Lifestyle
How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Tia Mowry
Sunday is Tia Mowry’s favorite day of the week because it’s the day that she gets to do whatever she wants.
“With my career, there’s always some sort of schedule,” the actor and entrepreneur said. But on Sundays, “it’s just really free-flowing. I mean, yes, there are some routines and traditions that we have on Sunday, but it’s not a strict schedule.”
Mowry has been lighting up our TV screens since her debut on the beloved ‘90s sitcom “Sister, Sister” alongside her twin sister, Tamera. Since then, Mowry has picked up several other notable roles on shows and films like “The Game,” “Twitches” and “Family Reunion.” She also starred in a Style Network reality show about her and her sister’s lives called “Tia & Tamera,” released two cookbooks and launched 4u by Tia, a sustainable, science-backed hair care line for natural hair.
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
The latest venture for the mom of two? Mowry is heading back to reality television to star in WEtv’s “Tia Mowry: My Next Act,” a show about her post-divorce life. “I’m removing the filter like never before,” she wrote on Instagram.
An Army kid born in Germany and raised in multiple parts of the U.S., Mowry said she loves Los Angeles — where she’s lived for more than 30 years — because of the city’s emphasis on wellness. “There’s always some sort of healthy grocery store or smoothie spot or juicing spot [or] great, trendy exercise program all within one block of each other, which is just so beneficial especially when you are a mom,” she said.
Mowry’s ideal Sunday in L.A. involves playtime with her kids (Cairo is 5 and Cree is 12), sweating it out at Equinox and dinner at her favorite pasta spot. Here’s how she’d spend the day.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6 a.m.: Meditate, journal and read
The first thing that I do when I wake up is meditate. I literally put a “Do Not Disturb” sign on my door and the kids know. They are 12 and 5. Even the 5-year-old knows not to walk into Mommy’s room when that sign is on and her door is closed. I will meditate for an hour on the weekend.
I’m up at 6 a.m. because I have to get it in before the kids wake up at 7:25 a.m. I don’t know why it’s 7:25 a.m. [Laughs] Then I will do some journaling. I have this really cool manifestation journal where I write down my manifesto every single day and answer some questions. It takes about five minutes. Then I will do about 15 to 20 minutes of reading every Sunday. I just finished reading “Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself.” It’s by an amazing Black woman named Nedra Glover Tawwab. She’s a psychologist and this is an incredible book.
7:25 a.m.: Fun time with the kids
Once I’m done with that, the kids will come in and then they’re playing around, jumping on my bed and it is just fun time. We spend about an hour in my bed just hanging out, giving kisses and cuddles. And of course between the two of them, it’s not always pleasant [laughs]. There might be some back-and-forth between the kids, and some “Mommmmm” [imitates in agitated kid voice]. Then we’re maybe watching “Avatar” or “Bluey.” Basically whoever grabs the remote first, that’s what we’re watching.
9 a.m.: Order in or go out for breakfast
We will sometimes order food on Postmates or we’ll walk to our favorite restaurant. It’s called Le Pain Quotidien. It’s a French breakfast spot. I always order my favorite drink, which is the matcha latte with vanilla extract and oat milk. I usually get the three-egg scramble, which comes with a green salad. And then Cairo will have the pancakes with bananas and extra syrup, and Cree will get a chai latte with oat milk and avocado toast.
I’ve tried everything on that menu. The waiters know us there. And like I said, sometimes I’ll take the kids and we’ll walk. Cree will get on his bike, I will put Cairo in a wagon and we’re off.
11 a.m. Drop the kids off and go to gym
We’ll come home around 11 a.m., then the kids will hang out at the house. They are either hanging out with grandpa, grandma or uncle Tahj Mowry, and I will go off to my favorite gym, Equinox. I feel like where I’m at right now in my life, it’s not about that intense workout where you’re just so drained after. It’s more about just moving the body. So I will do maybe 20 minutes of a nice walk on the treadmill, then I’ll do another 20 minutes on the Stairmaster. After that, I’ll maybe do a little bit of floor Pilates and some stretching, and that’s it. The steam room is one of my favorite things to do right after a workout. That’s how you know you’re getting older [laughs].
You know, just really, really take care of yourself and fill up your cup, so that you will be able to pour into your children, your work life, your friends and all of that. So that’s like a must.
2:30 p.m. Grocery shopping at Erewhon
I’ll come back home and freshen up, then I’ll head out to do some grocery shopping. Sometimes the kids will join me; sometimes they won’t. Cree usually loves to join me because he loves food. I will go to Erewhon. I know some people say it’s this bougie grocery spot, but I’ve actually been going there for years before it was even popular.
Grocery shopping is kind of like my zen place. I will go through the recipes in my cookbook, “The Quick Fix Kitchen” or my other cookbook, “Whole New You,” and choose what we’re going to have that week. Then I’ll get everything that we need. I always like to have something planned so I’m not scrambling. I’ll grab some essentials, then come home and unpack. As you can see Sundays are clearly a day that I’m not doing too much cooking cause it’s a chill day.
