THE Bed Recipe
my mom's top secret bed recipe unveiled to the public here, for the very first time.
This one goes out to bed. My beloved, my one and only. Oh yeah, and you guys my precious bed bugs.
The other day I read a startling fact—that the average normie only spends about 7 hours per day in bed, and of these 7 hours, most are squandered on trivialities like sleep! That’s about 229,961 hours in bed per lifetime, and if you ask me, this is nowhere near enough. People who only use bed for sleep are a breed my duvet-covered brain can’t comprehend. I, my cherished ones, am not just a visitor to bed. I’m not a fair weather friend; I am a permanent resident. A born and bred citizen and patriot. I am local traffic. I don’t just sleep in my bed—I conquer, I rule, I multitask. I work from bed, I eat in bed (oh no call the police, nerds), I write thank you notes from bed, and I spend quality Facetime with my best friends in bed. Bed is my favorite escape, my favorite cocoon of comfort, warmth and safety, and the perfect place to agonize over all the sharp and funny retorts I could have used in conversations that have long since gone extinct. Bed is my confessional, my ruminative sanctuary. It is my cushy, cozy rock in this chaotic, frightening universe.
Haters are always urging me to go outside and get this thing the kids are calling “fresh air”... but why would I do that when bed is the OG cure for anything that ails you? Historically maligned, bed has been unfairly branded as a refuge for the lazy, the sick, and the allegedly "mentally unstable,” when really, bed is the site where things heal. It is the mecca of well-being. There are very few places on Earth that you are drawn to when you’re both happy and sad. Ever been depressed at the beach? On vacation? It’s horrible!
Suffice it to say that my love of the horizontal life started way back. My mother is a gorgeously mentally-ill queen herself (after all, the apple doesn't fall far from the depressed-shaped tree) who worshiped bed and taught me to do the same. All joking aside, she was famous for her bed-making. She would pile on ingredients like sheepskin and featherbeds until every room was a paradise of comfort. As a result, my parents' house was sleepover central. Every friend I had wanted a piece of the action, all thanks to my mom’s dedication to her craft. (Keep scrolling to find her secret bed recipe…unveiled to the public here, for the first time.)
While the beds of my childhood and early adolescence were places that offered me so much solace and so much joy, I still somehow also felt a deep and internalized shame. People would call me or knock on my door, and I’d shoot out of bed like a French aristocrat caught in a rendezvous with his mistress, pretending I hadn’t just spent the entire day creating a 5 inch deep, Jade-shaped crater in my mattress.
And look, I know there’s been a lot of hype around “bed rotting” as of late. Am I relieved that my feed has traded morning routines for the Mental Illness Olympics? Sure am. At last a competition I can actually win. And let me assure you, if Apple added a ‘time-in-bed’ metric like they have for screen-time, these depressive e-girls wouldn’t hold a candle to me. So while I’m pleased with the increase in bed-head representation in the media, all of these very hot, very suspiciously productive girly pops online who claim to be in bed all the time aren’t exactly helping my inner 14-year-old reach a healthy level of self-acceptance.
The depression that emerged in those early years, in tandem with my love of bed, (real chicken or the egg question there…) would prove to be of the sort that can’t be reshaped into a cute publicity moment. It does not take well to Instagram. You know the vibe: the crown of unwashed hair, the scepter of general apathy, the missed calls, the profound feeling of being Velcroed to my mattress. It took me years to fully understand what was going on with me, but in retrospect I can see that as long as I have had my comfort zone to lean on, sleep on, and depression-sesh on, the stigma of unproductivity has been there too, lingering in the background, and for a long time I felt there was no way out of the bad feelings without leaving my beloved bed behind, too.
Thankfully, when I went to college, my relationship with my bed-self began to shift. I met friends who also adored bed, although none of them had a bed-recipe quite like mine, and soon enough the days were melting away in my college apartment, four girls to a comforter, to the tune of SVU on a loop and a general aura of hangover. My bed was our thinktank where we came together and meticulously crafted every flirtatious text like it was a group project. My bed was the UN for college girls on the brink of romance and mental breakdowns (see below).
Then I graduated, got engaged and married, and I hosted my wedding in Maui at my favorite hotel in the world. This place has earned its stripes in many ways, but above all, it is the beds, which I’m convinced must have actual drugs in them, that truly set it apart. After the first night of our wedding weekend, no one could shut up about how well they’d slept, and I swear to you, no exaggeration, about 30% of my mom’s speech at the reception was about the Four Seasons’ beds. All of my friends said they’d never slept better, and everyone wanted to know how we could recreate this magic in our lives at home. A few days later, my brilliant and gorgeous and very online friend Emma unearthed the wholesale site where the Four Seasons gets its bedding. Because I love you, I’ll share it with you here. PS she claims they’re always having some sort of sale. RUN to buy their featherbed and thank us later.
At the start of any new relationship, whether it be with a new friend or colleague, I always tend to hide my relationship with bed, terrified that my new social commitments will force me to sacrifice time in the bed zone. When it came to new boyfriends? Forget it (how men live their lives on rock hard mattresses with one prison pillow on them, I’ll never understand). Little do people know that Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide is actually an ode to bed: “I’ve been afraid of changing ‘cause I’ve built my life around you…”
Praise be to God, I married someone who loves bed and more importantly understands and respects my devotion to it. I also single handedly gave birth to a dog who’s happy place is under the covers. For the program of our wedding ceremony I had my friend Aidan Romick paint a portrait of the three of us in our happy place. Radical acceptance, baby. Then I fell in love with Lexapro. The fog of my depression finally lifted, and the same thing happened–I feared that my relationship with bed would change now that I’d become a functioning human adult. But that shit is rooted in my programming, at least two generations deep, and no amount of SSRI’s can change that. Turns out, stabilizing my mental health meant I finally felt free to fully lean into the thing I was always certain made me weird. In the end, I hacked the system and even built a career around it and met all of you. And isn’t that so often the case? It’s fucked up really, that the things we are most ashamed of are actually our greatest assets.
So that’s the story of my bed-centric existence. It just occurred to me that even this newsletter is bed-written, a little detail of meta-bedness that gives me so much joy.
The Famous Iovine Family Recipe for THE Perfect Bed (in order): *disclaimer: my mom is fahhhhncy pants so most of her choices are $$ but as you can imagine I firmly believe the one thing you should invest in is your bed so go with God, break the bank, buy one piece or all, and thank me later <3
Mattress with pillow top (preferably sewn onto the mattress): people rave about this Nectar one and this Helix one.
Mattress pad: My mom raves about this Tempurpedic one.
Fitted Sheet: (My mom and I have fallen in LOVE with the SDH Legna Classic Collection for all bedding: sheets, duvet cover, pillowcases, etc.)
Top sheet: I also love this brand’s printed bedding.
Comforter/Duvet: this Scandia down comforter is her favorite, I have this Parachute one that I love, and this Boll and Branch one is amazing for people that want a down-alternative.
Pillows: I have this one and this one from Casper or Hastens if you like a smushier, more luxe vibe.
Shams: these Frette ones with the covers are the best of the best.
Lastly, a blanket/quilt at the foot of bed: I didn’t think this ingredient was necessary but my mother insisted I include it. This one brings me joy. As does this one on sale.
Also here is the best gift for your friend who has chosen her bed over you…
Love from Bed,
Jade