So many options for New Year’s Eve. It’s the one night of the year with the most promise; do you want to start off the new year with a bang or ease into it?

For me, I was going to hit the absinthe lounge at Seven Grand’s party, surprise surprise, but decided to spend a mellow eve at an intimate house party in WeHo instead. A mini horror movie festival, Wii bowling and getting drunk safely at a friend’s home sounds good to me.

Out of curiosity, I polled some Angelenos you may have heard of to see how they’re going to do up the last big party night of 2007 (as well as what’s their New Year’s resolutions) and here’s what they said:

Kim Cooper, creator of 1947project and Esotouric: [My husband] Richard and I intend to cuddle up with the cats, some primo film noir and a bottle of hooch.

Aidan Demarest, general manager of Doheny: I’ll be herding green fairies and checking the tension wire on my trapeze. My New Years resolution is to be doing the exact same thing next year, but richer.

Ramona Gaddis, Chambord ambassador: Private house party this year. Should be lots of fun but not newsworthy! New Years resolution: Have more faith in God and really go for what I want in life, knowing things are going to work out!

Sarah Gim, The Delicious Life: I’m in the TN office today, then taking off early to head down to OC. I am spending it with fam down there, blogging (which I am very grateful to be back to doing), then going to parents’ house tomorrow for the Korean tradition of eating dduk gook.

Shelley Han, Yelper: Going to Napa with some friends. No idea what we’re doing, but we’re staying and the Marriott hotel and I’ll have a bottle of Moet Chandon with me. My New Year’s resolution for 2008 is to get my photo business off the ground and make at least $1,000 net profit.

Tony Pierce, blogfather of LA Times‘ blogs: I’m going to be in Toronto where I am beloved and the feeling is mutual. my resolution is to garner a fan club in L.A. of at least half the size as the one in Canada.

Andy Sternberg, NetZoo and LAist: I’ll be in Ushuaia, Argentina — the southernmost city in the world often referred to as El fin del Mundo. Fitting for a New Year’s toast as — since 1999/2000 at least — I’ve felt that slightly apocalyptic New Year’s Eve overtones only bolster one’s optimism and good fortune in the coming year. And 2008 will be the year of the Cub. Last time ‘08 rolled around the Cubs won the world series. They haven’t won it since. ‘Til the End of the World — salud!

Oddly enough, seems like lots of Angelenos will be spending New Year’s either out of town or at home. How about you, L.A.? What are you doing tonight and what’s your resolution for 2008?

Flickr Shot by cecily7

OK, yes, I still have cocktails on the brain. They like ‘em really sweet and syrupy up here in Sacto and don’t even know what a whiskey cocktail is. Bah! Anyway, with nothing else to do but dream of good cocktails, I assembled this list of 10 cocktail alternatives for those bored with plain bubbly on NYE.

It’ll be your first drink of 2008 so it oughta be something special (read: stronger), don’t you think? Nothing too complicated here, though, since you’ll want to get something ready in time before the clock strikes 12. Apart from the champagne, some recipes may require a run to the store beforehand if your wet bar isn’t already stocked with bitters, Grand Marnier and the like.

Barbotage
Cited by some to be an excellent, albeit oh-so stylish, hangover cure. But why save it for the morning after when you can have the good stuff immediately?

• 1/2 ounce cognac
• 1 teaspoon Grand Marnier
• 4 ounces Brut champagne

Pour cognac (or another brandy) and Grand Marnier into a champagne flute, top up with brut champagne or a reasonable facsimile thereof (no need to go overboard in terms of quality, but you don’t want something that you could use in a vapor degreaser, either).

Black Velvet
Originally created to memorialize Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s hubby, this cocktail became a favorite of the Jazz Age making it a swank and yummy cocktail to toast the new year.

• champagne
• Guinness stout

Fill a tilted, chilled champagne flute slightly less than halfway with cold champagne, and wait for foam to subside; slowly add an equal part cold stout.

Chambord Champagne Cocktail
A girly champagne cocktail, and I mean that in a good way. Great for those who find champagne to be too bitter for their tastes.

• 3/4 teaspoon Chambord
• champagne
• 2 raspberries

Pour Chambord into champagne flute. Fill with chilled champagne. Add 2 small raspberries.

