We had a strange but exhilarating tour of what stock photo composition means for reading and eating, and now I’m feeling nosy:
What’s your favorite snack to eat while reading?
(Please note: my fingers defaulted to typing “snark” instead of “snack” which I think is hilarious. What’s my favorite snark while reading? Well, that’s a difficult question.)
Sarah: Typically I don’t eat while reading because it makes the screen of my Kindle all gross, and if I’m reading paper, it’s a library book and therefore sacrosanct.
Beverages are easy: I always have a water bottle with me, or maybe I’m drinking tea. And if I’m absolutely not driving anywhere, maybe wine or a cocktail.
But you know those questions like, “You can only have one thing to snack on forever, so will it be salty or sweet?” For me: salty. SALT. I love salt. So my preferred snack would be corn chips or, if I’m feeling now that I want to feel terrible later, Doritos. Love them, but they turn me into a foggy, slow-motion bloat-monster afterward. Sometimes it’s worth it. Not often.
This person and I would get along well, I think, if I brought my own bag of Doritos and they had their chips.
I also love the raspberries I find at Costco, which are so big I can wear them on the end of my fingers and eat them one by one.
I asked the crew here at HQ, and got many similar answers to my query: what’s your favorite snack while reading?
Elyse: Wine.
Sarah: Snort.
Elyse: Popcorn. The homemade kind, not out of a bag.
Sarah: I can’t eat popcorn. I find shell pieces in my teeth and gums for days. I hate that, and it’s a shame, because as I mentioned, I LOVE SALT. OMG Sodium I love you so much.
Amanda: I don’t really eat when I read or if I do, it’s pretty much based on whatever I have around. I do always either have a mug of coffee or a can of seltzer nearby.
Elyse: I’m a salty person (ha) so popcorn, nuts, maybe some cheese? I like those little Sargento snack packs.
Sarah: #Wisconsin.
Carrie: hot cocoa or tea for me.
After the smorgasbord of weird and wonderful that I found while perusing BigStock, I’m really curious about you.
What do you like to nosh on while you read? If you were setting up your ideal snack bar for your own reading enjoyment, what’s on it?
What about y’all? What’s your favorite snack while reading?
You know you”be been reading too much SBTB when you wake up in the night and think ‘But where’s the butter or clotted cream for those scones?!?’
Chocolate, biscuits (digestives, not too sweet), or crisps would be the best, but cherries or grapes would be the luxury. Crisps make your hands nasty though. I want a lovely bowl of cherries, but that’s Summer Porn isn’t it.
I love tea for reading. I have an insulated carafe for that reason.
I don’t really have a favorite reading food. I do try to avoid messy foods, but I’m pretty good at not getting residue on the pages. (Bookstands help)
Food and reading have always gone hand-in-hand for me (which might explain, well…a lot of things). When my kids were growing up, we had a strict “no books or electronics at the table” policy for dinner times, but as everyone has aged out, my husband and I have discovered the fun of TV trays as we have our meals. I always have a book or my kindle within reach, along with a bottle of water. My favorite snack would be some sort of cracker (Carr’s Water Crackers are a favorite, but anything from Triscuits to Ritz is fine) paired with slices of extra-sharp cheddar cheese. I keep a package of lens wipes close by because my kindle screen needs cleaning constantly.
Honestly? Anything. I’m partial to berries, chocolate, tea, cereal,figner-food sized vegetables, any sweet or bread product, chips, salsa, hummus- you name it, I’ll eat it. As long as it can be eaten with one hand.
I’ve never thought about this. Generally the problem is that I get so involved in the book, that any food or beverage gets forgotten until I resurface. Cold beverages get watery, hot beverages get cold. Food gets stale.
That being said, summer evenings are made for reading on the patio with a big glass of wine and finger food. Olives, cheese and bread. Grapes, cheese and crackers. Well, maybe that’s an answer. Cheese. I like reading with cheese.
I don’t really snack when I read either,instead I usually have some sort of beverage. My favorite snacks in general are strawberries( sometimes with chocolate sauce,)popcorn, chiips and dip/salsa or carrots &ranch.
