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.
Kevin Kline plays actor Richard Bean, and Laura Linney is his sister-in-law Kristen, in American Classic.
David Giesbrecht/MGM+
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American Classic is a hidden gem, in more ways than one. It’s hidden because it’s on MGM+, a stand-alone streaming service that, let’s face it, most people don’t have. But MGM+ is available without subscription for a seven-day free trial, on its website or through Prime Video and Roku. And you should find and watch American Classic, because it’s an absolutely charming and wonderful TV jewel.
Charming, in the way it brings small towns and ordinary people to life, as in Northern Exposure. Wonderful, in the way it reflects the joys of local theater productions, as in Slings & Arrows, and the American Playhouse production of Kurt Vonnegut’s Who Am I This Time?
The creators of American Classic are Michael Hoffman and Bob Martin. Martin co-wrote and co-created Slings & Arrows, so that comparison comes easily. And back in the early 1980s, Who Am I This Time? was about people who transformed onstage from ordinary citizens into extraordinary performers. It’s a conceit that works only if you have brilliant actors to bring it to life convincingly. That American Playhouse production had two young actors — Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon — so yes, it worked. And American Classic, with its mix of veteran and young actors, does, too.
American Classic begins with Kevin Kline, as Shakespearean actor Richard Bean, confronting a New York Times drama critic about his negative opening-night review of Richard’s King Lear. The next day, Richard’s agent, played by Tony Shalhoub, calls Richard in to tell him his tantrum was captured by cellphone and went viral, and that he has to lay low for a while.
Richard returns home to the small town of Millersburg, Pa., where his parents ran a local theater. Almost everyone we meet is a treasure. His father, who has bouts of dementia, is played by Len Cariou, who starred on Broadway in Sweeney Todd. Richard’s brother, Jon, is played by Jon Tenney of The Closer, and his wife, Kristen, is played by the great Laura Linney, from Ozark and John Adams.
Things get even more complicated because the old theater is now a dinner theater, filling its schedule with performances by touring regional companies. Its survival is at risk, so Richard decides to save the theater by mounting a new production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, casting the local small-town residents to play … local small-town residents.
Miranda, Richard’s college-bound niece, continues the family theatrical tradition — and Nell Verlaque, the young actress who plays her, has a breakout role here. She’s terrific — funny, touching, totally natural. And when she takes the stage as Emily in Our Town, she’s heart-wrenching. Playwright Wilder is served magnificently here — and so is William Shakespeare, whose works and words Kline tackles in more than one inspirational scene in this series.
I don’t want to reveal too much about the conflicts, and surprises, in American Classic, but please trust me: The more episodes you watch, the better it gets. The characters evolve, and go in unexpected directions and pairings. Kline’s Richard starts out thinking about only himself, but ends up just the opposite. And if, as Shakespeare wrote, the play’s the thing, the thing here is, the plays we see, and the soliloquies we hear, are spellbinding.
And there’s plenty of fun to be had outside the classics in American Classic. The table reads are the most delightful since the ones in Only Murders in the Building. The dinner-table arguments are the most explosive since the ones in The Bear. Some scenes are take-your-breath-away dramatic. Others are infectiously silly, as when Richard works with a cast member forced upon him by the angel of this new Our Town production.
Take the effort to find, and watch, American Classic. It’ll remind you why, when it’s this good, it’s easy to love the theater. And television.
The ritual of meeting up and hanging out at a coffee shop in L.A. is a showcase of style filled with a subtle site-specific tension. Don’t you see it? Comfort battles formality fighting to break free. Hiding out chafes against being perceived. In the end, we make ourselves at home at all costs — and pull a look while doing it.
It’s the morning after a night out. Two friends meet up at Chainsaw in Melrose Hill, the cafe with the flan lattes, crispy arepas and sorbet-colored wall everybody and their mom has been talking about.
Miraculously, the line of people that usually snakes down Melrose yearning for a slice of chef Karla Subero Pittol’s passion lime fruit icebox pie is nonexistent today. Thank God, because the party was sick last night — the DJ mixed Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous” into Peaches’ “F— the Pain Away” and the walls were sweating — so making it to the cafe’s front door alone is like wading through viscous, knee-high water. Senses dull and blunt in that special way where it feels like your brain is wearing a weighted vest. The sun, an oppressor. Caffeine needed via IV drip.