Classic Champagne Cocktail
If you’re having an elegant party where everyone’s dressed to the nines in their ’50s cocktail attire, this would compliment the vibe beautifully.

• 6 ounces Champagne
• 1 cube sugar
• Angostura bitters

Soak a sugar cube with Angostura bitters. Place the cube in the bottom of a chilled Champagne flute. Fill with Champagne. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Death in the Afternoon
Yes, perhaps the name is a bit morbid-sounding for a new year’s champagne toast but the writer in me appreciates this Hemingway-created cocktail and with absinthe it definitely adds an extra something naughty to your bubbly. Since the green fairy is now legit, let it flow.

• 1 jigger of absinthe (I recommend Kubler)
• champagne

Pour absinthe in a champagne flute and then add iced champagne until it has an opalescent milkiness. (If you can’t find absinthe you can substitute it with pastis.)

Flirtini
You might remember this girl fave from Sex and the City. There are lots of Flirtini recipes out there but this was the simplest of the bunch.

• 1 ounce vodka
• 2 ounces champagne
• 2 ounces pineapple juice

Combine vodka, champagne, and pineapple juice in a highball or collins glass filled with ice.

French 77
A variation of the French 75 cocktail, this one adds the elegant new French liqueur to the mix.

• 1 shot St. Germain elderflower liqueur
• 1/2 shot fresh squeezed lemon juice
• Champagne

Pour first two ingredients into chilled champagne flute. Top with champagne and garnish with a lemon twist.

Lava Lamp
For all those who can never take their eyes off champagne bubbles (pretty!), this is the drink for you.

• 6 ounces chilled champagne
• 1 tablespoon Ocean Spray Craisins Sweetened Dried Cranberries
• 1/6 ounce fresh lemon juice

Pour chilled champagne into a champagne flute. Add sweetened dried cranberries. Let it sit for a moment. Cranberries will begin to slowly float up and down in glass. Serve while chilled.

St. Germain & Champagne
Got only 2 minutes til midnight?

• 1 1/2 shot of St. Germain Elderflower liqueur
• Brut champagne
• strawberry

Pour St. Germain liqueur into a chilled champagne flute and top up with Brut champagne. Garnish with a strawberry on the rim.

Wild Hibiscus Champagne Cocktail
For a beautiful blooming cocktail, try a little floral in your bubbly.

• Wild Hibiscus Flowers (You can pick this Australian import up at Bristol Farms)
• champagne

Place one of the blooms at the bottom of a champagne flute. Spoon some of the syrup from the jar into the glass and then pour the champagne over it. The bubbles stream off the petals and the syrup contributes a festive holiday red color as well as a raspberry/rhubarb taste to the champagne.

Flickr Shot via Carbonated

I don’t know about you but figuring out what to do on New Year’s Eve has always been a not-fun activity for me. The thought of contending with traffic and crazy crowds. And why does everything have to be so expensive? Some parties are a couple grand to get into!

I just want a champagne toast, a cool place to hang with close friends and, yes, more champagne. You know me, not so much into the clubby scene. Fortunately there are a bunch of events this year that are offering a good time, cool folks, a somewhat intimate venue and music for under $50. Some are even free. Imagine that!

Casey’s Irish Bar and Grille — No Cover
If you require more than a champagne toast to celebrate, Casey’s has the party for you. Enjoy free-flowing draught ale from 7 to 10pm. And dance a jig into the new year as there will be live Irish music to keep things hopping.

Broadway Bar — No Cover
Get dressed up in your swank vintage attire and hit The Broadway Bar for a swinging cocktail party. A DJ will be playing tunes all night long.

Golden Gopher — No Cover
Before Seven Grand, I had the Golden Gopher. And since it’s been around for ages, you probably did, too. For a cool bar to hang out in for the countdown, with none of the craziness, visit the Gopher’s shindig. And if you find yourself still wanting to celebrate after hours, grab a bottle to go from the in-house liquor store. I kid you not.

The Abbey — No Cover
Everyone’s favorite gay bar is throwing a fabulous party with no cover! And for those fancy few who just have to have a cabana and/or bottle service, contact the bar to make arrangements. All others can dance, dance, dance to the Abbey’s own DJ Grant Matthews.

