Lifestyle
How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Julie Bowen
For Julie Bowen, mom of three teenage boys, a perfect Sunday would include plenty of “me time.”
“My whole family calls laundry and dishes my ‘hobbies,’” she said. “No, no, my hobbies are reading, going to museums, hiking and playing pickleball. Those are my hobbies. They’re like, ‘No, it’s not. It’s laundry and dishes, Julie.’”
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.
Bowen, who won two Emmys for her performance in the beloved long-running ABC sitcom “Modern Family,” is every bit as family-oriented as her character Claire Dunphy. She is currently filming “Happy Gilmore 2” in New Jersey, but when she’s home she prefers to spend time outdoors with her kids near Laurel Canyon.
After spending time in Baltimore, Rhode Island and New York, Bowen became a reluctant Angeleno. “I’m not sure I ever really thought of L.A. as my ‘home’ — in giant capital letters — until I had kids there and realized this is their home,” said Bowen, whose new thriller series “Hysteria!” is now streaming on Peacock. “L.A. is like a choose-your-own-adventure. You can go to some cities like Boston and really feel that it’s uniquely Boston, but L.A. has so many communities, cultures, corners of it. There’s no central Los Angeles. So at first when I moved here, I thought, ‘This is hard.’ But once you find your people, your places, it can really be a magical city.”
On the agenda for Bowen’s perfect Sunday are hiking, antiquing and a stop at Joan’s on Third.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
8 a.m.: Me-time with homemade ginger shots
In my fantasy, I could sleep in really late and then get up and go have brunch. Or make coffee and get back into bed with a book. That is so delicious. But the reality is I wake up early and I’ve come to love it because that is my quiet time. That is my alone time.
On Sundays, I get a whole bunch of turmeric, ginger, lemons and apples and then put on gloves — because the turmeric will turn your fingers orange — peel them all up and bake my own ginger shots for the week because I’m cheap and can’t stand spending $5 on them at Erewhon. I love Erewhon, but I don’t want to pay for the ginger shots so I like to do that in the morning while I’m having my coffee.
I usually get the groceries that morning. There’s a Trader Joe’s near my house that is fantastic. I love Trader Joe’s. I don’t know what I would do without Trader Joe’s. And on Sunday, L.A.’s genius for all of the farmer’s markets that are around. They have them in Hollywood, Studio City, Toluca Lake, Burbank … so I can hit any of those and get what I want.
10 a.m.: Pickleball with the ‘life-wife’
My really good friend, I call her my life-wife, Rachel, was always into pickleball. Her mom started playing years ago and [Rachel] started getting me into it a bit.
Then when I moved into a house that had this weird concrete space in the backyard, I thought, “I guess I could dig it up and make it a garden or something.” And then we measured it and I was like, “Or it could be for pickleball,” and that was that. So now I’m obsessed.
There are also great pickleball courts near my house. There’s the Burbank pickleball [court at Larry L. Maxam Memorial Park] right near the airport. That’s where you can get a really good competitive game, but since I had enough room in my yard to have a pickleball court, I usually just play singles there with my friend. I’m too scared to play doubles. Also, it requires more people.
Noon: Midday refuel at Joan’s on Third
Eventually, when my kids get up, they’re interested in going to Joan’s on Third in the Valley for brunch.
My kids like all the pastries. They go crazy for the chocolate croissant. They have a great berry muffin. One of mine loves to sit down and get the avocado toast. I love just browsing and snacking in there, because they have such delicious things. And I like to get some stuff to throw together for dinner. I’ll tell you one thing that’ll make my kids come together before dinner is when you make up a charcuterie plate from the stuff I get from Joan’s in the morning, that’ll bring them in.
2 p.m.: Wisdom Tree hike
If I could really have the ideal day, I’d throw a Wisdom Tree hike in there, because that, to me, is the greatest hike in the middle of L.A. You get a great view of the Hollywood sign, and it’s fun to remember [that] this is a magical, fun place to live. People travel from all over the world to see that sign.
I have two sons [who’ll] go hiking with me, while the other one likes to go play basketball. And with Wisdom Tree, it gets hot in L.A., so you should either go early or late. But if this is my perfect day, it’s February and I can hike all day.
