The familiar is for refilling your inventory slot after you eat the stew and break the tab. You need all 28 slots. yep, you'll have to craft 28 p ess into 56 astrals simultaneously, that means a full p ess inv at 82 craft, but transcript80 gave me a brilliant idea, to get a familiar with ess, and a stew in inv, boost my level and then get the 1 p ess im missing from the familiar. I did it and it worked, so elite fremennik diary only required 80 rc for me.