1. Start easy. I ate stew every night for three weeks in college, because stew is easy to make.

2. Use the internet. Dissatisfied with the toughness of your stew meat? Looking for new vegetables to put in the stew? Google is your best friend. Look up several different recipes before each attempt, and you'll get a better big picture.

3. Use your common sense. Potatoes are taking forever to cook in your stew, while the zucchini dissolves into a slimy mess? Chop your potatoes smaller and put in the zukes last.

4. Think about food. Play with tastes and textures in your head; mull over ideas for leftovers (stew! stew!); notice what things you like best in the foods you love. Good cooking begins with geekery-- can nobody make pho juuuust the way you like? Fine-tune it yourself!

5. Don't get over-ambitious. Feeling a bready dessert coming on? Monkey bread now, croquembouche later. Failed recipes can be a blow to the ego.

6. But don't be scared to experiment. Maybe your fudge doesn't, well, fudge-- oh well! Chocolate sauce!

7. Learn techniques. This seems totally fussy, but being able to reduce an onion to tiny chunks in an effortless hurry can make the difference between hours of hard work and fifteen minutes of easy prep, every time you make stew. If you can make a roux and a cream sauce, you can do dang near anything.

8. Use good ingredients. Less is more; let the quality of your components shine. Part of cooking is loving food, after all, and nobody who likes food would rather have a frozen bag of fifteen mixed stir-fry veggies than a simple stir-fry of thin-sliced carrots, shallots, broccoli and hot peppers.

9. Share your successes. Nothing will cement your cooking resolve like the ecstatic, wide-eyed bliss on your victi--er, friends' faces. Once you start to get a reputation as "that girl who brings biscuits to work," you will be surrounded by eager, encouraging friends who can't wait to see your next concoction.

10. Don't buy gadgets. Get good kitchen tools, but don't buy anything you haven't been hurting for for at least a month, and for more than one recipe. Save your salad-spinner & egg-poacher money for a KitchenAid.

good lord, that was long-winded

My husband and I (we got married in May) decided to start learning how to cook when we moved to New York. Our budget is tight, and eating out a lot isn't an option, so we decided that since we have to eat at home, we wanted to be able to make good food.

I own a copy of Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" and it has been a lifesaver. Not only is it full of great recipes, but it also has different variations on most of the recipes in the book, which is great if we don't have all of the items needed for the main recipe. His instructions are great and he has lots of "how to" information as well - how to slice different veggies, how to look for great produce or a great cut of meat, etc. We use this book probably 3 - 4 times a week because it's so helpful and comprehensive.

The best way for us to learn how to cook was to just get in and do it. We spend time every weekend preparing a menu for the week, which saves us a lot of time and frustration later. Plus, now that we can cook our own food it's so much fun to have friends over - we've had a pizza night where we made a couple of pizzas from scratch (including dough!), and a paella night, and once we just did pasta, but it was made with fresh tomatoes, not canned (or jarred) sauce.

Having a good, solid cookbook was how we started, and that's what we've recommended to everyone that has asked. We've even given copies of "the Bittman book" to a couple of people for Christmas. We've expanded our Bittman library as well, and bought the Vegetarian version of "How to Cook Everything", "Food Matters", and "The Best Recipes in the World." I also own a good set of other cookbooks, but the Bittman books are the ones we pull out consistently every week.

speaking from experience, i think the best way to learn how to cook is to get in the kitchen at a young age with a parent or other guardian and just do it. experiement, practice, make mistakes, etc.
i'm not really motivated enough to take classes or workshops on my own. if my mother hadn't taught me the basics early on, and had my siblings and i each making a meal a week by the time we were 15 or so... well, i'd probably be eating take-out every night.

Start simple, keep $20 for take-out in case you mess up.

It's like learning anything else.

Do it.

You will fail. You will learn from that failure.

Practice, practice, practice. Don't get discouraged when you fail. Ask a lot of questions.

I learned to cook by watching my mother-in-law and sister-in-laws cook breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for at least 10 people at a time! They know their stuff, and I was so scared to offer to jump in and help, they seemed so streamlined in the process! But after a while I started to pick up on their tricks, and I do think that watching other people is the absolute best way to learn!

