X4): If you can get enough to do this, you might be able to redo this a thousand times for skill (ick if you break tho). Mind the leather sub; I suggest you get a Trainee's Needle to reduce breaks due to sub. Make a few, then cycle between them. You will actually gain an au lait per cycle. Also, you might want to get GS to 20 (that part's cheap at least) to make your own brass tanks if you do this(I used my ww mule who has 60 GS). Oh and if HELMing dragon fruit annoys the frick out of you or the rice balls bug you to death; you can proly start this early. And yes I know. Leatherworking?! Trying to keep skilling cheap sometimes makes strange bedfellows...Anyway, use any old guide to skill leatherworking to 12 (21 preferred to prevent breakage, don't go higher or you risk not having the needle work), then go HELM up Imperial Tea Leaves(This isn't so bad to do if you got a job that can handle 3 or more mobs by itself without dying; "Oops I agged!" seems to be common where you HELM these) and farm karkul hides, and make the leather. Hope that Bastok isn't Lastok (has to be second or better) and desynth rings for the brass ingots for the tanks. Farm or buy bone chips and the rabbit hides for animal glue, and make the tanks since I never see those on ah..Sheeting has been really helping (my ww mule has sheeting) for the tanks, tho I don't know if anyone would want to swap guilds for a few weeks to get that ki. If you do all that to acquire the odd mats in this one, and don't pay too much for crystals it will be nearly break even. (Of course if you don't have the time, you can buy the mats, que serra serra.) 
109(107 if you skipped both dragon fruit recipes; I don't blame you)-110 Smoldering Salisbury Steak (Fire Crystal, Sage, Black Pepper, Cerberus Meat, Buffalo Meat, Wild Onion, Bird Egg, Rock Salt, White Bread) UGGGH.If you thought dragon meat was bad in the old days, this is 200 times worse; you might be camping the ah for a week or two before you can get a stack of the cerb meat, it's that much a pain to get if people aren't voidwatching a lot. This recipe is a loss if you don't farm any of the 2 farmable mats, a slight profit if you do (I understand why some wouldn't; time reasons) Hence why I recommend you DO. NOT. skip the cookies at the very least. You don't want to go though too much blowing gil. To stop the pain, I suggest you farm the buffalo meat and the onions, as well as your crystals. If you choose to buy the farmables, I hope you got another way, like dynamis, to make up the gil losses. Your choice.
Congrats, ye new Iron Chef. Now get cooking!