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Cookbooks Make the Best Bedtime Reading Right Now
The joy of returning to an old practice
I’d fallen into the habit of checking my phone before bed. I did my usual lap through email, my favorite news sites, social media apps, and then a visit to make sure I was up to date on the latest Covid-19 stats on a global, national, state, and county level. Once I was sufficiently anxious, angry, overwhelmed, and sad, I’d turn out the light and close my eyes.
Not surprisingly, I had trouble falling asleep.
After my behavior followed this pattern one too many times, I finally had to acknowledge it was an unhealthy agenda for the last hour of my day. So, I decided to return to an old habit: reading cookbooks in bed.
The practice first alerted me and my now-husband that I was developing a genuine interest in cooking. I kept a stack on my nightstand and gradually began to mark up the books, flagging recipes I wanted to try with little Post-its of various colors. He found it strange. I found it thrilling.
In nearly all of them, at the top of certain pages, I’ve marked the date I first prepared a recipe, along with notes and the number of stars that our family awarded it, on a scale of 1 to 5. It’s a practice I learned from my mother.