The mood: “Don’t look at me,” as they look around furtively, still waking up. “But wait, do. I’m wearing the new Dries Van Noten from head to toe.”
Daniel, left, wears Dries Van Noten mac, henley, pants, oxford shoes, necklace and socks. Sirena wears Dries Van Noten blouse, micro shorts, sneakers, shell charm necklace, cuff and bag and Los Angeles Apparel socks.
If a fit is fire and no one is around to see it, does it make a sound? A certain kind of L.A. coffee shop is (blessedly) one of the few everyday runways we have, followed up by the Los Feliz post office and the Alvarado Car Wash in Echo Park. We come to a coffee shop like Chainsaw for strawberry matchas the color of emeralds and rubies and crackling papas fritas that come with a tamarind barbecue sauce so good it may as well be categorized as a Schedule 1. But we stay for something else.
There is a game we play at the L.A. coffee shop. We’re all in on it — the deniers especially. It can best be summed up by that mood: “Don’t look at me. But wait, do.” Do. Do. Do. Do. We go to a coffee shop to see each other, to be seen. And we pretend we’re not doing it. How cute. Yes, I’m peering at you from behind my hoodie and my sunglasses but the hoodie is a niche L.A. brand and the glasses are vintage designer. I wore them just for you. One time I was sitting at what is to me amazing and to some an insufferable coffee shop in the Arts District where a regular was wearing a headpiece made entirely of plastic sunglasses that covered every inch of his face — at least a foot long in all directions — jangling with every movement he made. Respect, I thought.
Dries Van Noten’s spring/summer 2026 collection feels so right in a place like this. The women’s show, titled “Wavelength,” is about “balancing hard and soft, stiff and fluid, casual and refined, simple and complex,” writes designer Julian Klausner in the show notes. While for the men’s show, titled “A Perfect Day,” Klausner contextualizes: “A man in love, on a stroll at the beach at dawn, after a party. Shirt unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, the silhouette takes on a new life. I asked myself: What is formal? What is casual? How do these feel?” What is formal or casual? How do you balance hard and soft? The L.A. coffee shop is a container for this spectrum. A dynamic that works because of the tension. A master class in this beautiful dance. There is no more fitting place to wear the SS26 Dries beige tuxedo jacket with heather gray capri sweats and pink satin boxing boots, no better audience for the floor-length striped sheer gown worn with satin sneakers — because even though no one will bat an eye, you trust that your contribution has been clocked and appreciated.
Daniel wears Dries Van Noten coat, shorts, sneakers and socks. Sirena wears Dries Van Noten jacket, micro shorts and sneakers.
Back at Chainsaw the friends drink their iced lattes, they eat their beautiful chocolate milk tres leches in a coupe. They’re revived — buzzing, even; at the glorious point in the caffeinated beverage where everything is beautiful, nothing hurts and at least one of them feels like a creative genius. The longer they stay, the more their style reveals itself. Before they were flexing in a secret way. Now they’re just flexing. Looking back at you looking at them, the contract understood. Doing it for the show. Wait, when did they change? How long have they been here? It doesn’t matter. They have all day. Time ceases to exist in a place like this.
Daniel wears Dries Van Noten tuxedo coat, pants, scarf, sneakers and necklace and Hanes tank top. Sirena wears Dries Van Noten jacket, micro shorts, sneakers and socks.
Creative direction Julissa James
Photography and video direction Alejandra Washington
Styling Keyla Marquez
Hair and makeup Jaime Diaz
Cinematographer Joshua D. Pankiw
1st AC Ruben Plascencia
Gaffer Luis Angel Herrera
Production Mere Studios
Styling assistant Ronben
Production assistant Benjamin Turner
Models Sirena Warren, Daniel Aguilera
Location Chainsaw
Special thanks Kevin Silva and Miguel Maldonado from Next Management
Lifestyle
Nature needs a little help in the inventive Pixar movie ‘Hoppers’ : Pop Culture Happy Hour
Piper Curda as Mabel in Hoppers.
Disney
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In Disney and Pixar’s delightful new film Hoppers, a young woman (Piper Curda) learns a beloved glade is under threat from the town’s slimy mayor (Jon Hamm). But luckily, she discovers that her college professor has developed technology that can let her live as one of the critters she loves – by allowing her mind to “hop” into an animatronic beaver. And it just might just allow her to help save the glade from serious risk of destruction.
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