Jacques Pepin has a video demonstrating how to do a galantine. That was pretty much the first thing I ever tried cooking beyond pasta. I figured if I could do that, I could probably handle most other things. Came out pretty well.
I'd have to think the logical progression would be something more along the lines of pasta ->mac n cheese ->burger ->roast chicken and so on and so forth. Not, pasta ->deboning a chicken while keeping it whole.