Oh God no. There's usually enough time between dinner and bed for me to get a slightly hungry again. I'd be up for snacks for sure!

I don't think I could do that - it would make me feel too hungry just as I'm shutting down for the night.

I definitely do that. As I'm about to graduate from college next week, I haven't had much time lately. But in a week, I will be reading the stack of cookbooks I've collected over the last semester. And dreaming of recipes and cooking techniques, of course.

Cookbooks account for 98% of what I read in bed.

Yes, although I tend to get hungry. Cookbooks account for a majority of my reading material at any given time during a day. :)

Yupper. There is a stack of six books on the bed side table at the moment, along with a half dozen history books.

Yes, of course. Never thought about it before now. It's a strange kind of study and brain organization thing. Current new reads and re-reads: Supernatural Everyday, Pleasures of Cooking for One, Good to the Grain, and Vegetarian Suppers.

Haha. I love reading cookbooks in bed. I take pleasure out of reading cookbooks multiple times, because before you know it, you're able to pull cooking techniques and flavor combos out of your head from all of your reading....

Hilarious! I thought I was the only one! :)

I always have some cookbooks by my bed. I am the proud owner of two copies of Bittman's How To Cook Everything Vegetarian and one has a permanent place by my bed.

Yes yes yes yes yes. Currently reading Heidi Swanson's new one -- Super Natural Cooking Every day.

All the time! Right now it's the first Moosewood and a vegetarian slow cooker cookbook. Cookbooks are the perfect little bit of reading for right before going to sleep. If I read novels before bed I end up rereading the same page over and over.

The downside is that many cookbooks are HEAVY and I bonk myself on the nose with them as I drift off. Or I'll wake to find one on my face and the cat on top of that. Ugh.

Guilty. I read cook books in bed AND read cooking magazines while in the bathtub.

There just aren't enough hours in the day and at bedtime I long for just a little more time for my favorite activity: reading cookbooks. On my bedside table right now: How to Roast a Lamb by Michael Psilakis. Loving this book!

I have In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite by Melissa Clark on my bedside table right now. Her stories interjected between the great recipes make it a great bedtime read!

Yes, love to flip through cookbooks before bed. Right now on my nightstand: Baked, Southern Biscuits (Nathalie Dupree), Appetite for Reduction, and Not Your Mother's Casseroles...

Not that often, but the New Concise Larousse Gastronomique is waiting to be read and re-read many times. In bed.

Absolutely! I do most of my cookbook reading lounging on the sofa or lying in bed. I read cookbooks for ideas, for inspiration, and for fun.

In the kitchen, I tend to cook improvisationally, except for baking --- and then I'm usually using a recipe from my notebook or from memory, not balancing a cookbook among the cutting board and dishes on my tiny counter space.

Oh, current bedside books: Julia Child's French Chef, Laurie Colwin's More Home Cooking, Didi Emmons' Entertaining for a Veggie Planet, and Jack Bishop's Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook, along with a China Mieville novel and a book of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Ha, I was reading veganomicon in bed last night!

I definitely do that too. I alternate between cookbooks and history books. Currently reading through Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here for the Food" and a History of Texas.

Always! I've been reading The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook. I find it just as exciting as any novel.

Nope.

For me, part of the calming nature of bed-time reading is being an observer -- you stop thinking about your life as you concentrate on someone else's story.

While there's an aspect of that in many cookbooks, the books are also practical tools, items that help us plan our lives. To me, that means I'm no longer just along for the ride; I'm actively thinking about the recipes, how I'd make them, where I should buy the groceries, etc. It's enjoyable, but it's stimulating, which I don't need around midnight.

I guess I'd compare it to reading books about painting technique, gardening, or refinishing furniture before bed. I'm sure many people read those happily, but they'd kick start the wheels in my brain, and I'd be up for hours thinking about painting flowers in my garden on a chair I had refinished...

Frequently. I totally read the new NYT cookbook cover to cover over the course of a week or so... all in bed.

I do. I have a stack of them by my bed. Makes for appetizing dreams.

Most certainly! Blue Chair and Tartine on the nightstand at the moment.

