Lots of folks can perform recipes, but to really learn how to cook, you need to learn the why’s and how’s of cooking. The best books I’ve found for doing this are by Alton Brown; “I’m Just Here for the Food” and “I’m Just Here for More Food.” You don’t look up recipes like conventional cookbooks. Instead, you read them like novels. They’re very entertaining. You could also take each chapter as a lesson and really get inside how the heat/mixing makes a cake a cake and a steak a steak. Also, learn why a pot roast isn’t a roast at all, and what most muffin vendors are really selling you.