4 p.m.: Antiques shopping at Ventura Place
Ventura Place is the best. I always love popping into Hide & Seek. It’s a little vintage shop. I don’t think I’ve ever left there without buying something.
I’m always on the hunt for the thing I didn’t know I wanted. I do have certain obsessions that I’m always looking for: folding antique game tables that start little and then you can fold it out. I love furniture that does double duty. At Hide & Seek, in particular, they always have beautiful furniture but I’ll just find an amazing serving spoon or a little statue or a piece of art. It’s just always worth sticking my head in there.
I’m not a very good clothes shopper. I’m lucky enough to hire a stylist for big events, and the rest of the time, I’m afraid that my family says I dress like Derelicte from “Zoolander,” which is not something I’m proud of, but I get it together when I need to.
4 p.m.: Bonus hour to visit the Last Bookstore
In my ideal Sunday, I’d have to add on extra hours to go down to the Last Bookstore in DTLA. That is another very, very special place in L.A. that you kind of have to see to understand. It’s three-quarters art installation, one-quarter books. I still love the smell of a book. I do read things electronically most of the time, but I love a bookstore, and that’s one of the greatest ones in L.A.
I would say literary fiction would be my favorite genre. I do not love pulpy, soapy beach reads. I don’t love mystery. I like really sort of interior kind of pieces. Right now I am reading Adam Johnson, who wrote “The Orphan Master’s Son.” I think he won the Pulitzer for that. I am reading his first book of short stories called “Emporium” that I found at a used bookstore in New Jersey, and I couldn’t believe it because I thought I’d read all of his stuff. And it’s not available electronically as far as I know so I was very excited and have been reading it as slowly as possible, because each page is delicious.
7 p.m.: Family dinner
I grew up having dinner with my whole family every night. Due to varying schedules, [my kids and I] can guarantee that we’ll all have dinner together only one night a week, and that is Sunday night. It’s funny with teenage boys, if you eat too early, you have to make another dinner later.
I would never cook just for me. But when cooking with kids, I try and make each of them do something different. I’ve got one who’s great at grilling, so there’s usually grilled chicken or grilled fish. I always make the salad. One of my kids loves pasta, so he’s always making pasta — from scratch these days, I might add. Crazy. I don’t know how he learned that. I’m going to say TikTok. And the other one is not much of a cook, but we’re like, “You set the table, you clear the table,” he has to do the dishes.
8:45 p.m.: Movies and games
Right now, my kids are really into mind-bending movies, that’s what they refer to them as. So I’ve been introducing them to classics like “The Usual Suspects” and “Memento.” They like it when we have to stop every 10 minutes and they’re like, “Wait, what’s happening?” Ordinarily, that would not be my favorite thing. But you do what you need to do to get along with your kids.
Or else we’ll play a card game. I feel like you can tell everything about a person by the way they bet in a hand of poker, whether they’re brand new or not. I’ve got one kid who will go all in on everything. I love it, but that’s not me. I’m a nerdy student. I get out my little cheat card, because I can never remember the hands, and I sit there and figure out roughly the odds and then I bet accordingly.
10 p.m.: Wind down and prep for bed
I love a Sunday night putter: cleaning out a drawer in my bathroom or giving myself a manicure, because I never go and get them. Just some wind-down time and then go to sleep. In reality, my kids are probably up for a while after I am but they’re old enough that that’s on them now.
It is remarkable how much late night laundry I end up doing. I’m like, “I am going to bed. It is 10.” My ideal time to go to bed, to close the door to my room, is 10 and to be asleep around 10:30, that would be awesome. I can’t remember the last time that happened because there’s always, “Mom, I need my uniform,” and I end up doing laundry or dishes until midnight.
You want to see some real fashion ingenuity? Watch the N.F.L. draft.
I’m not saying it’s all good, but where else are you going to see someone in a double-breasted suit made by a company better known for making yoga pants? Or an Abercrombie & Fitch suit jacket so short that it exposes the belt loops on the pants beneath?
