Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook, by Sohla El-Waylly

Whoops I wrote this review ages ago and forgot to post it! Here you go.

Sohla is a chef and I've loved following her youtube career on various channels for the last few years -- she has such presence, vibrancy, obvious skill and passion. She seems to enjoy deliberately giving herself higher bars to reach, greater challenges to figure out how to work through, and it's such fun to watch.

And this recipe book has a neat premise -- it's not just a collection of recipes, but is designed to lead you through developing various skills in the kitchen as you work your way through the book. I enjoy that this means the recipes are organised by technique instead of by what stage of the meal it's to be eaten at; a different way of organizing a cookbook than the standard, but I think it makes just as much sense this way!

Unfortunately a lot of the recipes turned out to be ones I have no interest in, whether featuring ingredients I don't enjoy eating, or ingredients I'm not willing to pay for, or having processes that require owning a stand mixer. As a result I can't go through the book as she intended. So I ended up just skimming through it and then putting it aside, though I did save a few recipes to try later.

I think that if you're a person with more interest than me in seafood and/or dairy, this could be a really good book for you! And from what I see I think it does a very good job of teaching various skills. But as it is, for me, I'll go back to just watching Sohla on youtube.

The Other World’s Books Depend on the Bean Counter, vol 1-3, by Kazuki Irodori & Yatsuki Wakatsu

I thought I had taken more detailed notes on these books to be able to write up a proper book review! These are three volumes in an ongoing manga series which I think is based on a webnovel? but I might be wrong about that. Many things are confusing to me.

Anyway! I saw this recced as a fun transmigration story that had similar vibes to moshang from svsss, and I was like, sold.

The premise:

Our main character, Kondou, gets accidentally sucked from our world into another realm along with a teen girl who is the special chosen one with amazing powers who's the only one who can save the world. Kondou, who isn't supposed to be there, is meanwhile like: "Welp. Better find some way to keep myself busy if I'm here." And volunteers to join the palace accountancy department.

The love interest, Aresh, is a handsome but taciturn captain who takes it on himself to save Kondou from his own self-destructive tendencies.

The first volume felt to me like it was mostly set-up, and it had promise but I didn't really feel like I had a good handle on the characters or their relationships.

The second volume started getting into the good stuff! However this is where my notes oh so helpfully stop, and I read the these multiple months ago so I remember approximately nothing of substance, lol. The relationship vibes are cute, I enjoy that Kondou and the chosen one do still feel a sort of friendship connection with each other since they transmigrated together even though they're very different and end up in very different spheres in this world, iirc the plot/worldbuilding development started to go somewhere in book 3, etc.

I like it and I'll be interested to keep reading! assuming I remember to keep on top of it as it comes out, lol. Which like. it's me. no guarantees.

The Demon Venerable's Wistful Desire, by Mo Xi Ke, translated by SilverRain

Yes a third book review in one day, all of books I read ages ago. Can't believe I didn't post about any of them when I read them! In fact I'd actually managed to forget about this one entirely in the interim. Good thing I wrote this up back then.

This is a fun, silly danmei webnovel with a translation that seems stalled out at chapter 79 of 112.

The main character Chi Muyao is a transmigrator but honestly it never really feels like he is one, it's just like for plot reasons or whatever. A bit of a baffling choice to me, since it never seems to actually make much difference! But oh well.

I like Chi Muyao's friendship with his shijie and with the second male lead, and I really enjoy how much his poorly-regarded sect just genuinely loves spirit animals and doesn't care about anything else. He's not as interested in spirit animals as them but he dedicates himself to what his sect needs nonetheless, and they appreciate what he does. it's all very wholesome.

And I do genuinely enjoy the romance arc as well, as silly as it is.

The book is overall very full of details about spiritual roots, and the stages of cultivation, and the various pills and objects and techniques and places that can bolster or hinder one's growth. Feels a bit silly to me also tbh but not a big deal to read past it!

At the point the extant English translation ends, we're in a plot arc about getting backstory on the main villain. Prior to this I was like, why does this story even need a villain, Chi Muyao and Xi Huai are doing great at thwarting their happy ending on their own. But I found myself enjoying this backstory too!

It would be nice to get the end of this story sometime, but I think I started reading this one because it felt low pressure for me to have opinions on it, because it's not done yet. So like. I enjoyed myself in the reading of it, but I'm also not feeling heartbroken about being denied the ending tbh!

If you're interested you can read it yourself here: https://peachblossomcodex.com/novel/tdvswd/