What basic cooking skill/tip did you not know growing up that is now essential?

[Balls123.com]

Kinda like the post last week about basic kitchen tools, what is something you do in the kitchen as an adult that your family never did growing up? Or alternatively something you don’t do now, that your parent(s) did growing up. For me, it is not rinsing the pasta after straining it. My family insisted on rinsing all angel hair spaghetti and lasagna noodles with cold water to “prevent sticking”.
If you can imagine, our pasta never tasted very good.
Now I just mix them with sauce right away and if that’s not possible, I’ll toss them in oil.