Bigfoot Lodge — Free before 9pm/$10 after 9
New Year’s Eve at Bigfoot sounds like so much fun what with rock n’ roll karaoke from 8 to 11pm. And when you’re done singing your heart out, enjoy tunes from DJ Anathena, drink specials (Huzzah!) and a free champagne toast at midnight.

Mountain Bar — $15 limited advance tickets
Feel like dancing? Chinatown’s hip bar will take care of that with its two dance floors and djs spinning hip hop, funk, soul and mashups all night long. At the stroke of midnight there will be a balloon drop and a free champagne toast.

Little Temple — $20
Little Temple and LA.com bring you one booty-shaking blowout with DJs Haul and Mason. Free champagne toast and party favors at midnight.

Seven Grand — $25 general admission
Weee! My favorite bar EVUH! is throwing its own fantabulous party. Dress up in your cocktail attire and hit the bar’s first NYE bash. They’re going to do it up in style with live band, The Makers, and KCRW’s DJ Paul Kramer. General admission gets you hors d’oeuvres and a champagne toast. But if you really want to up the ante, go VIP ($75) and have access to the absinthe lounge (complete with floor pillows) as well as a cigar and much more appetizers.

V Lounge — $25 general admission, $35 VIP, $50 Dinner and VIP
This Santa Monica venue offers three different levels of partying depending on how much you wanna spend. For $25, you get the party with a champagne toast; $35 gets you the champagne toast, disposable camera and party favors; and throwing down a fiddy means all of the above, a four-course dinner and access to the VIP lounge.

Temple Bar — $30 advance/$40 at the door
KCRW and Temple Bar present “A Cambodian Pop Rock Psychedelic New Year’s Eve Dance Party,” featuring the music of Dengue Fever, DJ Anthony Valadez and free flowing champagne and party favors at midnight.

Tiny’s KO – $50
If you’re really dying for an open bar for the holiday, Tiny’s KO is offering perhaps one of the cheapest in town. From 10 to 2 you get access to not just well drinks but the whole damn bar, ladies and gents! There will also be free food and of course L.A.’s best jukebox. The catch is that the capacity is limited to 100 to keep things intimate, so pick up your tickets asap from Tiny’s.

Stuck up at my folks’ place in NorCal, I’m missing all my fave bars and cocktails so out of boredom and homesickness I came up with this list of required reading for all those like me who are fascinated with cocktail culture and vintage drinks. There are some books with pre-Prohibition cocktail recipes and some with fascinating tales involving some of history’s most important people.

If you have your own recommendation for a good cocktail book to read, lemme know.

It was after midnight and the tingly mingly at Seven Grand was mellowing out. I wanted to go home but Shelley, Crazy Andy and his roommate Greg wanted tacos from the taco truck on Alvarado. “Aren’t you hungry?” Shelley asked me. “No. I usually just go to sleep and that takes care of it,” I responded. But then someone suggested we check out the newish 24-hour bistro down the street on Olive, Mode.

Well, of course I had to check that out. I read about it just about everywhere — about it as Fashion District venue and then about its opening days’ struggles. So I dragged my tired ass on down the street. ‘Cept I thought it best we drive the couple of blocks since the neighborhood was getting sketchier by the minute.

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You’re exhausted, aren’t you? All that running around, looking for the perfect prezzie, fighting off other grouchy drivers for a measly parking spot and just swimming up stream through the crowds at the mall to get to that one store. But, yay! the holiday shopping madness is finally over. Now it’s time to take care of you with a holiday pedicure at one of the best nail salons in Los Angeles.

Bellacures, home of the $10 mini mani, is offering a special Cranberry Harvest Pedicure ($65, for 45-60 minutes) where your tootsies are treated to a homemade cranberry scrub and then covered with a foot mask. Also you get callus treatment and cranberry moisturizing lotion application in addition to cuticle care, nail shaping and a 10-minute massage.

And to help you sink further into your plush suede chair, they’ll present you with a complimentary cranberry cosmo. Niiice! This special only runs through the end of December so make your appointments asap.