Also, I really like Nigella Lawson's How To Eat for a discourse on food and getting a feel for how to put a meal together. I read other cookbooks voraciously, but I keep going back to How to Eat for the conversational quality of the prose that treats cooking as more of a spiritual adventure rather than a formula.

http://mccaffreysbaking.com

Watching and doing.
I learned by watching my parents and many cooking shows. I find PBS shows to be the best, while Food Network was great 10 years ago with Emeril, Bobby Flay and Sarah Moulton.
When you watch, you learn technique and ingredients.
When you cook, you learn how it should taste and smell.
The best way to start is with a basic cookbook and the one mentioned above by Mark Bittman is fantastic. I have seen people who cannot cook turn into good cooks using his book.

Like molly h said,

"i think the best way to learn how to cook is to get in the kitchen at a young age with a parent or other guardian and just do it."

If you're an adult, take some local classes.

I taught myself to use a knife at a young age. If you are comfortable using a knife you will be more comfortable to tackle a recipe, more confident.

Practice, practice, practice! Spend an entire Saturday or Sunday in your kitchen. Plan out a recipe the day before, get excited about it and spend all day in the kitchen with your partner and focus on preparing things in steps while keeping clean and organized. Act as if you have all the time in the world--don't think about Top Chef, there's no need to feel like you are under pressure when learning how to cook.

I started learning to cook before I had internet access at home, so the most valuable tool for me was reading. Everything. I checked out tons of cookbooks from the library, and read them cover to cover. I learned essential skills that way, such as not crowding the pan if you want to get a good sear on your meat, or keeping your fingers curled under when using a knife. Books with pictures of techniques were especially helpful--like Baking with Julia. My mother was never the best cook--she was too nervous, too afraid to veer from a recipe, too eager to use low-quality ingredients, so I pretty much had to teach myself everything. Reading (and experimenting in the kitchen) was the cheapest way I could do that.

Definitely practice! And experiment! Keep things simple but don't be afraid to take risks.

I remember my first meringue experience when I was 10. My dad woke up to me sobbing in the kitchen because I couldn't separate the eggs. So he helped and we had both cherry meringue pie and a bunch of scrambled eggs that day!

Know that you're never on your own. You can get tips and feedback from family, communities (like this one!), books, internet, and the list goes on and on...

I think one thing no one mentioned is "cook things you like." Do you have a craving for a specific dish? Go find a recipe, try to make it, make it again until you can make it just the way YOU like.

You aren't going to learn how to cook just by trying random recipes. You'll get bored and frustrated. Cook when the craving strikes. That'll get you hooked.

Do not be afraid to fail.

I have been teaching my husband how to cook and the biggest stumbling block is his constant worry that he will burn/ruin/set the kitchen on fire that it hinders his willingness to try new things and also makes cooking a chore instead of a joy. The best advise I ever read was from Julia Childs' "My Life in France," This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun.

Oh yes, just get in there and cook!

Pick one or two recipes you'd like to learn how to make. Find recipes from reputable sources (any major food magazine's website, for example). Try it until you've got something you're proud of. Repeat.

If you're a visual or audial learner, try keeping Food Network on in the background. You don't necessarily have to pay attention to the shows, but eventually you'll begin to recognize consistent bits of information: how to hold a knife, how to sauté, how to cut an onion, etc.

Want to learn a specific technique? Try searching on YouTube. There's thousands of cooking videos.

Just start cooking. Don't be scared. You'll have some flops (everyone does!), but you'll have lots of success, too.

Most importantly - this is the very first thing they taught us in culinary school - never try to catch a falling knife.

My love of (good) food, and cooking came from watching and helping my mom in the kitchen. I sort of lost interest in it when I went off to college- but in the past few years it has come back and hit me full force. I spend as much time as I can in the kitchen. I try to cook something new at least once a week. I read a LOT. I use the internet even more. I'm actually about start an "internship" helping prep and bake at a small restaurant that is just opening up. I have no professional kitchen experience- but I want it, so I'll get it. I think it helps to set actual cooking goals and then work your way through them. Write it down when you mess something up, so you remember what not to do. Write it down when you do something perfectly dead-on, as well!

