Depending on how long you've been collecting BODs, you have to be careful with some of them if they are older ones.
In the first few months after the BODs for the 6 other skills (besides Tailor and Smith) were added, a number of BODs (especially cooking and Carpentry LBODs) wouldn't upgrade to exceptional. This was fixed, but some of the pre-fix BODs weren't retroactively corrected.
On the other hand, there's some BODs that are just a pain in the tuchus to fill if exceptional. The Miso and Sushi Cooking BODs, for example, even with a maxed out Ex talisman and a max apron, have items that have an exceptional chance around 60%-70% (and if both are less than 30%, woe be unto you, as the items are about 10% Ex without tali or apron).
The same can happen for a number of Carpentry items (had to fill an Ex Carpentry LBOD that required 5 items that were 81% craft/53% ex with my talisman, and you could only make 10-13 at a time in a bag, then have to toss the normals, as they took 30 or 35 wood EACH to make).
Lastly, for cooking, beware the lowly Dough LBOD. There's a nasty trick to getting Exceptional Flour if you have to have it
- You have to gather the wheat in the farm fields (and if you find 5-6 per field, you are lucky).
- You have to be standing AT a mill, but USING A COOKING TOOL'S MENU choice for flour
- Simply putting the wheat through the mill always results in normal flour. You have to use the cooking tool in your pack.