Damn! I wish I was back in L.A. right now.

Bellacures
239 North Robertson Boulevard
Beverly Hills, California 90211 (map)
(310) 550-5822

Since my bro and I are up in NorCal staying with our parents, we are bored out of our minds. So I thought an interesting way to pass the time would be to get loaded off absinthe since I haven’t had a chance yet to explore the bars in our area, and staying in and playing drunken Wii bowling sounds more fun (and safer) than a night at the local Pine Cove Tavern anyway.

Thanks to an awesome LAist post detailing the different brands of absinthe available at BevMo, all bottles of the stuff are sold out at the WeHo BevMo. But not so at the Elk Grove location! Woo!

So I picked up a bottle of Kubler’s Swiss Absinthe Superiere ($53.99) and something called La Verte Muse Pastis ($32.99) for good measure (although we later discovered this isn’t absinthe). Problem is, having never drank the stuff and researching it online, I found out that it tastes like licorice. Blech! I hate licorice, well, black licorice.

So I needed to find a cocktail recipe to mask that flavor somewhat since drinking a straight shot or the classic drip way was out of the question. However, since my dad’s bar doesn’t contain stuff like Angostura bitters, Chartreuse, grenadine or mixers for that matter, it had to be a simple recipe. And I didn’t want anything overly sweet like those cocktails containing Baileys or anything with vodka or Red Bull.

Fortunately I was able to find the following cocktail recipes. Perfect for those who only have their parents’ limited bar selection to work with this holiday or those too lazy to do yet another run to BevMo.

Recipes after the jump.

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I already wrote about Taste on Melrose last year, but last night’s experience called for another writeup. I picked Taste as the restaurant where I wanted to celebrate my and my bf’s one-year anniversary since I lovvved the food and I didn’t want anything too scene-y. It’s a low-key neighborhood restaurant even though it’s located across the street from the tres scene-y Comme Ca. Dress code is casual and the vibe was mellow. Perfect for a quiet evening out.

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Last night’s Holiday Tingly Mingly at Seven Grand was so effin’ awesome and thanks to all the crackheads who braved a Wednesday night for the $5 drink specials and to meet other midweek revelers and me. I don’t know about you but I had so much fun and I hope you did, too. For those of you who introduced yourselves, it was so cool to meet you and thanks for coming and even for continuing to read my blog. We definitely have to hang out again soon.

Thanks to Metromix, Going.com, Yelp and LAist for calling out the party as their pick. I think that contributed immensely to the crowd that showed up.

A huge-ass thanks to the boys at Seven Grand for making the evening so special. They went above and beyond, making table toppers for the drink specials, welcoming the crackheads with open arms and cocktail shakers and keeping the crowd very merry indeed.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the smoking patio with folks toting their own Cubans out there. I took advantage of the jukebox, playing some Christmas songs by my faves Elvis and Sinatra, before the jazzy live band took over at 10. And people drank and drank. Usually Wednesdays are ladies night at Seven Grand with a decent crowd but Aidan, the bar’s general manager, noted that it was indeed a lot busier than usual last night. I’d like to think we had something to do with that.

Anyway, happy holidays, people, thanks for making it happen. Here’s to an exciting new year.

Click here for more pics of the party.

OK, it’s not here yet. Sorry, didn’t mean to make your heart stop. But everyone’s got their own special ways to deal with the holidays, whether it’s hitting a funky not-so-secret party or volunteering at the Midnight Mission. If you don’t have any ideas of what to do, here are some.

Friday, December 21

Root Down’s 10-Year Anniversary Party
Ooh, a 10-year anniversary party at a secret location? Sounds very. Root Down, a weekly dance party, is celebrating its decade of funkalicious existence with Maseo of De La Soul, Rhettmatic of Beat Junkies as well as DJs Miles, Loslito, Sloe Poke and Expo. With this mix of underground soul, funk and Latin music, you probably won’t pause long enough from your dancing to enjoy the live art performances.

• $20/$14 advance. 10pm. Shuttle leaves for secret location from 1st & Central, Downtown (map).

