Just wanted to point out: It's better to starve to death than to go out in the etherwind, IMO at least. And most certainly at lower levels, before the death penalty. That stuff be nasty.
Also, cooking only improves if you're at least a little successful at cooking. If you totally ruin a dish, you get nothing. Cook at a food processor or oven or SOMEthing not hand-held or a campfire or etc, it'll help push you over the threshold to actually learn from it.
True dat. I got seriously screwed up by the etherwind. Between it, dream mutations (before I got exorcist), a robber with a wand of change other, and an accidental potion quaffing, I'm surprised I can move at all with all the minuses I have to speed. I'm not a bad blackjack player and I still have a hard time reliably getting 5 wins in a row, much less casino chips (I harvest everything). And of course the cure mutation potions I rarely find always seem cure the good mutations, while leaving the horrible ones.
I think I may just take my piles of gold and just travel around hoping to find cure mutation and cure corruption potions in the shops. The museum can wait.
Oh yeah, is there any other way to cure the alien baby issue other than giving someone dye or poison? There is this one guard next to two other guards in Palmia that was impregnated, and he has too much stuff to carry the potion, so he won't take it! As a result, every time I come to town there is a blood bath, with many NPCs dieing. I mean, now I have two figures of <Mia> the cat freak, but come on. It gets annoying/dangerous, since aliens seem to be powerful relative to those they incubated in (I can kill my own babies, but the guards babies one shot me).