Reddit mentions of Mercer Culinary Mercer Rules Culinary Mini

I'm a very visual learner, so I got good by watching Julia Child. She regularly peppers her shows with advice about how to get good at something, and how to customise a recipe when things go wrong, or when you want to switch things up a bit. She's got a decidedly French leaning, but French food is a very good place to start anyway. The full set of DVDs of The French Chef can get had for about $50 from ebay.

There's an episode where she was featuring four recipes for potatoes. She was trying to make a potato cake type of thing. She'd added plenty of butter to the pan, and threw in the boiled lightly crushed potatoes. She didn't let it set for a very long time, but tried to flip the whole thing over in one piece. Half of it ended up on the stove. Without skipping a beat, she scooped it off the stove, threw it back in the pan, and said the iconic line "When you're alone in the kitchen, who's going to see?" She then proceeded to dump it into a dish, throw in a load of cream and a few cubes of cheese, and instructed you to let it hang out under the broiler so that it gets bubbly and crisped up. She mentioned that you shouldn't ever apologise for how something came out, and just carry on as if that new thing is what you'd intended all along.

Whenever she had the ability to do so, she'd show you how to do something from scratch, including how to filet a fish, how to separate out a whole chicken, and how to break down larger steaks into serving sized portions. And, because you're watching her do it all for you, you get an idea of what it is you're looking for, step by step.

Another great resource (although their recipes are white, and tend towards the bland) is America's Test Kitchen's TV Show cookbook. On the show itself, they don't go into technique very much, but they certainly do so in the book. There are large, colourful pictures about how each step of the cooking process should look, and hundreds of recipes to try out. They thoroughly test out each recipe repeatedly, using tools that the average home cook will have access to, and taste test the results. It's an excellent resource to have on hand. You can generally find it used for about $20.

If you're curious to try out baking your own bread, I cannot highly recommend enough Bread by Eric Treuille.

https://www.amazon.com/Bread-Eric-Treuille/dp/1409352722/

It has HUGE full colour photos of the final product, and lots of foundational advice about the art of baking bread. They discuss various flours, how to combine them into an existing recipe, and the effects they have on the final loaf. It's one that I turn to whenever I have a craving for home made bread, and it's never lead me wrong.

If you want SOLID advice about how to quickly build up your cooking repertoire, Mike Ruhlman's Ratio is your best bet.

https://www.amazon.com/Ratio-Simple-Behind-Everyday-Cooking/dp/1416571728/

He realised that most basic recipes can be broken down into ratios, so that if you need to scale up or scale down, you can do so very quickly. His technique to teach you how to get comfortable with ratios is very good.

Another EXCELLENT place to start learning to build your own recipes is Julia's Kitchen Wisdom.

https://www.amazon.com/Julias-Kitchen-Wisdom-Essential-Techniques/dp/0375711856/

She gives some basic techniques on foundational recipes, and then tells you how to tweak the recipes to work with whatever you've got on hand. It's less a by the books recipe compendium, and more of a philosophical understanding of how recipes work, and what flavours should go together.

Speaking of flavour. Get The Flavour Bible by Karen Page.

https://www.amazon.com/Flavor-Bible-Essential-Creativity-Imaginative/dp/0316118400/

There are hundreds of ingredients, and the things that go well with them. Instead of giving you a recipe, it gives you ideas of things to combine together, so that they go together in delicious ways.

If you are going to get a ruler, go ahead and get a kitchen ruler:

https://www.amazon.com/Mercer-Culinary-Rules-Mini/dp/B00DT1XYDM/

It's small, but it has a TON of great information on it. Very useful to gauge whether or not you're hitting your marks for whatever size you're aiming for.

You could buy a visual diagram if you are interested in knowing and/or practicing the proper cuts. Amazon has them:

http://www.amazon.com/Mercer-Cutlery-Rules-Mini/dp/B00DT1XYDM/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=07WKMNBSBGTD7S34WE6M