I've seen this pop up in the listing when sims reach level 2 cooking, but have yet to see it available in game. What is the combo add trick? I assume its adding additional ingredients like the herbs you can harvest and plant. Which brings up question #2, do you leave herbs and spices in the sims inventory or place them in the refrigerator?

According to the quality of the herbs and spices grown, I will put them in the refrigerator. If the quality is low or lower than most, I use that for fishing bait. Yep, flowers and herbs can be fishing bait.

The other thing about the pop up, I don't know anything about that.

Thanks @lewisb. One of my sims is good at gardening so he tends to have all the herbs in his inventory and I spend all this time transferring them out of his inventory to other sims' inventory for cooking. I didn't know they could go in the refrigerator.

I tried putting prodice in the refrigerator, but I couldn't see a way to use them as ingredients. How does it work, exactly? Is it only the herbs or can you do something with the strawberries and other things?

All edible, organic harvestables can be added to the fridge. Not the flowers, which I am still trying to see what to do with those harvestables at the moment, other than replanting or using for fish bait. I found the roses and having them in the yard will make sims flirty, but I wish they could be picked and arranged in a pot. Right now I just sell them for profit.

I did put the produce in the refrigerator, but it just stayed there because I couldn't figure out how to get it into the food. What do you do?

The cooking Sim will use it. You can see when opting what to cook the products used and the reduced cost of cooking it.

I haven't seen it yet. I must be missing something. I'll keep trying.

Do you click Cook... Then let the list come up of available recipes so you will see the cost for the servings? Or do you click serve dinner and just get the list without cost and produce used? I use the Cook/List one so I can see what is used and the cost.

Yes, but I never saw an option. I'll try again.

There is no option. If the chef has the ingredient in their inventory, or it is in the fridge, the recipe will automatically use the ingredient and lower the cost (and affect quality of food, so watch out for those foul fish). You can see if you have the right ingredient for the recipe on the right, as it will list the ingredient in green if you have i or grey if you don't. Maybe you can click on the green name to tell the recipe not to use the ingredient? I actually haven't tried that yet.

BTW when you do group meals with your own ingredients, the cost is cheaper than the listed cost. I think it is a bug or something that it doesn't list the price with the ingredient discount.

Thanks for that information! I missed the whole part about seeing the ingredients in the menu of things Sims could cook. Can't wait to check that out!

Right. There is no option to use the produce but it will help you see what is used when cooking if you do the list with the cost for the servings other than just clicking to serve a family size dinner of whatever recipe. The produce is used either way, just the listing helps you see it.

Ok, so can toss them in the fridge for them to use, odd that they have this ability called Combo add trick, yet no one I've spoken to knows anything about it. I do like how growing your own produce makes meals cheaper, and better. I haven't seen any change with herbs or spices yet tho.

I don't know what the combo add trick is, Maybe because I didn't pay attention when my cook reached level 2. Maybe I'll get another sim to that level and see. As for food quality. As for food quality, it actually depends on the quality of your ingredients. My chef sim is also a gardener and she has some "Perfect" quality plants. If you don't have an ingredient with a specific quality to use, the ones that are "store bought" are ok quality. Which is the same quality of plants when you go harvesting around the neighborhood. And sometimes your own ingredients doesn't make the meal better. Remember the foul quality fish I mentioned before? Yeah, even at level 10 cooking I make an OK fish and chips.

Is your game in English? O_O
I think you should give us screenshot of the whole quote to be able to understand it (If you have an earlier save that you can go back to and reach level 2 again).
My sim is a chef too, as I understand sim can perform more combos of tricks with more complicated dishes as they level up, they perform these tricks while they are cooking, like the bowl rolling, the knife balancing, the tomato juggling...

My sims are not chefs but can do the cooking tricks at level 6, sometimes fail at and it's entertaining. I haven't played a chef yet, but I am enjoying the cooking animations.

Add combo trick I think is just a catch all for all the fancy manoeuvres your Sim can attempt while cooking. I'm think that when your Sim starts twirling the mixing bowl and throwing knives in the air or doing a two-handed salt and pepper seasoning trick, that they are the combo tricks, the first of them being added at level 2.

They simply start at level 2 and are not particularly successful all the time, but as they advance or are more confident, they get better at it.

OOOOH that makes so much sense. I thought the "Add Combo trick" would be like how the mixologist has a practice bar tricks option when you get to a high enough level.. It was something that you can select to train them to get better at the tricks. Haha, I didn't view those combos my sim did as anything special that gets unlocked, just something as a consequence of getting better at cooking and getting better recipes. Even at level 10 they sometimes still do the level 1 thing where they try to murder the grilled cheese sandwich in the pan or dropping food on the floor and sticking it back in the pan.

Every cooking guide I found lists it under cooking level 2, like this one here. Scroll down and it lists everything you get per level you achieve.

http://simsvip.com/2014/09/14/guide...ll-recipe-list/

Yeah that does make more sense, to me combo add sounds like when they are making something, you can choose say, parsley or any of the other herbs in your inventory to try and "spice" it up a bit, yes pun was intended :P