“I’m a Los Angeles native and professionally I’ve always stuck around,” says Betty, who is a former columnist for the Los Angeles Times. She has written several books on her hometown including L.A. Inside Out: The Architecture and Interiors of America’s Most Colorful City, Hollywood du Jour: Lost Recipes of Legendary Hollywood Haunts and Chasen’s: Where Hollywood Dined, Recipes and Memories.

Betty’s Superlatives:

Most Memorable Trip(s): After my son was born, my travel became limited to mostly family trips. I’m not a “Hawaii person” and I’m not at all outdoorsy (unless it means sitting on a beautiful restaurant patio), so my family’s idea of adventure is going to New York, which we do twice a year to meet up with another family. There are places the children like to go, places my husband likes to go, and I have mine, but the one activity we all adore is going to Broadway musicals. We always go to matinees, and we usually have lunch first at Trattoria dell’Arte, within walking distance of the theaters. The adults go for the extensive antipasti bar and the children order pasta or pizza. On the weekends, there’s always a basket of wonderful pastries on the table and sometimes the host brings around fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, still hot on the baking pan. There’s always a dish of chocolate candies on the way out. After the show, even in the freezing cold, the children insist we wait at the stage door for the stars to autograph their Playbills. Then we walk back to our hotel, no matter how far away it is and no matter what the weather is like.