@Donna Marie
I do believe we’re reading soul mates, at least when it comes to snacks.
I was considering the question, read your answer and thought, that’s me perfectly.
So I often read during my lunch break because all our undergrads are too nerdy/polite to interrupt someone reading. Consequently for one-handed lunching I have been packing olives, hummus, cheese, and crackers. While Tupperware heavy, there’s a variety of flavors and textures.
For proper curled up with a book at home reading I suggest a mug of soup. As easy as a mug of tea but filling and warmer.
Although recently I’ve discovered Ruffles has a jalapeño ranch flavor…
If you’re afraid of getting your books or Kindle dirty with cheesy chip dust, eat your chips with chopsticks while reading! I know it sounds a little bonkers but it’s tidy 🙂
Most of my reading is done in the evenings, so usually either a glass of white wine or Prosecco, or some chamomile tea. Like others on this thread, I don’t often eat while reading. If I can get a seat on the metro, I read for the commute, but all I might have then is bottled water. (Italians don’t really do take-out coffee.)
Potato chips are nature’s perfect food and I eat them as a food group staple from the pyramid. I make a really good dip out of full-fat, plain Greek yoghurt, SALT, onion powder and ground chipotle pepper. It’s excellent with Fritos, tortilla chips and POTATO CHIPS. Especially, the ridged kind. I don’t like my potato chips messed up with flavorings, just the saltier the better. I love the idea of eating them with chop sticks — maybe that will slow me down a little, too.
I’m like Sarah. I don’t snack while I read because either it is my kindle and smears are gross, or it’s a library book and just no.
Also I tend to do the bulk of my reading in the evening after dinner and I don’t feel that compelled. Of course the best is when you are so into the book that nothing else matters.
I tend to read at the table or with a table nearby (the dog and the child have made reading in bed a distant memory). I like a cup of tea or glass of wine and a plate with buttered toast and a good cheese, usually an excellent cheddar. Plus one of my pretty cloth napkins.
Of course, I also read in the cafeteria at lunch and then I will eat whatever they have, phone or kindle propped up on the salt and pepper shakers.
I am exactly like Sarah, I’m all about the salt. Chips, salty nuts, popcorn, it’s all good.
Salty all the way for me. Triscuits and cheese, preferably sharp cheddar, are my kryptonite. When I’m feeling virtuous/not too lazy, I’ll wedge up an apple. That and a coffee get my through my afternoon slump. Much of my recreational reading happens in bed, though, so no snacks. (Okay, I may have smuggled in a dish of mixed nuts recently.)
If I’m eating, I want to be reading something! A long ingrained habit, I remember reading the cereal box when I was a kid-because nothing else was around. When I was growing up, I would pay my brother a quarter to make a BBQ potato chip run for me (we had a convenience store a couple blocks away) so I could keep reading my book and also get my favorite snack. Chips are still my go to food when reading.
If I’m reading at home for any length of time, I need to have a mug of tea. With it I like a couple of digestive biscuits, either plain or dark chocolate, or shortbread. On weekend mornings, I enjoy an English muffin with lemon curd or jam, while I read, though that’s more of an extension of breakfast than a snack.
Always a coffee or Adagio teas, and some water. Chips and chocolates are my favorite snacks (sometimes close together), but so inconvenient!
I eat most of my meals alone, and an audiobook goes well with that.
Stealing the cup of soup idea!
I don’t usually snack while reading because mess but I have found grapes are an easy and clean snack. I do drink coffee and tea!
I really don’t have a “reading snack,” because unless I’m either actively working or talking, all other time is reading time. This means that breakfast, lunch, dinner, brunch, lupper, etc. all equal reading time. It’s usually with my ereader, so I’ve become the mistress of the first knuckle swipe. When not eating a meal, I enjoy a nice, strong unsweetened iced tea or wine or cappuccino if I’m out. Truth is everything tastes better when seasoned with a book.
I usually start out reading with a cup of coffee at my side. Sometimes it gets cold before I finish the coffee or reading. If I snack, it is something small that won’t smear on the Kindle screen, like peanut M&Ms or pretzels. I’ve learned that Cheetos and Kindles don’t mix. 🙁
Sadly a diagnosis of high blood pressure has nixed most of my salty snack eating. I’m happy to say though that most chocolate does not contain much sodium….
