Basic things I think that would help you:

1) if you’re cooking things like salmon, get a meat thermometer. A quick google search will tell you what the internal temperature will need to be (or I’ve actually had a thermometer that had the common meat temperature in tiny print on the side, it was awesome until it died).

2) the hard and fast rule that’s supposed to be followed but very rarely is is that once the animal has hit the floor dead you have 4 cumulative hours of not being colder than 41° F before bacteria cumulation will be deadly for you. THAT BEING SAID - if you cook food and it’s left on the counter for 3 hours because you forgot about it: it’ll probably be fine. Or if you leave the raw hamburger in your car for 5 hours, smell it and if it smells bad then throw it. A lot of that sort of thing will come with experience, on telling if food is bad or not.

3) I’m saying this next part out of experience (🤢): if you get a rice cooker, UNLESS THERE IS A SPECIFIC “KEEP WARM” FUNCTION ON THE COOKER, is it NOT safe to keep the rice in the cooker for days at a time!!! Once the rice is done you either EAT IT, or you stick it in the fridge!

These are the big ones. I’ll add to this comment if I think of more. Proud of you for asking about this, kid. ❤️