My favorite smoothie at Erewhon is the Royal Defense 13, which basically just has protein, berries and apple juice. It comes with bananas but I have an allergy, so I usually just get it without and it is so good. I like to keep it very simple.
5:00 p.m. Dinner at Uovo
One of our favorite things to do is go to a pasta spot called Uovo. The reason we go all the time is because Cairo is obsessed with pasta. If she can eat pasta for breakfast, lunch and dinner, she would. What’s so great about this spot is — ‘cause I’m a foodie — is it’s simple but good, meaning it’s not this huge, massive menu. And they make their pasta fresh. It’s intimate and the waiters know us too. It’s kid-friendly, but it’s also a great environment for adults as well.
Cairo and I love the pasta with the truffle and Parmesan cheese, and Cree loves the beef ravioli. It’s nice to end the day with a nice glass of wine and everyone is full of pasta.
6:30 p.m. Get ice cream for dessert
Uovo only has tiramisu for dessert and the kids always want ice cream, so we’ll go to Salt & Straw. When it opened up, I was so incredibly excited. What I love about it is that it’s unique. The combinations are something that you’ve never heard of, like lavender. It’s not your traditional flavors that you would expect in ice cream, which I think is such an incredible experience and the kids love it.
7:00 p.m. Get the kids ready for bed
We’re home by 7 p.m. Cree is able to put himself to bed, thank God. [As for] Cairo, I will read her a book and give her a bath. She has her whole routine — she’s so spoiled. She has white noise going and an air purifier with a scent in it. She gets a massage every night. She’s the princess. Then they’re off to bed.
8 p.m. Listen to affirmations until I fall asleep
I will take my shower and do all that kind of stuff, then go to bed [listening] to affirmations. That’s kind of been my new thing. I’m really trying to get enough sleep throughout the night and so I’m in bed at around 9 or 9:30 p.m.
Lifestyle
Why Gen Z is movie-maxxing : Pop Culture Happy Hour
Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston in Obsession.
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Focus Features
Two big horror films, Obsession and Backrooms, just smashed all box office expectations. So much of their success has been driven by Gen Z, which is now the biggest moviegoing demographic. But what makes a movie a Gen Z movie? Today we’re bringing you an episode of NPR’s It’s Been a Minute. Host Brittany Luse talks about this trend with Sam Adams and Reanna Cruz.
If you want to hear more about these movies, check out these episodes:
In ‘Obsession,’ love hurts. It really, really, really hurts.
‘Backrooms’ brings YouTube horror to the big screen
Zendaya brings ‘The Drama,’ we bring the spoilers
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Lifestyle
10 new books you won’t want to miss in July
I regret to inform you I’ll need to keep this introduction brief. Not because there’s any lack of things to say about July’s crop of notable new releases; it features award-winning journalists and several different flavors of anxiety about our bleak ecological future and data-dominated present, as well as the welcome returns of several beloved novelists.
No, these books certainly deserve some love, dear readers. It’s just that I’m finding it a bit tough to type while bearhugging a box fan. And since it seems that may be my last best chance to get through this latest U.S. heat wave here on the east coast without sweating through my shirt, I feel some urgency to get back at it.
So enough with the ado. With any luck, you’ll soon be cracking open one of these great reads on the beach — or in front of a decent air-conditioning unit, at any rate.
You Won’t Get Free of It: Stories of Mothers and Daughters, by Rachel Aviv (July 7)
Aviv, New Yorker staff writer and finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize, has a fairly extensive purview in her role as reporter at large. Still, when reviewing her latest work, Aviv noticed a crucial throughline: “I realized that, to some degree, I’d been writing about mother-daughter pairs for the last decade,” she explained to the Paris Review. Seeing this, she decided to collect and revise half a dozen of those stories, which cover ground from a daughter’s troubling fugue states to the immigrant nannies who must leave their own children behind, to Alice Munro’s daughter, whose claims of sexual abuse went unheeded yet regularly resurfaced in her mother’s fiction.
Country People, by Daniel Mason (July 7)
In Mason’s first novel since North Woods, 2023’s critical darling and book club stalwart, readers are plopped right back in the New England woods but the time scale has shrunk considerably. Whereas North Woods spanned centuries, his new novel confines itself to a single year, during which Miles, loving family man and lackadaisical Ph.D. candidate, plans to finally buckle down on that derelict degree of his and reassert his worth to one and all! At least, that’s the idea. But plans don’t stand much of a chance when there are eccentric neighbors to befriend and mysterious local legends to investigate.
