Dear Diary,

Huh, when I started out I put a : after diary, not a comma. I wonder why I changed. Weird. 

Oh well. 

We’re back with the kobolds! That means more fun cooking! And the cooking competition is tomorrow! We decided Lewis should be one of the judges, and the ants will be another, and a kobold named Mar will be the third. Mar didn’t want to be a contestant, since contests stress her out, but judging is ok because she’ll be giving all the dishes individual scores. Instead of just comparing them to each other. Mar proved she could judge by smelling a bunch of different herbs and naming them. It’s not a perfect way to find a judge, but it proved she knows what she’s doing. And it’s better than just letting someone judge because they like food. I mean, doesn’t everyone like food? Food is necessary for life. You kind of have to like it. 

We have twelve contestants, so it’ll be tough. But I’m pretty confident I’ll make it into the top three. We have to make a pasta dish, and make the pasta too, which might mess some people up. I mean, making sauce is one thing, and cooking meat is another, but making pasta from scratch is a completely different set of skills. There’s a whole bunch of extra stuff you have to know. And not only that, but since it’s a competition you have to decide if you want to add herbs or something to it to make it stand out, or just play it safe and make it plain. I know Nat is going to put basil in hers. Well, if it were a straight pasta-making competition she’d win, no doubt. I think I’m going to add basil and oregano to the water I boil the pasta in, but to the pasta itself only add a tiny bit of garlic water. Just enough to add flavor to the pasta without taking away any attention from the sauce. 

I can’t decide which sauce to make. I kinda want to go with meatballs in tomato sauce, since I’m kinda a super expert on meatballs now. But that feels like cheating somehow. So I might make a type of cordon bleu? In some sort of white sauce. Which would be good, but it might be too heavy. But I know most of the contestants will be making tomato-based sauces, so maybe it’ll stand out more? I might have to flip a coin on this one. 

Anyways, the wolves were happy to see us. Siri is still Best Girl. The kobolds added a slide to the inside of the wolves’ mansion, and they had so much fun that they added a water slide to the outside. Turns out, that was so much fun that the kobolds turned the outside of the  wolves’ house into a mini water park. We missed the water park inauguration party, but that’s ok. That just meant we had the water park mostly to ourselves this evening. 

And it was super fun. But it did make me super tired. And I’m still worried about what to make tomorrow. 

I just need sleep. 

Goodnight, Dungeon!