The best thing I've ever learned about cooking is to TASTE! Learning to communicate with your sense of taste is key. They only way I've been able to get a novice interested in cooking is to point out that they might not be tasting the food they're consuming. It's not just enough to say "this is good" and "this is bad" but to understand what is bringing those feelings about. I think once you start to learn from your sense of taste, the desire is struck to start to make everything enjoyable.

Work as a prep cook in a restaurant.

experiment with small batches so you don't have to feel too bad about eating the results.

mind you it is important to at least try the failures, as being able to identify by taste and texture what went wrong is useful. also, use a failed experiment to practice recoveries. as a parallel, when I was working as a street performer, I spent an inordinate amount of time learning how to recover from mistakes. same applies to food.

this is going to sound a little fanboy-ish, but I learned how to cook from Alton Brown. his methods may be a little unorthodox and dorky, but he really explains the basics and, most importantly in my opinion, he explains why you are doing what you are doing.

once you know why you are doing something, you start to understand what is important about a specific technique, which ensures that you won't make a rookie mistake.

his first couple of seasons covers most basic cooking techniques, and would recommend them to anyone.

I was about to chime in with "cook what you like" but bklynchic beat me to it. With one caveat: something SIMPLE that you like. A lot of non-cooks don't know enough to know when they're about to embark on a complicated recipe. My husband, who can barely boil water, wants to learn to bake. He thought he'd start with croissants. Bad idea. How about blueberry muffins? He likes those, too, and they are WAY easier to make than croissants! To those who don't know different, it might not be obvious. Both recipes call for flour and butter, right? Ask your friends or family if they've ever made X: is it easy? good first-timer project? You'll get around to croissants if you still want to, once you've learned to turn on the oven before mixing the batter.

Gotta start with the basics: knife skills, how to boil water, how to fry an egg. Spend time being the prep chef for someone that already knows how to cook. It's good practice and you can ask questions and learn even more as you go. I think soups/stews and pastas are the easiest and most forgiving things when you first learn to cook yet they often require a lot of different ingredients so you get a lot of experience out of just one dish.

Practice also makes perfect. It took me a while to learn how not to overcook meat/seafood, but I never gave up. Sometimes it takes a while to get feel for things.

Don't cook for a high pressure situation like a dinner party when you're first learning to cook. It's hard to concentrate on what you're doing and if you make a mistake it can be really discouraging because you feel like a big failure when your guests can't eat.

I'm teaching my kids to cook because it's a basic life skill, IMHO, and one I'm grateful that my mom taught me when I was young. I already let my 7 year old daughter wield a knife because she's shown she's got the dexterity and attention to detail to do it and she can chop like nobody's business. My son doesn't like cooking like my daughter does, but I told him that he needs to a least learn the basics so he can feed himself some day.

Some of us didn't grow up in homes that involved cooking! I didn't even attempt to cook anything more complicated than ramen until I was married.

The three major things I learned were 1) Be fully prepared for a steep initial investment in spices. Your options are so limited if you're only willing to cook with the seasoning you have on hand, especially if it's just salt, pepper, and some garlic! 2) If you're unfamiliar in the kitchen, nobody is going to blame you for not experimenting with a recipe. If you find easy recipes that have just a few ingredients, you can familiarize yourself with it, then customize it the next time you make it. 3) Stove temperatures vary. I had no idea that a recipe that called for med-high heat needed to be medium for my stovetop, and it lead to a lot of "burnt offerings" my first year of marriage!

@cmcinnyc, I wouldn't necessarily say croissants were a non-starter. Biting off more than you can chew is a great way to learn and it's not like they're HARD, they just take a long time.

Learn to ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS read the recipe all the way through. It will save you much pain of going "Crap! What does that even MEAN!? dangit, now it's burnt," or my personal favorite "How can I possibly be out of [insert ingredient you always have here]?!" Check that you have things as you read it. Look up stuff you don't understand and make notes. Decide if you are willing (not ready; if you wait you might never be ready) to do this and then go for it.