OMG - I'm not the only person who does this! Cookbooks are the perfect non-committal read before sleep. No annoying characters or plots to remember, just pleasant food thoughts to dream of....

Yes, I read cookbooks all the time! I feel like I don't have enough time to read "real" books, and love reading through recipes. Never makes me hungry, just gives me plenty to think about. My favorites are Super Natural Cooking, The Best Recipe and Veganomicon. I try to limit the cookbooks I buy, so I haven't read too many lately.

Yes, that is usually all I read in bed... cookbooks. Which is not the greatest idea since it makes me hungry!

Currently, I'm reading Super Natural Cooking and Super Natural Everyday by Heidi Swanson. Also, A Homemade Life.

Oh. Also, If It Makes You Healthy by Sheryl Crow.

Yes I have two piles...

Lately I have In The Kitchen With a Good Appetite by NYT Food Writer Melissa Clarke. Each recipe starts with a story about how it was created, the tweaks she's made and people who have enjoyed it with her. Besides being a wonderful recipe creator she's an all around wonderful writer. (I have made at least a dozen recipes from her book--all winners!)

I'm in Home Cheese Making right now, but I'll admit, it's a bit... well, let's say I have no trouble falling asleep now that it is on my nightstand.

Can't wait to try the mozzarella recipe though.

Perhaps it's because I've had roommates with eating disorders, but reading about food before bed strikes me as unhealthy behavior. They would do things like eat cold, canned spaghetti-o's straight out of the can in their room because they didn't want the other roommates to catch them preparing it or eating it when the were supposedly going to bed.

It's like when the rest of our brains were winding down about food, theirs were gearing up and fueling their problem.

Now I know there's a world of difference between that and what most people posting here are talking about, but I think it's still a good for us to turn off the food-thoughts for a certain amount of time every day. Before you go to sleep -- when you'll naturally be fasting anyway -- seems like an opportune time to think about other things to me.

Yes indeed. This is a great post! No one chimed in to say ewww.

There are so many modern books that have so much allure - would be great to stare a topic about some 'classics' that are worth re-reading.

Oops, FlowerPower. I spoke too soon. Sorry about unhealthy behavior and spaggieo-os... Perhaps this is the place/blog/forum to ewwww...

They're not the only thing I read in bed, but here and there I definitely bring a cookbook to bed!

um, well, Super Natural Every Day and Flatbreads and Flavors are among the current contenders, along with a new Edna Lewis paperback, and that's my duvet cover too. Strange.

John Thorne is my constant bedtime comfort reading. There is nothing like his various essays on breakfast and the pain of a workday morning--"pierogi or tamale-shaped life preserver' comes to mind.

I was just thinking the other day, "Am I weird that my pre-bed fiction reading of a year before has been replaced by cookbook ogling?" Apparently, I'm not -- I'm flipping my way slowly and diligently through Mastering the Art of French cooking (both volumes). I've skimmed them before, but they're so lovely, they do deserve deeper viewing.

Absolutely. Right now I have Harold McGee's new book and (hey me too previous post!) Mastering the Art of French Cooking volume 2 on the bedstand.

Since I was ten.

Ever since I realized I could check out cook books at the library. I was about seven years old. I vividly remember the smell of old book bindings and awesomely kitschy 1950's graphics from books like the The Fannie Farmer Cookbook and countless others that sparked my love for cooking. Thanks for the reminder! I think a library trip is in order... ;)

Hells yeah. Regular bedtime reading... for which my sister has always made regular fun of me.

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i also like that it is non-committal in terms of plot/characters etc. so i dont need to remember what i read the night before. easy to read in small pieces.

"Bakewise" has been by my bed for a months. I love it.

No, but that's mostly because I can't read in bed. We don't have a headboard and I fall asleep way before "bedtime" most nights.

Like a novel, but the more frequent pager turning drives the husband bonkers.

That's the first thing I do when I buy a new cookbook.

Oh my goodness. Yes, I constantly do this. Some favorites at the moment include The Perfect Scoop and Good to the Grain

Mine right now is "Bless Your Heart"-it's a southern cookbook. :)