Saturday, December 22

Free Showing of A Christmas Story
For the few of you out there who are wholesome enough to be up early on a Saturday morning, there’s an equally free wholesome Christmas movie playing in Pasadena. Remember A Christmas Story? And after the screening there will be a holiday concert in Vroman’s adjoining outdoor courtyard with special treats for you crazy early birds.

• 10am. Laemmle Playhouse 7 Theaters, 673 E. Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena (map). (626) 744-0340.

Die Hard and Bad Santa at the Aero Theatre
OMG, two of my fave Christmas movies ever! A great double feature especially if you’re sick of all this sugary holiday goodness. But beware, you might find yourself shedding a tear during these flicks. That curly-haired, snot-nosed kid in Bad Santa just kills me. I’m tearing up just thinking of that pickle.

• $10. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica (map).

It’s a Charlie Brown Christmas: The Music of Vince Guaraldi at Pasadena Jazz Institute
Was just watching this whilst making Christmas cookies this past week and it honestly didn’t really feel like Christmas until I heard that song “Christmas Time is Here.” It may not be snowing outside but you can still enjoy these jazzy holiday classics. Before the show, maybe warm up by stopping by Bodega Wine Bar for a glass of vino.

• $25 ($12.50 through Goldstar). 10:30pm. Pasadena Jazz Institute, 260 E. Colorado Boulevard, Suite 206, Pasadena (map). (626) 398-3344.

Monday, December 24

Volunteer to Help Set Up Santa’s Village for Midnight Mission
Wanna grow your heart three sizes larger? Bring Christmas to the less fortunate by setting up Santa’s Village. The Midnight Mission is looking for a lot of volunteers to help with decorations, stocking of shelves, food bag assembly and toy sorting.

• 8am-5pm. 601 S. San Pedro Street, Los Angeles (map).

Hey midweek party people!

My holiday drinkfest is tomorrow and I just wanted to refresh your memory that you and yours are invited to join me and mine at Seven Grand for some serious merrymaking.

This isn’t a party for those who only work for the weekends or peeps who think downtown is too far or even those afraid of a little rain. Nope, this is for the hard-core. And I want to shake your hand. It’s hard finding likeminded souls.

As a reward, there will be $5 drink specials, in addition to the $4 Makers specials for the ladies. We’ll have the satellite jukebox til 10 and that’s when the live band starts. So grab your buddies and join me on the smoking patio for a cigar or under the deer heads for a whiskey or by the pool tables for a game. Oh yes, you will tingle and you will mingle.

See you there!

Caroline on Crack

EVENT: TOMORROW, DECEMBER 19 at 8:30pm

Seven Grand
515 W 7th Street, 2nd Floor
Los Angeles, California 90014 (map)
(213) 817-5321

The Knife asked me (and a bunch of other foodies, bloggers, etc.) who and what I thought made up great food in Los Angeles. Just a couple of choices with a few words as to why I thought so. She’s going to create a voter poll at the end for people to choose their faves. Anyhoo, here’s what I said. I’m a simple girl. Now, if she had asked me for what bars I thought made up great drinks in L.A. that would have been a much longer and detailed list. Heh.

Meltdown Etc. This is genius. Campanile is famous for its grilled cheese sandwich nights and Meltdown is a whole eatery dedicated to the grilled cheese sandwich. Absolute faves include the Classic 3 Cheese with Ham and the cheddar, ham and apple-butter sandwiches.

Boule Atelier. Gotta love the delectable macarons, plus I think I’m over cupcakes and this offers a satisfyingly cute and tasty alternative.

Milk. The ice cream by itself is meh but, damn, that coffee toffee ice cream sandwich is to die for. And I especially love the double-chocolate croissant pudding with its Jack Daniels sauce and side of vanilla ice cream.

The Wine House. Awesome selection, helpful staff and you gotta love that wine sampling room (a la Vinum Populi) where you can sample from more than 32 wines, depending on how much you put on your pay card.

Wally’s Wine & Spirits. If only for the whiskey/bourbon/Scotch aisle, where employee Max was more than happy to tell me why I should stop drinking Jameson and start drinking the good stuff. They’re a lot smaller than the Wine House, so you’re sure to get help from someone who can spend a lot of time with you to help you decide.

