When I video-call Lisa Ann Walter, she’s in the middle of making a banana cake to serve alongside the curry she’ll soon prepare for Sunday dinner, a standing tradition at her house.
“Very regularly, there’s a rotation of something with red sauce,” Walter says of her menu. “Sunday red sauce is Nana’s recipe, it’s tradition. It just really moves me when my kids come to the house and as soon as they open the door, they’re like, ‘Ah, it smells like Sunday.’”
For the actor, comic and mother of four, this is her “favorite day of the week,” a day when she can watch NFL football and run errands and spend time with “whichever kids are are in town.” And it’s a brief respite from work — she plays street-smart second-grade teacher Melissa Schemmenti on ABC’s “Abbott Elementary” and is currently on tour performing her comedy show. Here’s a play-by-play of her ideal day in L.A.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
7 a.m.: ’Sleep in’
When stand-up was my main job, I was getting in from gigs in Manhattan at 4 in the morning. I had [young] kids so I would wake up early but then I would take a nap all afternoon. Since doing a TV show where I’m generally in the chair at Warner Bros. by 5 in the morning, I sleep in a little bit, but I’m usually up by 7, maybe 8. I’ve always been a nighttime person, even when I was a kid. I would be late for school so often. It would drive my mother crazy.
7:15 a.m.: Get up with a cup of joe
Every single day starts with an entire pot of Starbucks decaf espresso. I love drinking coffee, I love the taste of it. Even when I was a little kid, coffee ice cream was my preferred flavor. And I [take it] black, I don’t even put cream and sugar in it. If I do, it’s like dessert. I drink a lot of it because I like to keep drinking something [throughout the day] and I don’t like water. I just don’t like it. L.A. people drink a lot of water. I don’t like it.
10 a.m.: It’s game time
If the NFL is in season, then I am parked in front of the TV. [L.A. is] an industry town that brings in people from all over the country, so when people come here, they don’t quit their team. If I don’t root for Washington or Philly, I’ll root for the Rams. I love the Rams. There were like three or four places that I would go, [including] Barney’s Beanery and Black Dog Coffee, where they knew that because I’m from D.C., [they] had to put whatever the Washington team was called in front of me and then I’d be happy. But a lot of places don’t open until 10 a.m., so I just got the NFL [streaming] package and then Stan — William Stanford Davis, who plays Mr. Johnson on the show — will come up and watch with me. That gives me an excuse to cook. I’ll make a big spread for watching the game.
If we’re doing a second game for the day, my friends, the Chiklises, are also huge sports addicts. I’ll pick up Boneyard Bistro and bring it over there, or they’ll order out and get it, and we’ll watch the second game. They usually have big football watching parties with lots of people over. I just have Stan.
1:05 p.m.: On to game No. 2
If I’m at So-Fi, I go make a stop at Randy’s because I love doughnuts. I think L.A. is really good at two things that other places don’t do as well: One is doughnuts and the other is hamburgers. I think L.A. has the best hamburgers of anywhere. In fact, I’ve made a study now of all the you’ve-got-to-try [burgers]. Like, “Oh, you didn’t try Burger She Wrote?” There’s always a new smashburger out.
But I never veer off Randy’s Donuts. They’re the best. Once, when I went to So-Fi for the game, I brought a big box of Randy’s and all the security guards saw it and were like “Can I have one?” Randy’s doughnuts just speak to people. I don’t know whether it’s the giant doughnut, I don’t know what it is. It’s an L.A. thing.
3 p.m.: Head to the Korean spa
If there’s no game, it’s usually something with the family. Either we’ll all go to an escape room, which I love, or if I’ve got my girls with me, I’ll go to the Hugh Spa. Hugh Spa is my go-to Korean spa. I dragged Sheryl Lee Ralph there one time.
When I first went to a Korean spa, it was the giant one, the Wi Spa. And I was like, “This is wild.” Like there’s whole families hanging out up here having a bibimbap. People are spa-ing it up and the whole place smells like Korean food.
I like Hugh Spa because it’s only women. So I feel comfortable going from sauna to ice room to clay pit and into the robe. Everybody’s got their clothes off. It’s fine, it’s not weird. And the spa is just as good, it’s just not as massive. It’s great services, great people.
If I’m going to go to the spa, it’s usually going to be in the late afternoon. Because you don’t want to put makeup back on. Your hair is all good, you just feel like your face is shiny and clean. They have weird masks that they use there like “snail trail.” I always get a weird mask when I go. When else am I going to get a Korean snail trail mask? Nowhere else but here. You just go late enough so that you go home, have dinner and go to bed. That’s when I like to do it.
5 p.m.: The event that is Sunday dinner
Dinner might be chicken Marsala, it might be a roast, it might be curry. I like to cook everything, I don’t care.
I just talked to someone the other night who was saying that they make sauce in their grandmother’s Revere Ware pot. They brought it out to L.A. with them. Back in the day, they used to sell it piece by piece, door to door, and this week, you bought the saucepot, and next week you bought the frying pan because all people could afford was one at a time. So my Nana got two of these saucepots. My mother got one of them. She gave it to me because I became the cook when I was 13, and I still have it to this day.
8 p.m.: Get competitive at family game night
When the kids are over, our favorite game, the one that we default to, is Cards Against Humanity. It’s always a good time. At one point, somebody gave a really, really gross answer and one of the twins jumped off the table and was like, “I hate this family.” It’s something we laugh at to this day. It was hysterical. And there was nothing like my mother playing that game because she would always try to pull [inappropriate cards]. So we would just laugh.
10 p.m.: Wind down
Once everybody leaves and the kids are gone or back to gaming or whatever they’re doing, my ex-husband, who’s over every week, usually spends the night on Sunday. And we’ll put on the taped “90 Day Fiance.” Sometimes I fall asleep in the chair, depending on how long my days have been, but I usually try to watch that and go to bed in enough time to get at least five hours of sleep. So usually by midnight. And then it’s in the chair by 5 a.m. the next day.
