Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill Season 2

Episode 9

When I reviewed Campfire Cooking's fifth episode, I might have implied that this show is repetitive only to a certain extent. I might have been understating things—watching this anime's second season weekly, as opposed to binging it like I did the first season, has made me more aware of how repetitive this series really is. At this point, I'm always expecting an episode to have the same beats: two cooking bits, moments where Sui is an adorable helper, Fel being the first to proclaim how good the food is, and the gods intervening at the end. Such sweet redundancy helps make the series go down like candy, although we still have to consider what happens between these repeated beats. They've worked for the most part, but admittedly, there have been quite a few instances where the plot is treated as filler-y means to an end in between Muhkoda's cooking and Sui's display of moe. This ninth episode of Campfire Cooking still suffers from a little bit of that; it's delightful while still feeling a bit aimless.

After questing and cooking there for the past few episodes, Muhkoda, Fel, Dora-chan, and Sui finally head out of the town of Dolan to make the best out of Muhkoda's new A-rank. Instead of going dungeon crawling again, Fel suggests that the gang go hunting. Great! Too bad we don't get to see it until towards the end of the episode. What the rest of the episode offers instead is seeing the gang drift from one town to another—they even bump into the same type of puzzled guards outside of the new town's walls that they've bumped into too many times over by now. These events aren't exactly boring to watch since the tone and environment are so wonderfully tranquil, but they aren't exactly cozy fun either. The gang doesn't even get serious about questing until about halfway through the episode, and by that point, even I forgot that they were intending to do such a thing in the first place. Muhkoda later rents out a house to stay in as he prepares for the hunting expedition, as well as to cook yet another meal for himself and the gang. Seeing Muhkoda rent out what is essentially an Airbnb of this isekai world is interesting to see, although I would have preferred it if this scene and the events leading up to it had some of the fat trimmed off.

I did like the hunting expedition when it finally happened. As is typical for Campfire Cooking, the gang breezes through monsters like they were nothing, and the battles have a very lax, non-threatening nature to them. Muhkoda and Sui team up to fight some flower monsters, and instead of having Muhkoda duck out of the fight and let his slimy familiar do the work for him, he actually fights back with some weed killer. Finally, after seeing Muhkoda flee from so many fights, he's put to good fighting use, which is something I didn't quite expect here, even with his newly acquired A-rank. I guess the promotion really made the difference. That being said, I wish we got more action coming out of Dora-chan. This episode starts with the promise of Dora-chan doing something, only to have him hunt some monsters off-screen. It's a shame we can't actually see him fight some more beasts; it seems that after fighting the behemoth in the dungeon a few episodes ago, Dora-chan's character is reduced to being the wisecracking sidekick character.

As for the episode's food itself. The second cooking segment features curry, and as someone who likes Asian food, I'm surprisingly not the biggest fan of curry, so I don't have much to say about the curry Muhkoda makes in the episode's latter half. I do have plenty to say about the orc sausages he grills at the beginning of the episode. They not only look good, but they also bring to mind my own personal favorite thing to make on a Friday night: homemade sausage, green pepper, and pepperoni pizza. If you'll allow me to indulge, I love making it because it's incredibly simple and easy to make, as well as the perfect budget meal. My crust and sauce are made from scratch, you don't have to fold the slice, and it always tastes so fresh. It's certainly not the best slice of 'zza in town, but it's damn good bang for your buck. Imagine if frozen pizza wasn't actually frozen and tasted better, and that's what you get.

For those curious, here is the recipe I use for my pizza sauce, as well as the one I use for my dough. A few things, though:

- I actually let the dough rise for about an hour or two, kneading, deflating, and balling it once or twice so it can expand properly.

- I do not have a pizza stone I can heat up in advance, so I normally pre-bake my dough on a tray for about 7-8 minutes at 475 degrees, before finally baking it with all of the sauce and toppings for about 15-20 minutes. I also like to load my pizza with as much sauce and toppings as possible, and if you do this without prebaking the pizza, the crust will get incredibly soggy after you take it out of the oven.

I like to add a pinch of sugar and, if possible, some fennel seeds to my sauce.

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Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.