@LauraL and others, you might try putting your Cheetos and other messy snacks in a tea cup and then sipping them. This works best for small items; I’ll attest that sipping potato chips can be challenging (but does improve tongue dexterity!)
The only time I usually eat or drink when I’m reading is when I’m at a coffee shop. Then it’s usually tea, coffee, and maybe a muffin. Other than that, I don’t really eat or drink. Maybe because I usually read in bed.
I do all my reading in bed, so food is limited to things that don’t leave crumbs, which in practice means popcorn. Rarely cocoa, but only if I’m on the cocoa-colored sheets.
Oh, wait, does sitting at the computer count as reading? That opens things up significantly, since any necessary eating is done concurrently. Morning tea, afternoon masala chai (the real version of what is now prefabricated as “chai”, hmph), morning granola, evening whatever. So long as I limit my cooking to things with sauce that I can glop on top of rice, almost everything can be eaten with one hand.
I slice apples into very thin pieces. Sometimes I add a fancy smoked cheese or crumbly aged cheddar. I just found figs at the store so they will be my reading snack for the next day or so.
I usually have water, coffee or tea to drink while reading. Don’t necessarily have to snack while eating but lately I have been eating entire sleeves of Girl Scout Thin Mints.
I rarely snack while reading, but if I did, Ghiradelli chocolate squares would be my pick–dark chocolate with salted caramel. And tea, hot or iced.
Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. Tea (black with lemon slice).
A cup of masala chai, brewed the Indian way, with a piece of cake and/or crispy chickpeas/crispy peas/puffed rice mixtures and a whole host of other delicious Indian snacks! Oh, and if I’m reading a Betty Neels I HAVE TO HAVE SOME TEA AND CAKE!
Drinks: Coffee in the morning, before work. Water, mostly, outside of that unless it’s been one of THOSE days in which case it’s wine – usually white, slightly sweet.
Munchies: I’m trying to be good about not mindlessly eating while I read. Right now it’s just impossible, as it’s Girl Scout Cookie Season & my next-to-youngest niece is selling them. (Don’t look at me like that. YOU try telling the kid you’re not buying any cookies!) So, Thin Mints or Savannah Smiles while I’m reading.
COFFEE. ALWAYS AND FOREVER.
My current snacking-while-reading snack of choice that I’ve been obsessed with since this past summer is spicy almonds (wasabi and soy sauce flavor is my fave) and a tall, icy glass of agua fresca.
@Juhi, YES! Indian “Check Mix” is my snack of choice with a bottle of hard cider when I’m binge watching Jeopardy. Soooooo good!
Tea and some kind of non-messy cookies, like plain shortbread. Or some non-messy fruit I can eat one-handed, like grapes. If it’s really hot out, and I’m on the patio, ice coffee.
I do a lot of reading in bed at night so there’s not usually snacking involved but on weekend nights, I like to read on the couch preferably accompanied by a (large) glass of wine and a snack. My most favorite snack is cheese and crackers but if there is anything remotely salty in the house, I will find it. When my kids were little I would commandeer their Goldfish Crackers and feel no shame. A couple weeks ago I actually planned ahead and had a really nice crumbly goat cheese and parmesan-herb flavored pita chips for a reading snack and it was DIVINE.
Stroopwafel and a cup of hot coffee on a lazy Sunday morning
Sweet iced coffee on the deck on a summer afternoon
String cheese (anytime. Because cheese.)
A slice of the coconut cake from my local coffee shop with hot tea
@Deianira
Ooooooh, Savannah Smiles! So much yes!
Ritz crackers slathered in peanut butter. Usually with a Sargento cojack stick. That’s the go to snack at any time, not just while reading. I also like to get chocolate croissants from the grocery store sometimes if I want something sweet.
Salty popcorn. Once I spent a lot of money on black truffle salt and then had no idea what to do with it. It made amazing popcorn.
Chocolate covered pretzels, but I eat them with a fork or chopsticks so I don’t get chocolate on the pages.