When I learned to cook on the line, the grads from culinary school had me read "On Cooking", the textbooks they learned from in school. Teaches fundamentals and basic skills.

Working with professional chefs in a higher end restaurant is by far the best way to learn. One unique, homely skill that I picked up from Sun-Tues experience, is how to craft tasty recipes from the ingredients and leftovers at hand, which is more about having a recipe repertoire. A good cooking game is to take one main, and one flavoror, ingredient and craft a recipe from those.