Taste as you go. A quarter teaspoon of iodized salt is more sodium than a quarter teaspoon of kosher and the different textures of kosher vary widely, too. Maybe you just like less salt. Maybe you think it needs more thyme because yours is old (I do it all the time).

Give yourself plenty of time and do not be afraid to fail.

I also think it's important to make the same thing a few times over. I learn a lot about the dish, its techniques and ingredients, and my own tastes if I revisit a recipe several times over in a short period of time.

It makes me think about how to make a dish successful. I can correct mistakes (mine or in the recipe), upgrade ingredients/techniques that matter, downgrade those that don't merit the expense/trouble (brownies with expensive aged scotch!), and ultimately, really learn how to make a recipe my own.

It takes time to get the hang of and master certain things. Making something once and always moving on to the next exciting recipe never gives you the chance to make anything really amazing with depth of character...just the ability to whip up lots of mediocrity.

By learning from experienced cooks is the best method in my experience, as others have already posted.

Just trying a recipe until you get it right is another...

I am a big fan of Delia Smith's "How to Cook" series; the tv show was invaluable, but even in the books, she really teaches you basics, and builds upon them. I can't say enough great things about them! Even after making 6 lyaer French buttercream cakes with dacquoise, I wasn't able to make perfect poached, scrambled or soft-boiled eggs until I read her books. According to Delia ""If you want to learn how to cook, start with eggs."

She teaches good, solid technique that you need in order to be able to master more complex recipes. She taught me to make the best pork chops and roasts; bakes potatoes and macaroni cheese, and so much more.

Seriously, give them a try (they are now available in a single volume):

http://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Delia-Smith/dp/B00008MNWD/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267213728&sr=8-1

I think mastering a few simple dishes that are the basis for a grander cuisine is a great way to start - soup, stew, an omelette or souffle, biscuits, a simple bread recipe, roast meat, pudding from scratch. And keep making them - experimenting with the details and learning from your successes and failures. And I agree - always read through the recipe first.

Just get in there and do it. Expect mistakes-you learn the most from those. But I really think that the only way to learn how is if you want to learn. Some people have no desire to be in the kitchen-that's fine, we're all different. But if you want to learn, then you'll be successful, whichever method you use.

I learned how to cook by making a five-dish dinner once a week for the forty people living in my cooperative housing unit in college. Nothing like the sink-or-swim method.

cook with other people who are more experienced than you. i learned the best ways to chop and combine flavors from friends as we prepared meals.

Lots of calls to your mom and grandmother!

Also, eggs are a good place to start, good for any meal of the day. If you can fry them and scramble them, you are in good shape.

Cooking shows are a good way to get a feel for how a dish is going to turn out in a step by step way. It's a good way to learn basic techniques, not just a specific dish.

If you're just starting out buy a cookbook for kids that has everything broken down into simple steps.

My general rule when I was in college was that, once a week, I'd try and cook something I'd never made before, or that I didn't previously know how to cook. So, I still made the old standby's (eggs, pancakes, pasta, rice, the basics), but I added new stuff to my repetoire all the time.

I also have a best friend who attended the Culinary Institute of America. I got a little spoiled with professional advice ;)

as an aside to my earlier comment about starting at a young age - for those of you who are parents or will be parents in the future: trust your kids in the kitchen. teach them common sense essentials (stoves are hot, duh) and help them when they need it, but for the most part, just let them do what they want. if they want to experiment - do so in small batches so that food waste is minimized.

from your mom or grandma, or someone old and experienced that knows what they're doing. they'll also pass along trusted recipes.

you should not be afraid to mess up, and experiment with flavors and recipes you can already make well.

Tackle "cooking" first as it's easy to experiment w/ a pinch of this or a dash of that. Leave the "baking" for later, when you're ready to really pay attention to time, temperature and pesky measurement math.

And get a good, basic book that you use as a guide, not a bible. I started w/ Joy of Cooking and it's still my go-to pick - my jumping off point - for when I want to cook a beef roast or fry a potato. I might prefer a little more dry mustard in my rub than Ms. Rombauer might have suggested but that's the beauty of cooking: You season to taste as you go along.

