HAPPY NUDE YEAR!
The surest way to have a fun New Year’s Eve is to keep festivities close to home. Duane Park restaurant has become quite the hotspot lately—with burlesque nights, opera nights, etc.—so its New Year’s party has the potential to be highly memorable. The restaurant will be serving a special menu à la carte from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and as a $75 prix fixe from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. There will be a performance by the Brian Newman Jazz Trio and ” a bevy of beautiful burlesque dancers” (the picture at right gives you an idea). ••• Trattoria Cinque, meanwhile, is offering a $100 four-course menu for $100; a DJ spins from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. The restaurant will also be open for brunch the next day.

YOU DIG?
There’s not a lot of note on this month’s agendas for the various CB1 committees, except this, for the Tribeca committee meeting: “Chambers Street Water Main Project, Presentation by New York State Department of Transportation.” Sounds like bad news. The Tribeca committee meeting is Wednesday, Jan. 13, at 6:30 p.m.

MMM, PIZZA
I’m not generally a New Year’s resolution kind of guy, but I could stand to learn a bit more about which wines go with pizza, so I’ll be attending New York Vintners‘ upcoming class on Pizza and the Wines That Love It. That’s just one of many educational opportunities offered by the shop—if you’ve only ever looked through the window, you might not have realized that there’s a large kitchen/classroom/event space behind the partition. Those who don’t care which wines pair best with pizza—just pass the bottle already—might be more interested in classes on sparkling wine, sake (and how it can go well with cheese, Mediterranean flavors, and Asian tapas), or soup and winter wines, just to name a few. The full slate is at newyorkvintners.com.

WRITERS, WRITERS EVERYWHERE
Common-sense food guru Michael Pollan reads from his new book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual—boy, that sounds fun—at Barnes & Noble Tribeca at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 5. ••• The writers-with-kids group Pen Parentis is having its next reading from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 12.; the featured authors are Yona Zeldis McDonough and Ellen Umansky. It’s at the Libertine Library at Gild Hall, which is just two blocks south of Fulton, and while that might sound otherwise, it’s a bar. After all, parents and writers are two groups that could generally use a drink. (Above: Author Arthur Phillips—say it again, faster!—at a previous Pen Parentis event.)