The Morning After
Confetti. Noisemakers. Funny hats. “Auld Lang Syne.” New Year’s Eve can be predictable. But what are some prominent Angelenos doing the morning after? Not what you might expect. The New Year is not always celebrated with a whopping hangover; some hold back on the champagne in order to have a bit of fun on Jan. 1, too.
John Rubinstein, Tateh in the musical “Ragtime”:
“We don’t have a show that day, we’re off. We have some family staying with us--my wife, Jane and our two little boys--so all our kids will be up early and there are going to be pancakes. I’m the pancake man. It’s my mother’s recipe. They’re like French crepes, very thin, and you roll them up with jam.
They’re really good. My kids like to see me flip them up in the air. And then I think we’ll go to a party at a friend’s house. We have a show New Year’s Eve. It goes until about 11, then we’ll go home. We’ll have a big group of people over.”
William Garry, editor, Bon Appetit magazine:
“New Year’s eves have become quiet: I stay at home; I don’t like getting out into traffic. I will make a good breakfast, maybe eggs and oysters, a real hangover special, but I can assure you I won’t have a hangover. Then I’ll watch some football, probably listen to some appropriate seasonal music, and read. Someone asked me to a nice New Year’s Day brunch, so I might do that. But I’ve been traveling, so the idea of spending the day at home is extraordinarily appealing. I might watch about 10 minutes of the Rose Parade, and then the football game. I’m rooting for Washington because they haven’t got a prayer.”
Molly Isaksen, manager, the women’s store at Ron Herman in Brentwood; partner with Claudia Gersh in the clothing line Belle de Jour:
“I’m definitely sleeping in, to start off, and then my boyfriend and I will go for breakfast at the Beverly Hills Hotel. That’s our favorite place to go whenever we have the day off. Then we’ll probably go home and hang out on the couch and watch old movies. That’s as exciting as it gets, but it sounds perfect. Sleeping in late for me would probably be . . . I’d be thrilled with 10 a.m.--and I don’t want to miss breakfast. For New Year’s Eve, we’ll have drinks with two other couples at the Bel Air Hotel, then we’re going to dinner at Mr. Chow
Dean Factor, co-owner, SmashBox photo studio:
“I’m going skiing in Aspen. I’ve been going there about three or four years. I’ll probably go to some New Year’s Eve parties, see where the night takes me. But I’ll sleep in late, then I’ll go skiing. It’s great. It’s totally empty.”
Judith Gasson, director, UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center:
“We always do the same thing: Early in the morning, we (husband Richard Kronemyer and children Andrew, 12, and Lauren, 9) load up our bicycles and drive over the hill to Santa Monica and go bike riding while everyone else is asleep. The weather is always really nice, and you can be in your shorts and say, ‘Hey, this is why I live in California!’ We’ve been doing this about three years. We usually start at Will Rogers [State Park] and ride down to the pier and back, then stop at one of those funky sidewalk restaurants and have something to eat, then load up the bikes and go home.”
Fred Eric, chef-partner at Fred 62; chef-owner of Vida:
“We’re going to be doing Pogo-a-Go-Go at Vida on New Year’s Eve. We’re going to have punk rock karaoke. That will probably go till about 4 a.m., then I’ll go to Fred 62. I’m sure a lot of my friends will be there, so I’ll make some special things for them, probably a bunch of different egg dishes, some special omelets. I think I’ll also make a big batch of granola. The exhaustion will hit on Jan. 3.