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast, by Pamela Colloff (July 14)
This is the first book from Colloff, a veteran investigative journalist for ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine. She has won multiple National Magazine Awards for stories focused on miscarriages of justice – such as her 2019 piece about Paul Skalnik, a grifter, fabulist, sexual predator and snitch, whose fabrications can be linked to dozens of wrongful convictions in Florida, including some sending the innocent to death row. Here Colloff expands upon that investigation, which gets a lot more room to breathe in the transition from magazine article to full-length book. What emerges in this disturbing account is a portrait of one man’s callous cruelty, and the law enforcers who had no problem tolerating a deal with the devil, provided it kept juicing the conviction rate.
Cloudthief, by Nathaniel Rich (July 14)
Though it’s his fiction we’re discussing here, it’s important to note Rich’s reporting has earned plaudits, too, as well as a few film adaptations. No matter the medium, climate change is usually on his mind, as well as the blunt, rather bleak, prognosis he offered on Fresh Air in 2019: “There’s a huge range of outcomes … ranging from the not very good to the apocalyptic.” Which is to say I’m surprised to find myself describing his newest response to global catastrophe as a rollicking good time – and not just because I’ve never said those words, in that order, in my life. This spry, funny caper features a freelance environmental reporter who inadvertently breaks bad, careening under the influence of lust and a light wallet toward the novel’s big centerpiece: the planned heist of a massive data center.
Data Empire: The Power of Information to Organize, Control, and Dominate, by Roopika Risam (July 14)
And now, for another book centered on data – albeit from a rather different angle. This illuminating history from Risam, a Dartmouth professor, traces the practice of collecting information – and the power conferred by possessing it – from the bones that were humans’ first archives, to the omnipresent systems that shape (or outright determine) life today. As Risam asks, “What has it meant – and what will it mean – when records that once served only to help us remember, come to rule?” A pressing question (see: those data centers), which you’re probably better served trying to answer with the help of Risam than, say, Alexa or Claude.
It Will Come Back to You: Stories, by Sigrid Nuñez (July 14)
For someone with nine novels to her name, Nuñez got a later start than you might expect, having published her first book when she was already in her mid-40s. More than three decades later, now a spry 75 years old, the National Book Award winner has gotten around to publishing her first collection of short stories. The 13 stories here have been culled from across her career, but each one resonates clearly with the warm timbre of her voice: simple, unadorned prose and mundane setups, from which she consistently manages to tease out glimpses of truth, elusive and profound.
They Stole a City: Wilmington’s White Supremacist Coup and the Families Who Live with Its Legacy, by Lauren Collins (July 14)
The only coup d’etat to succeed on U.S. soil is, at most, a distant historical afterthought these days. To be honest, I can’t recall reading a single textbook entry that even remarked on the 1898 race massacre in Wilmington, N.C., an action led by white supremacists that left many (historian estimates say up to 300) Black Wilmingtonians dead and permanently scarred a community newly aware of its simmering animus and vulnerability to violent overthrow. So I’m grateful for Collins’ new chronicle of the infamous event, which fills in some serious gaps in the American collective memory and explains how its perpetrators cultivated the disorienting silence that persists in the historical record today.
Yellow Pine, by Claire Vaye Watkins (July 21)
I don’t think I’ve ever actually laid eyes on the Mojave Desert but after reading Watkins’ latest novel, it feels like I can picture it more vividly than some streets I’ve actually lived on. No, it’s “not a beginner’s wilderness,” as Watkins concedes in Yellow Pine, but this landscape so redolent of death is also deceptively robust with life, if only you’re patient enough to find it. Too bad, then, that it’s also on fire. And choked by drought, irradiated by military test sites and soon to be sacrificed to a massive new solar array named, inexplicably, Yellow Pine. But those aren’t the only complications confronting the book’s main character, Rose, whose aspirations of becoming a kind of climate hermit warp a bit under the pressure of a rekindled love and the pendulum swing of rage and despair at the state of the world.
Cool Machine, by Colson Whitehead (July 21)
Ray Carney is back, for what regrettably appears to be the last time. The lifelong Harlemite, hard-luck furniture dealer and ambivalent crook starred previously in Harlem Shuffle and its sequel, Crook Manifesto. His perspective is our window on the changing eras of the historically Black neighborhood, from the mid-1950s on. In this, the final installment in Whitehead’s brisk, exceedingly entertaining Harlem Trilogy, readers catch up with Carney around the start of the 1980s, following him deeply into Reagan’s decade. The novel also represents the end of an era for Whitehead, whose attention has been exclusively occupied with these characters since he won Pulitzer Prizes for consecutive novels, The Underground Railroad and Nickel Boys.
Beginning Middle End, by Valeria Luiselli (July 28)
The gifted young Mexican writer returns this month with her fourth novel, the second she has written in English and her first since Lost Children Archive launched to widespread plaudits more than seven years ago. Her new book, like her previous one, also concerns the travels of a small family – only this time, the road leads not through the American Southwest but Sicily. And the history sought by its mother-daughter main characters is not a record of bureaucratic cruelty but something much more intimately personal: the links shaped and tested by generations of shared heritage and experience.


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