small tips to getting better at cooking if you’re a n00b: use reliable sources that actually test their recipes (NYT, Bon Appetit, established blogs). Avoid sites that are just unvetted user-submitted things or 5-star “reviews” that are actually “I wanna make this!” comments

Read the comments before you start cooking. If 40 people said “this was really good but only after I realized it had to go in the oven for ten more minutes” or “it needed soy sauce,” heed the collective wisdom!

Constantly taste and season as you go. If you don’t know how to use your seasonings, taste, then pick a seasoning, and smell it, and ask yourself, would this taste good with this? Know that foods can smell SUPER GOOD as they cook but actually be bland (looking at you, soup)

Try cooking something you love! A dish you had at a friend’s house, something from a fave restaurant. A human made that! There are definitely exceptions (hard technique, special equipment) but if you’ve eaten it, you can probably make it, with research, YouTube, and practice.

That last tweet dedicated to a friend who I won’t tag but whose mind was blown when they realized they could make a quesadilla at home.

Read the whole recipe before you start. If you don’t know what a technique means, google it or take a couple seconds to watch a video. That weird detail about folding or creaming or reducing or simmer vs. boil, it actually does matter, but most likely you can learn it quickly.

Lastly, reach out and ask a friend. It has brought me these last few weeks to talk about food from friends I might not normally hear from. I *love* talking about food. Call your grandma and ask her for that one recipe. She’ll be thrilled.

more good tips in the replies!

a couple more - your local library probably has some good cookbooks available as eBooks!

and if you don't have something on hand or can't find something, google is once again your friend. "___ substitute" will tell you what you need to know