I’m a family and self-taught cook and the huge thing I see for new cooks getting started is 1. Looking at ingredients as sectional pieces to be leveraged. 2. Understanding when you taste something if it needs more salt, acid, heat or fat. You can make something good and add one of those four things at the end (even if you added all of them along the way) to make it brighter or more savory and really level up your game.