How can you learn to become a good cook?

Practice first on easy recipes. Use spices, when they are called for, and cook a variety of things. Find a recipe you like from a magazine, or book, and try it.

There are actually two approaches to learning how to cook. The first, mentioned above, is the simplest: buy a couple of cookbooks that have initial chapters with discussions about ingredients and techniques (The New Basics is my favorite, though there are hundreds of these). Then, as you experiment with the recipes one by one, you'll learn the skill of following recipes an understanding how the elements all fit together.

For the more adventurous -- especially those who know how have really learned how food should taste because they eat out in nice restaurants or have relatives who cook well -- you can learn the "art" (as opposed to science) of cooking by yourself. You need time and a well-stocked kitchen, but if you have those, the best way to truly master cooking is to experiment, try variations, and be ready to get mediocre results some of the time. You actually need these failures in order to know what to improve. When you complete this training over the course of a few years, you come out way ahead -- following recipes is easy; now you can create and adapt on your own, which is a lot more rewarding.

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