Remember Simon LA’s infamous dessert platter with that big pile of cotton candy that looked taller than Marge Simpson’s hair and that set off a thousand similar dessert platters at other happening eateries? Well, special for the holidays is this fantastic pleasure platter of Christmas goodies that’s sure to put you off sweets for a year.

Making it extra festive, you now get cute gingerbread men, peppermint cupcakes, candy canes and snow balls. But don’t go into that insulin shock just yet, you also still get the chocolate and regular Rice Krispie treats, doughnuts, caramel corn, ice cream sundae, vanilla milkshake and that huge head of cotton candy for good measure.

This platter feeds the entire table (four sugar fiends easily) for $25 OR you can get a smaller platter meant for a cozy twosome for $10. Sweet! I say go here before you hit the Beverly Center so that you are sufficiently amped up to contend with the holiday shoppers scrambling for last-minute gifts.

Simon LA in Sofitel Hotel
8555 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, California 90048 (map)
For reservations, click here.

Warning: Minor spoilers to follow (in italics)….

The credits were rolling when I turned to my friend dotsara and she said, “I don’t ever want to see that movie again.” This surprised me because 1) I thought I Am Legend was actually pretty good and 2) because when she got to the end of her sentence, her voice cracked. She was crying. But I understood why. This movie about being the last man on earth was very stressful and at the end of it you just wanted a release from the never-ending onslaught of cannibalistic night seekers, loneliness and even more loneliness. Ugh! Too much tension!

I didn’t cry at the end, at least not right at the end…. But I did cry a couple of times during…and almost after the movie during lunch, all because of that damn Will Smith. He is a pretty good actor! When it comes down to it, forget Men in Black, Independence Day or The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Underestimating him will just catch you unawares.

Here, he demonstrated the subtleties of character that a person in his position would display. And that really surprised me. Because how do you emote what it feels like to be the last person on earth when everyone you care about is gone and every night for three years you have to evade these creatures who just want to eat you? What sort of reference point do you pull from?

Anyway, the two parts that made me cry were when Will (playing virologist/soldier/last man on earth Robert Neville) had to pull an Old Yeller move on the only friend he had left in the world, his dog Sam, because she got infected, and then when he cracked under the weight of that ensuing loneliness and pleaded with a mannequin to please just say hello to him. Awww. I’m tearing up now just thinking about it. OK, you had to be there. But you could feel his deep-seated grief just by watching his face.

One of the great things about this movie is that it gave the audience credit for being able to figure things out for ourselves. Surprising for a blockbuster with explosions, CGI special effects and, I have to say it, Will Smith. Instead of spelling it out for us through some convenient flashbacks or some character dialog, though, a lot of it had to be culled from Will’s reactions, the post-apocalyptic scenery and the one flashback.

By doing so, you left the movie theater haunted by what you saw; still thinking about it and replaying certain parts in your head to figure it out. I love that! Make sure to see this movie with a friend so that you have someone to talk to about it after. And you will want to talk about it as therapy.

Another thing I liked about it was that the zombies were in fact CGI. Something that would normally bug me. But for some reason that made those guys bearable to watch as opposed to real actors portraying the dead as in 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead. Of course I’m just saying this because I’m wussing out and real actors would have been too scary for me to watch. These computer-generated zombies weren’t as chilling as Romero’s dead but they were still disturbing enough to behold.

That one scene when Will ran into a dark building looking for his dog and just ended up running into a hive of the night seekers was bone chilling. The darkness, the one light to show the way, his erratic breathing and then seeing a bunch of them just standing around facing each other… can anyone tell me what they were doing? They were just standing around and at this point I was plugging my ears and hiding behind my hair so I couldn’t really tell what was going on. I thought maybe they were eating the dog but turned out that wasn’t it.

While this may not be a classic for the ages or a textbook example of what is great cinema, this is a helluva an entertaining way to pass the time when you’re stuck at your childhood home during the holidays.

Fans of previous versions of the story may not be crazy about it but I, fan of zombie movies and nightmarer of post-apocalyptic worlds, just loved it. And although Dotsara may never watch it again, I think I’ll just have to make my bf see it with me next.

PS: Click here for NY Times’ fascinating Anatomy of a Scene about the opening sequence of the movie.