Yakima-born actor Kyle MacLachlan latest guest on ‘Your Last Meal’ podcast

Actor Kyle MacLachlan is best known for his roles on Twin Peaks, Portlandia, Sex and the City and his very first film role, Dune, but he’s also a winemaker. MacLachlan lives in New York City and Los Angeles, but he grew up in Yakima and went to school at the University of Washington. Decades into his career, fully in love with the world of wine, he chose Walla Walla as the home of his winery, Pursued By Bear.

“It’s the wild west, probably what Napa was like back in the 60s or 70s,” MacLachlan said. “I will say it’s developing really quickly, very rapidly. We have over 900 wineries now. The whole scene really started in ’77 with a winery named Leonetti. It’s a really up and coming, growing, exciting region that still feels fresh and alive and vibrant. That’s what I like.”

MacLachlan loves to cook, but he hates food waste and enjoys the challenge of repurposing leftovers into delicious second night meals.

“Guess it’s the influence of my grandparents. They were recyclers even back, wow, I remember in the ’60s they were doing this. And they weren’t hippies by any means, they were very conservative. But for some reason they have a frugal side to them. They had a compost heap in their backyard in Spokane and they would compost and things I didn’t really understand at the time but makes sense to me now. But yeah, I’m all about that.”

MacLachlan is the latest guest on my podcast, Your Last Meal. Each episode, I look into the history, culture and science behind the foods that celebrities love most. Inspired by MacLachlan’s love of turning fridge scraps into tasty meals, I interviewed Seattle cookbook author Jill Lightner whose latest book is Scraps, Peels and stems: Recipes and Tips for Rethinking Food Waste at Home.

Lightner teaches readers how to turn potato peels into crunchy, salty chips and apple peels, often discarded during pie making, are given new life as apple tea or apple cider vinegar. But the most mind bending hack of all is baking with aquafaba, the goopy liquid we usually drain out of a can of beans.

“Basically every can of beans you buy comes with a free egg,” said Lightner. “It’s so cool! It’s the cooking liquid from any kind of canned beans. So you whip it, a stand mixer is the easiest way to do it. You whip a couple tablespoons of the goo and it puffs up in your mixer like meringue. I’ve made waffles, I’ve made all kinds of different cakes and cookies. There’s a gingerbread molasses loaf in the book that uses black bean aquafaba. It just adds this earthiness that works really well with the molasses and the spices. I’m a cheapskate, I love that every can of beans I buy has a free egg.”

It’s also a life changing substitute for dessert lovers with egg allergies.

Lightner also touches on the topic of food waste.

“Everybody has a family member who is obsessive over best buy dates on packages. Those are completely made up. There’s finally starting to be some shifts in this where even the FDA is like, ‘Well, actually, we’ve kind of gotten out of control.’ The only food that has to have a best buy date is baby formula. But all of those canned goods? It’s a quality issue. It’s never going to make you sick because it’s past its date; it just might not taste as good.”

For so much more with Kyle MacLachlan and Jill Lightner, not to mention a segment about Peter Luger Steakhouse, the iconic 132 year old Brooklyn restaurant, listen to Your Last Meal on Apple podcasts, Stitcher or at yourlastmealpodcast.com

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