I just want to second your cookbook recommendations--Cook's Illustrated especially. Almost all their products are extremely high-quality, and they have a very Less Wrong-friendly stance on cooking, which is to test everything. Before they publish a cookie recipe they'll make like twenty different versions, and have their taste-testers do blind tastings, and they'll publish the one that tastes best.

Alton Brown's "Good Eats" TV show is also probably Less Wrong-friendly because it puts a heavy emphasis on the chemistry and science of cooking.

Alice Waters' "The Art of Simple Food" is another good cookbook for beginners, because it walks you through everything: shopping for ingredients, choosing your pots and pans, the different techniques (i.e. what it means to "mince" an onion versus "dicing" it), prepping for cooking, etc.