Starting off the month is an update to Gnomish cooking, and all things related. To start, Jagex slightly altered the second floor of the Grand Tree, in which there are the two banks, as well as many cooking-related stores and facilities. They made everything a bit more convenient and, how should I say it…Gnomish? Also, the gnomish cooking has been made much more practical. They added an easy-to-use interface, showing what types of food/drink that you can make with your cooking level and current supplies.

This way, it’s even easier to create gourmet meals in mere minutes! Though it still baffles me as to how that’s possible. :O

Jagex really went all out on improving Gnomish cooking…Even going through the trouble of making it its own minigame! “Gnome Restaurant” involves a nice twist in making Gnomish food. I found that you not only have to bake a Gnomish delicacy, but I also had to deliver it to a customer somewhere in the land of Runescape (What!? I should be paid extra for this!).

Recommended items are: Gianne’s Gnome Cookbook and Cocktail Book (to look up recipes), and also a good amount of money for supplies and travel fees. To begin the game, go and start a nice chat with Aluft Gianne Jr., who is on the second floor of the Grand Tree, taking orders (west of the banks). He will refuse your offer to work, and demand that you go through training for food and cocktails. You will have to be taught by Aluft Gianne Sr. for food training, and Blurberry for the cocktail training. Don’t shy away from the training though! You only have to go through training once, and if you ever want to do the mini-game again, you don’t have to do the training all over again.

Talk to Gianne Sr. and he will tell you to make him four types of food:

· Toad Crunchies (10 Cooking required)

· Choc Chip Crunchies (16 Cooking required)

· Toad Batta (26 Cooking required)

· Cheese and tomato Batta (29 Cooking required)

Bake all four of these successfully, and he will give you his recommendation.

Talk to Blurberry and he will tell you to make him four types of cocktails:

· Fruit Blast (6 Cooking required)

· Pineapple Punch (8 Cooking required)

· Wizard Blizzard (18 Cooking required)

· Short Green Guy (20 Cooking required)

Make those to his proper liking and he will give you his recommendation.

Return to Gianne Jr. to start making deliveries. You can start out with an easy assignment, or, if you want a bit of a challenge, you can also accept a hard assignment. Whichever one you choose, try to have good transportation ready, as these deliveries are timed! For easy assignments you are given 4-5 minutes to deliver. For harder deliveries, though, you are given 9-10 minutes. Don’t be late!

The basic goal is to get a total of 12 points, of which you can receive by completing deliveries. Easy deliveries give 1 point, and hard ones give 3. Once you get 12 points, you will receive a reward token. If you use the rewards token, a gnome will deliver to you a random gnome food or cocktail. Your location is meaningless; as far as I know, you can be anywhere in Runescape for this to work.

This isn’t the only reward for delivering for the gnomes, however. If you decided to take on the “hard” assignment (how brave!) then you might have the luck of receiving a tip from the customer, thanking you for your hard work. These tips include a new type of food that refills your run energy an entire 50%, and also special gnome pilot clothes!

Also, there is a stackable item called the Grand Seed Pod. This is a one-time use item, of which is a convenient way to travel to the Grand Tree. There are two options for the pod. One is to “Squash” it. If you choose this option, a Grand Tree root will come out of the ground, and…eat you! :O Not really, though. It actually just brings you to throne room of the Grand Tree (where the king rests his royal behind). A temporary side effect of being so cruel so as to crush the pod, you will lose 5 farming levels. Don’t worry, they’ll regenerate soon! The second option is to “Launch” the pod. If you do that, the pod will release spores into the air, signaling a gnome pilot to come and pick you up. The pilot will appear after a short length of time, and will promptly transport you to the gnome glider dock at the top of the Grand Tree. This will give you a small amount of farming XP…100 to be exact. Please note that neither of these options work past level 30 wilderness.

I’ve always been a lover of Gnome foods (the Chocolate Bomb is my favorite!) so this update was a welcome surprise to me. I don’t expect the new mini-game to become a frequented one…But hopefully it will not become deserted like many other mini-games. It will become, for me at least, a nice game to play when I just want to have fun, and dine on scrumptious gnome delicacies in the process. Mmm mmm!