Very important, is to go into this with the understanding that recipes are guidelines . The more experience you have behind you, the easier it will be to adjust those guidelines to suit your own tastes. And, about cookbooks, when you get a new one, sit down and go through it to find how to locate things, including information about food, tips, technique, the actual recipe, substitutes, nutritional information and technical information about complex operations. Understand, up front, just what you will need in the way of ingredients, what labor and time is involved and how you will be cooking the dish. Typically, a recipe will start with the name of the dish.
Many recipes relate a little story of the dish.
Sometimes special equipment is listed, leaving out the standard things like spoons and knives. Next will come the ingredients in the order in which they are used. In either case, you will use the same ingredient more than once during the procedure. Next, note the little words in the ingredient description. Seeded, chopped, sliced, drained, cut in half, large, small, medium are such words.