On the whole, the style on display at the N.F.L. draft last night was very overeager senior formal: a lot of suits in colors beyond basic blue. The quarterback Ty Simpson wore a custom suit by the athleisure label Alo, which, I have to say, looked better than I would have envisioned had you said the words “Alo Yoga suit” to me.
I thought it might have been from Suitsupply, but the conspicuous “Alo” pin on his right lapel put that idea to rest. Simpson, smartly, unfastened that beacon before appearing onstage as the 13th pick to the Los Angeles Rams. He had, perhaps, satisfied his contractual obligations by that point.
Earlier in the evening, as the wide receiver Carnell Tate threw up his arms in exaltation after being picked fourth by the Tennessee Titans, his cropped Abercrombie & Fitch jacket revealed a swatch of rib cage. He looked like a mâitre d’ who had just hit the Mega Millions.
During the N.B.A.’s extended fashion awakening, its draft has become a sandbox for luxury brands to cozy up to would-be endorsers. The Frenchman Victor Wembanyama broke a kind of cashmere ceiling when he wore Louis Vuitton to go first overall in the 2023 N.B.A. draft.
The N.F.L. draft has none of that. The brands you see are often not brands at all, but custom tailors that reach the league’s neophytes through a whisper network among players. The draft is also a platform to raise the curtain on longer-term brand deals that better suit these rookies. We may, for instance, never see Simpson in a suit again. Nearly every photo from his time at Alabama shows him in a T-shirt or hoodie. It makes sense for him to sign with Alo.
Football is the most mainstream of American cultural entities. And it’s one that still hasn’t, in spite of the league’s best efforts, taken off overseas. Few players, save some quarterbacks and a tight end who happens to be engaged to a pop star, feel bigger than the game itself. If you’re a new-to-the-league linebacker, you’ll most likely never harness the star power to grab the attention of Armani, but you might have just the right pull for Abercrombie.
The N.F.L. draft is therefore one of the few red carpets where the brands worn by the athletes may also be worn by those watching at home. How many people watching the Oscars will ever own clothes from Louis Vuitton or Chanel? People may comment online about Lady Gaga wearing Matières Fécales to the Grammys, but how many of those fans and viewers could afford to buy clothes from it?
The Japanese designers changing fashion
Yesterday, I published a deep dive into how a newish crop of Japanese designers are soaking up all the attention in men’s fashion right now. This was a piece I was writing in my head long before I sat down and finally started typing. I remember sitting at a fashion show in Paris over a year ago — I believe it was Dior — and being asked by my seatmate if I’d made it over to a showroom in the Marais to check out A.Presse. That Tokyo-based brand is now part of a vanguard of Japanese labels that, on many days, seems to be all anyone in fashion wants to talk about. I spent months talking with designers, store owners and big-time shoppers to make sense of why these brands have kicked up so much buzz and, more than that, what makes their clothes so great. You can read the story here.
Other things worth knowing about:
Thirty years ago, comedian and actor Tig Notaro didn’t have a clear direction in life, so she followed some childhood friends who wanted to get into entertainment to Los Angeles. Secretly wanting to do stand-up, Notaro decided to try her luck at various outlets in town, which became the start of her successful career.
“I stayed on my friends’ couch near the Hollywood Improv on Melrose, and a couple months later, got my own studio apartment in the Miracle Mile area,” Notaro says. “I love all the options for everything in L.A. — the entertainment, the restaurants. I like to stay active. So many people love the hiking options in Los Angeles, and I’m one of them.”
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.
Notaro appears in Season 3 of Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” and is a series regular on Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy,” as she was on “Star Trek: Discovery.” She’s also a touring stand-up comic and hosts “Handsome,” a comedy podcast, with Fortune Feimster and Mae Martin. The trio will be taping a live show May 4 at the Wiltern with the cast of Netflix’s “The Hunting Wives.” The live shows include interviews, but also “incorporate some ridiculous things,” she says. For example, upon hearing that some of the hosts always wanted to learn to tap dance, Notaro “hired a tap instructor to come to our live show in Austin and teach us how to tap dance in front of the audience.”
