Jason Kottke is learning to cook.  I have three recommendations:

1. Buy The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey.  When I was learning to cook I remember sauteeing a lot of chicken, but I'm sure there's more in it than that.
2. Learn how to cook a roux. It's a useful base for cream soups as well as homemade macaroni and cheese or tuna casserole.
3. The Canadian rule for cooking fish: 10 minutes per inch.  It's described in many places, including here.

Aha! Answers.com reminds me that you can make a sauce for fish by mixing a roux and whatever liquid you get from cooking the fish (add the liquid slowly while stirring and heating!).

If you want to make richer, more complex flavors, you might look at The New York Times Cookbook. For example, I remember looking at the recipes for curry or chili and using one or two (but not all!) of the dozen or more spices they mentioned.

Neither of these books is necessarily the best once you get some momentum. When it comes to cookbooks, one person's mead is definitely another's poisson.