I eat in bed – and don’t care what you think

Like Nigella Lawson, I eat in bed. No doubt the similarities between me and the high priestess of cooking and eating for pleasure end there, but I’m proud to share this tiny, possibly crumb-flecked, space with a cook and writer I revere, and plan to use it as a defence next time my husband catches me with biscuits under the duvet.

I’ll eat anything between the sheets, really, at any time; I’ll do it whether I’m getting up, settling down or just a bit cold during the day. Toast, croissants; the crispier, crunchier and flakier the better.

But my bed isn’t a dustbin. Far from it. You’ll find no smears of jam within it, nor mouldering pizza boxes beneath it. I treat my (king-size) mattress, linen sheets and memory foam pillows especially well, letting neither the dog nor any jeans that have travelled on public transport on or into them.

Even though I’m cavalier enough to run the risk of dropping crumbs, I rarely do so; I pay attention when I’m eating something delicious, not wanting to waste the moment.

Of course, some meals are more practical to eat in bed than others. Eggs work, as long as they’re spoonable or forkable, as do noodles or pasta. Bedroom snacking doesn’t deliver if it requires more than one item of cutlery – another tip Nigella shared this week while launching her gochujang orzo recipe for online supermarket Ocado.

If your soup, say, is at the right temperature and you can clutch the bowl with one hand and a spoon with the other, you’ll manage. But needing to balance a plate to free up hands for cutlery takes us into sickbed tray territory, which is the opposite ambience I’m going for when I indulge in bed-based meals or snacks.

Eating in bed is overdue this Nigella rebrand, as it’s far from slovenly behaviour. There’s no whiff of giving up or making do about my bedroom feasts. Instead, there’s something deliciously decadent about getting back into a well-made bed, at any time of day, and enjoying something to eat within the generous hug of warm bedding. It’s also about as illicit as I can get, seeing as my husband is strongly against this behaviour. You take your thrills where you can.

Nigella’s intervention isn’t the only sign we might be moving on from eating dinner à table either. This week, Waitrose joined the conversation on leaving formal meals behind, announcing a trend for what it’s calling a “carpet picnic” – which surely translates as “eating on the floor” for anyone apart from the TikTokkers who are chatting about it.

This feels somewhat far-fetched to me, as if the supermarket had just put in a mega-order for summery snacky picnicky bits before the weather changed, and needed to give us permission to eat sausage rolls and Scotch eggs at home as well as in parks with unbearable wind chill factors.

Nigella also admits to occasional sofa teas too, and leaning against the kitchen worktop and starting her meal with the intention of moving but getting sidetracked.

But I’m not sounding the death knell for eating dinner round a table. We eat it there most nights, even though guiding a young child through tiresome table manners is no fun. Sometimes, if I’m eating alone and my mood and the food call for a little ceremony, I might light a candle and pour a glass of wine and sit at the table. I eat at a lot of restaurants for work, and will never tire of friendly faces gathering around steaming dishes, and the sparkle of glassware and cutlery someone else will wash up.

More often, though, I take advantage of the freedom of a solo supper, and eat it on the sofa with a magazine, or in bed with my laptop. If you number more than two, I think tables win out; for eating alone, the duvet’s the way forward.