Notaro lives near Hollywood with her wife, actor Stephanie Allynne, their 9-year-old fraternal twin boys, Max and Finn, and three cats, Fluff, Linus and Skip. When she’s not touring, her ideal Sundays include sampling vegan restaurants, wandering through bookstores or museums, and doing something physically active with the family.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
6 a.m.: Up with the kids
Because we have active children, we still wake up at 6 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, but there’s not as much of a rush to get going. Stephanie and I will often have coffee and chat in the living room together. I love that part of the day. Stephanie may cook breakfast, but Max and Finn are pretty self-sufficient and can make certain little meals for themselves. Max is really starting to take an interest in cooking, so he’d make breakfast for himself. Our family is vegan, but he eats eggs, so he makes himself an egg sandwich with avocado a lot of times.
9 a.m.: Daily morning walk
After breakfast, we usually have a morning walk around our neighborhood. That’s a daily thing I like to do, regardless of what’s going on. Now that I’m not touring as much, tennis is back on the schedule. So I’d go to Plummer Park in West Hollywood and play for a while, then join the family for lunch.
11:30 a.m.: Hike with a side of chickpea sandwich
I love Trails, a cafe in Griffith Park, where you can eat outdoors. It serves simple food, and has good vegan options. I usually get their chickpea salad sandwich. The food there is great. Afterward, we’d visit Griffith Observatory, where there’s lots to see. There are lots of great trails in the park, so we’d go for an hour hike before leaving.
3 p.m.: Browse the shelves for rock biographies
Bookstores are fun, so we’d head downtown for the Last Bookstore, which is in a historic building with lots of vintage books. I really love all things plant-based, and I’m a very big music fanatic. So I love to look for vegan books, nutrition books, rock biographies and autobiographies. It’s just fun to browse around the stacks.
If we didn’t go to the bookstore, we’d probably go to LACMA. Our sons are huge fans of art and want to go for each new exhibit. They love Hockney, Basquiat and Picasso, to name a few.
4 p.m.: Cuddle with cuties at a cat cafe
We’d then make a quick stop at [Crumbs & Whiskers], a kitten and cat cafe on Melrose for coffee, snacks and to pet the cats. It’s best to make reservations in advance. There’s cats all around the place that need to be adopted. You can visit and pet them, or find a new roommate. I’d love to take some home, but we already have three.
5:30 p.m. Italian or sushi, but make it vegan
We’re an early dinner family. One restaurant we like is Pura Vita in West Hollywood. It’s the greatest vegan Italian food, and for non-vegans, nobody ever knows the difference. It’s the first 100% plant-based Italian restaurant in the United States. They make an incredible kale salad and I love the San Gennaro pizza. It’s got cashew mozzarella, tomato sauce, Italian sausage crumble and more.
Then there’s Planta in Marina del Rey. It’s right on the harbor and you can sit outside and look at the boats coming in and out. They have sushi, salads and other plant-based entrees. They’ve got a really great spicy tuna roll that’s made out of watermelon. They are magicians.
Or there’s Crossroads Kitchen in West Hollywood. They play the best classic rock, and the atmosphere is upscale, fine dining. The appetizers that we always get are called Moroccan Cigars, which are vegan meat substitutes fried in a rolled batter. I really like the grilled lion’s mane steak, their mushroom steak with truffle potatoes, or the scallopini Milanese, that has a chicken or tofu option. I get the chicken with arugula on top. I always love to have a decaf espresso with dessert, which is either a brownie sundae or banana pudding.
7:30 p.m.: Comfort watch or word games
After dinner, the kids often like to watch an episode of “Friends,” a show that all ages enjoy, sports or “The Simpsons.” Or we’d play a game where each of us will add a word to a sentence and create a weird or funny long sentence until one of our sons says period. Then they’ll try and remember the whole sentence and repeat it back.
9:30 p.m.: Bubble bath then bed
The boys usually go to bed at 8:30 p.m. and bedtime for us is 9:30 p.m. Stephanie and I would read or chat. I like to take a bubble bath, if people must know. The best Sundays for me mean finding a good balance of relaxing and being active. I feel very lucky that my family and I can do those things together.