Unless it's stuck to the bottom of the pan or burnt to a crisp, it's edible so consider yourself a success!

These are all great suggestions. I'm still learning, and I find it helpful to do research. I spend a lot of time reading about food, recipes, techniques, etc (the kitchn is great for that). Compare recipes to see what's different...you'll build up an instinct over time as to what might turn out well, and what an anatomy of a recipe feels like. This will make it easier to experiment later on.

It might also help to start by cooking comfort food from your childhood (or at least familiar food).

First, don't pick up recipes with 20 exotic and difficult to find ingredients and hope to learn from them. Go out and look for good fresh food, like at the farmer's market or at a roadside stand. Then find recipes for them. You'd be surprised at how simply good fresh food can help you be a better cook. Start with that.

Second, once you can cook a few things, invite some friends over to dinner. The challenge of getting a table ready, choosing music, laying out a menu, figuring out how to get the food on the table really hones the skills you have just learned.

Challenge yourself to shop fresh and cook often. Don't get caught up in too much fussy ingredient searching. Start with the fresh food available to you, then find recipes, then prepare it again for friends. Your pantry will round out and cooking will get easier. Get a notebook and write down everything that works. You'll treasure your notebook and keep adding to it over the years. That's the best way to learn to cook.

Reading these ideas makes me think I learned all the wrong way!
I started really cooking in college, when I had limited funds and relatively big ambitions (friday night dinner for picky eaters)
I simply learned by doing.
I sometimes used cookbooks that exposed me to funky ingredient lists and weird instructions, but you gotta roll with the punches! The exposure really got me ready for the knowledge I have now.

I also joined a couple of recipe sites (allrecipes.com when I got engaged- and is priceless since I've been married)

Food is an art, a craft, a hobby, profession complete with failures and epic successes.

one last thing- ehow.com, or googling- best things to hit the interwebs.

Everything people have stated here.

Start simple, but be ambitious.

Use all of your senses to guide you. Smell gets you further than you would think. Tasting is so important: it teaches you about seasoning, salting, and, I think, helps you to identify spices and their function within a recipe. Touch is crucial when it comes to meat. And listen -- are those onions sizzling in the pan?

Of course, I'm still such a beginner myself. The more you learn, the more you realize you know nothing.

I think a lot of people today rely on microwaves and take out. Going from that to cooking every night can seem overwhelming.

I'd never been allowed in the kitchen when my mum cooked. It's probably just as well. Cooking was just a chore for her, so I'm glad I didn't absorb her lack of creativity and sense of resentment.

Once I left home, I started with a recipe book and chose one recipe per week. I bought all the special ingredients and any equipment. It was a vegetarian cookbook with a lot of Indian recipes, so I gradually built up a cupboard of all the spices, staples, and equipment I'd need. I read the whole recipe first (great advice) and then did as much of the prep as possible before turning on the heat.

All of this was years before the internet. Today there is so much free help available, I'd probably suggest a beginning cook could start with two or three nights a week if he or she was ambitious.

People are all on the right track when they say to practice - it doesn't matter what recipes you use or what you cook, the more you do it, the better you will get.

1. try to cook a variety of things.
2. figure out what you like and don't like (I hate maple syrup and all things maple flavored).
3. have someone to cook for who will be honest about the results (my dad gives invarnished opinions).
4. find a cooking buddy/sous chef - a friend and I got together Saturday night, went through cookbooks and magazines, picked a couple of recipes, went shopping and split the grocery bill, then came back to my apartment and cooked up a storm).
5. get in the kitchen with people who know how to cook.

I just want to add that rouxbe.com has super high quality instructional videos. I find it an invaluable addition to my extensive library. For example, the video about pan frying has them throwing water drops into pans of different temperatures. You can hear the sizzle and see the different ways the water droplets break up. You come away knowing exactly what you are looking for. You just can't get that from a book.

The approach you take doesn't really matter. The main thing is to keep at it, and to have a few dishes that you do over and over - so that you get the hang of refiining dishes.

IMO you need to supplement the info on the net with good books. There's nothing like James Petersons 'Sauces' on the internet. Even rouxbe can't hold a stick to that. This is especially true if you're into the science of it all.