My name is Jay Rayner and I’m a pest in the kitchen

I just can’t help meddling with other people’s cooking

There is a moment in the pitch perfect 1987 movie Broadcast News, about the television news industry, which has always spoken to me. Peter Hackes, playing the veteran news executive he once was, confronts the argumentative producer Jane Craig, played by Holly Hunter. “It must be nice to always believe you know better,” Hackes says. “To always think you’re the smartest person in the room.” Hunter blinks back the tears. “No,” she whispers, “it’s awful.”

Oh Holly, I know exactly what you mean. For here is the ugly confession: in the domestic kitchen, I am that person. I try not to be. I try not to interfere when other people are cooking. I want to be a relaxed, genial soul who knows that other people can cook and that I should just let them just get on with roasting the chicken or making the gravy and be thoroughly appreciative. But if I just happen to be walking through the kitchen and just happen to pass the stove and just happen to notice something isn’t quite as it should be – that, say, the gravy is a thin, translucent outrage – I can’t stop myself.

A friend was admonished for 'trying to edit' a colleague’s sandwich. My sympathies are entirely with the editor