When Marian Sherry Lurio and Jonathan Buffington Nguyen met at a mutual friend’s wedding at Higgins Lake, Mich., in July 2022, both felt an immediate chemistry. As the evening progressed, they sat on the shore of the lake in Adirondack chairs under the stars, where they had their first kiss before joining others for a midnight plunge.
The two learned that the following weekend Ms. Lurio planned to attend a wedding in Philadelphia, where Mr. Nguyen lives, and before they had even exchanged numbers, they already had a first date on the books.
“I have a vivid memory of after we first met,” Mr. Nguyen said, “just feeling like I really better not screw this up.”
Before long, they were commuting between Philadelphia and New York City, where Ms. Lurio lives, spending weekends and the odd remote work days in one another’s apartments in Philadelphia and Manhattan. Within the first six months of dating, Mr. Nguyen joined Ms. Lurio’s family for Thanksgiving in Villanova, Pa., and, the following month, she met his family in Beavercreek, Ohio, at a surprise birthday party for Mr. Nguyen’s mother.
Ms. Lurio, 32, who grew up in Merion Station outside Philadelphia, works in investor relations administration at Flexpoint Ford, a private equity firm. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor’s degree in history and psychology.
Mr. Nguyen, also 32, was born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in Beavercreek, Ohio, from the age of 7. He graduated from Haverford College with a bachelor’s degree in political science and is now a director at Doyle Real Estate Advisors in Philadelphia.
Their long-distance relationship continued for the next few years. There were dates in Manhattan, vacations and beach trips to the Jersey Shore. They attended sporting events and discovered their shared appreciation of the 2003 film, “Love Actually.”
One evening, Mr. Nguyen recalled looking around Ms. Lurio’s small New York studio — strewed with clothes and the takeout meal they had ordered — and feeling “so comfortable and safe.” “I knew that this was something different than just sort of a fling,” he said.
It was an open question when they would move in together. In 2024, Ms. Lurio began the process of moving into Mr. Nguyen’s home in Philadelphia — even bringing her cat, Scott — but her plans changed midway when an opportunity arose to expand her role with her current employer.
Mr. Nguyen was on board with her decision. “It almost feels like stolen valor to call it ‘long distance,’ because it’s so easy from Philadelphia to New York,” Mr. Nguyen said. “The joke is, it’s easier to get to Philly from New York than to get to some parts of Brooklyn from Manhattan, right?”
In January 2025, Mr. Nguyen visited Ms. Lurio in New York with more up his sleeve than spending the weekend. Together they had discussed marriage and bespoke rings, but when Mr. Nguyen left Ms. Lurio and an unfinished cheese plate at the bar of the Chelsea Hotel that Friday evening, she had no idea what was coming next.
“I remember texting Jonathan,” Ms. Lurio said, bewildered: “‘You didn’t go toward the bathroom!’” When a Lobby Bar server came and asked her to come outside, Ms. Lurio still didn’t realize what was happening until she was standing in the hallway, where Mr. Nguyen stood recreating a key moment from the film “Love Actually,” in which one character silently professes his love for another in writing by flashing a series of cue cards. There, in the storied Chelsea Hotel hallway still festooned with Christmas decorations, Mr. Nguyen shared his last card that said, “Will you marry me?”
They wed on April 11 in front of 200 guests at the Pump House, a covered space on the banks of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River. Mr. Nguyen’s sister, the Rev. Elizabeth Nguyen, who is ordained through the Unitarian Universalist Association, officiated.
Although formal attire was suggested, Ms. Lurio said that the ceremony was “pretty casual.” She and Jonathan got ready together, and their families served as their wedding parties.
“I said I wanted a five-minute wedding,” Ms. Lurio recalled, though the ceremony ended up lasting a little longer than that. During the ceremony, Ms. Nguyen read a homily and jokingly added that guests should not ask the bride and groom about their living arrangements, which will remain separate for the foreseeable future.
While watching Ms. Lurio walk down the aisle, flanked by her parents, Mr. Nguyen said he remembered feeling at once grounded in the moment and also a sense of dazed joy: “Like, is this real? I felt very lucky in that moment — and also just excited for the party to start!”
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