In Which I Tell You About Cooking
That reminds me, let me show you the best cooking reference ever. It's pretty cheap and I sincerely recommend it as a semi-transformative cook-book. Since it basically just discusses what spices are and how to use them, it helps you learn to cook rather than follow a recipe. And I found it inspiring. It also has a ton of really good recipes and lists for international spice blends.

I also recently received a professional-level training manual for chefs that's pretty awesome and has illustrated demonstrations on how to handle the knife and explains things like why the French chef knife is the way it is (I still prefer the Japanese style for most of my kitchen needs). But that's like $80 and I wouldn't have ever gotten it if I wasn't able to do so for free. Still, pretty damn crazy-go-nuts awesome if you want to seriously learn about food. For example; every chapter starts with a discussion of why the food being discussed is usually cooked in a particular way, the difference between cooking with dry heat and wet heat, how to control texture and appearance, all that good stuff. Then the second half of the chapter is a bunch of recipes. And the book weighs like 20 pounds.

This was originally a comment in MrsMetallian's journal, but I feel like enough people are interested in cooking that it's worthwhile to post this for everyone.