Domestic goddess Nigella Lawson is not really onboard with the notion of guilt, feeling that pleasure shouldn't engender any remorse. But she acknowledges one habit that raises a disapproving eyebrow in more fastidious types.

"My chief sin in their eyes," she says, "is that I do not always practice what I preach and sit down to eat with all my family, but rather feed them and then sneak upstairs to eat my supper in bed. I compound this sin, but also my pleasure somehow, by not having a tray: I love beautiful linens and adore my bed, but I am uncaring about the spillage and drips and crumbs I leave in my lazy, greedy wake."