Let’s talk about in-person industry events for this week’s Cooking Eorzea. Awesome Games Done Quick 2020 was the last video game event/conference/announcement that I had attended as media. That was because this event was at that very short period of time before COVID was known to be spreading throughout the United States of America in January 2020.
The moment that this pandemic really hit on what I do as a journalist came when GDC 2020 was cancelled as I was actively scheduling meetings with publishers and developers for the conference. Then E3 2020 was cancelled and Summer Games Done Quick became an online-only affair. All of this was completely understandable as to why it occurred because hey, there is a pandemic going on.
Awesome Games Done Quick 2022 has just come and gone over the past week, and there isn’t (understandably, again) an announcement as to if Summer Games Done Quick 2022 will be in person or online- or even when it will be. Thankfully, it definitely will be happening, at least. Also, it was just announced that E3 as an in-person event is cancelled for this year.
I miss seeing the gaming industry and the public gathering together to celebrate gaming at these kinds of events. When I am trying out demos at a conference, I am always taking notes of what I am playing, and I am always gaming with an eye towards making sure that I do everything I can to put out the best possible impressions article for my readers. It can sometimes just be a bit of a shock to hear next to me that this is their fifth or sixth time waiting in line to play a particular demo again because they simply love this franchise so much or this new game just blew their mind and they simply want more.
And yes, it does sometimes make it hard for me to get to media appointments while I am dashing around crowds who are chatting about the COOLEST upcoming Nintendo or SQUARE ENIX or indie release that they just demoed. But I honestly do miss the kind of energy that the video game-loving public creates, and it reminds me of just why I started writing about video games in the first place over a half-decade ago. There is nothing like it when gamers of all types get together to celebrate this industry, and not even the utter ridiculousness of the Bang™ Energy (Fuel Your Destiny!™) dance stage at E3 can change that.
I hope that we can get back to that kind of atmosphere when the pandemic is finally over, and I will keep reserving a hotel room for E3 every year in the hope that it will eventually all come back. I miss it all- and yes, my feelings are with Love, Eorzean Style.
If you’ve missed an installment of Cooking Eorzea, you can check out all the prior recipes here.
Recipe of the Week
This week’s Cooking Eorzea recipe is the eleventh of The Ultimate FINAL FANTASY XIV Online Cookbook, Wildwood Scrambled Eggs. This ‘Easy’ difficulty-rated dish is from the Black Shroud region of Eorzea and is a serving dish that is meant to serve two people. It is also the final dish (for now!) in the breakfast section of this series. As I stated before, I will be circling back to other recipes from the breakfast section when I make the precursor recipes.
This dish was a lot easier to make than I had expected for it to be, and I was able to easily find all of the ingredients that I needed in three stores! And yes, I had to go back to Trader Joe’s to get more shiitake mushrooms and a shallot.
Here is what the recipe is supposed to look like:
Featured Ingredient of the Week
This week’s featured ingredient is baby portobello mushrooms, or as they are more commonly known- cremini mushrooms. With the scientific name of Agaricus bisporus, these mushrooms are much smaller than the portobello mushrooms you can have served in lieu of meat on a steamed ham (aka hamburger). I personally love eating these mushrooms, and they are quite easy to work with for cutting and cooking.
My Cooking Attempt
As always, let’s check out the full array of ingredients for this week’s Cooking Eorzea recipe!
First, I cleaned the parsley out under cool water from the faucet, and then I pressed out the water from it with paper towels.
Next, I stripped off the rubber band and then chopped up enough parsley for two servings. It turned out that I had chopped up a BIT too much parsley, and so I had to unfortunately toss a small amount away. The remainder of the unchopped parsley was bagged and stored away in the fridge.
Next, I peeled and then thinly sliced up (for me, at least) the shallot.
Next, I cut up both the baby portobello and the shiitake mushrooms. Both were surprisingly easy to slice, and I was happy with how firm both sets of mushrooms were. Once that was done, I set the mushrooms, the shallot, and the parsley aside temporarily.
I turned on my stovetop and added in the olive oil and butter.
Once the butter was fully melted, I added in the sliced shallots to the pan and let them cook and brown.
I then added in the mushrooms, and I let the whole thing cook. While they were cooking and browning through, I measured out the feta cheese.
After about ten minutes, the mushrooms and shallot had finished cooking.
I emptied the pan into a bowl, added in the salt and pepper and lemon juice, and made sure that the seasoning was evenly distributed throughout the shallot and mushrooms.
After I set the topping aside, I tried to crack several eggs into a bowl. I say ‘tried’, because I ended up having to fish out shell from the bowl from my very first egg. It was…less than pleasant to be rooting around in a bowl to make sure that I got all of the little shell bits out.
After I cracked enough eggs, I added in the sour cream and the heavy cream.
While more butter melted in the cleaned pan, I whisked the wet mixture together until it was well blended.
Once both the butter was melted and the mixture was well whisked, I poured the bowl into the pan.
I whisked the entire mixture together inside the pan, and then let it set for a half-minute. I then continued to whisk the mixture in the pan as it cooked all the way through.
I then split the finished eggs between two plates and topped both plates with the mushroom/shallot mixture.
I then added the chopped-up parsley and feta cheese on top.
And here is the final dish!
As soon as I snapped this finished picture, I sat down and ate the dish. And it was, no joke, SO GOOD. This was easily my favorite dish that I have made so far. The feta cheese and the eggs and the mushrooms and shallot all really blended well together, and I was surprised at how pleasant it was. This is a dish that I am actually going to make again this week for myself. I ended up eating both portions for myself because I enjoyed it so much!
Afterword
Overall, this Cooking Eorzea dish was quite easy to make and one that would be an impressive dish to cook for someone for breakfast. It also didn’t require any insanely hard to find ingredients (think birch syrup!) to make, and I was quite thankful for that.
I know I keep saying it, but I want to thank Victoria Rosenthal for writing The Ultimate FINAL FANTASY XIV Online Cookbook. I also want to thank the staff over at Insight Editions for giving me permission to use the photos from their book to show how these recipes are actually supposed to look. Furthermore, I continually owe Brandon Rose a special thanks for creating the logo for this series on short notice. You should check him and his works out over on Twitter.
Finally, I want to thank both Hiromichi Tanaka and Naoki Yoshida for producing FINAL FANTASY XIV Online in both iterations of the game.
Next Week
As Cooking Eorzea leaves the breakfast section of the cookbook for now and we head into the appetizers section of The Ultimate FINAL FANTASY XIV Online Cookbook, I am starting off with crab croquettes. I’ve never worked with peanut oil before, so this will be an interesting dish!
Please check it out!
Have you used feta cheese with eggs before? What about different types of mushrooms in a single dish?
Let us know in the comments below!
