Spoiling the Soup

I'm a self-conscious chef. I can't help it. It's not that I'm particularly bad at cooking, I might shy away from it and its demands on time, but when I do bother to cook it's usually alright. I can measure things, follow a recipe, turn on the stove, all of those things. But I hate having someone else there. I time my cooking in the flat for when none of my flatmates are home. And I'm not entirely sure why. I think I have a fear of people walking by and critiquing my inexperienced methods. 'Oh, you put the pasta in the water before boiling it? I see...' or 'the onion should be diced only after removing concentric rings at a 37 degree angle in a self-contained room heated to 3 degrees above room temperature, and then soaked in chilled water before dancing over it while waving a pogo stick...' or even 'You don't take the pizza out of the wrapper before baking it? How strange...' Only the first of these has ever happened, in case you wondered, but every moment spent in the kitchen is spent under the fear of such comments. Maybe I just feel inadequate. My years of study have not left me properly equipped for such domestic matters.

Or maybe I just need a bigger chef's hat.