If you’re like us, you’ve probably wondered what everyday stuff famous people add to their carts — like hair spray or an electric toothbrush. We asked actor and author Kate McKinnon — whose book The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science came out this month — about the backpack, espresso-maker, and heirloom seeds she can’t live without.
This is a small stovetop espresso machine that was introduced to me by my best friend, Alexandra Carillo-Vaccino, who is obsessed with Italian things and sort of homespun, natural ways of doing things. When I use it, I feel like I am using a camping stove or something. It’s like I’m in the 1940s and only making what I need, and doing it in a way that takes a lot of time and effort. So I really cherish the little splash of espresso that comes out. It’s actually more than a little splash; it’s probably two shots of espresso. But there’s something about the tactile nature of it: just water, fire, and coffee beans ground to a fine powder, and then, a minute later, there you are.
These headphones are over-the-ear, corded headphones. I will not wear another type of headphone. Cordless headphones give me the heebs — the heebie-jeebies. And, anyway, I cannot wear earbuds because they fall out. I guess I have big ear-cavity holes. These stay on my ears and you can’t even pull them off. When I’m jogging and I’m bouncing, they stay right there. When I was working at SNL, Mikey Day would say, “Oh, Kate, how are your Rite Aid Comfies today?” Rite Aid Comfies is not a real brand, but if there was such a thing, it would be these headphones. To me, they’re the greatest headphones in the world. About five years ago, I bought like ten pairs of them, like Elaine Benes with her sponges. When the ten have been used up and fried to a crisp, I will not know what to do with myself. Hopefully, I’ll be dead at that point. I want to say I have seven pairs left.
I changed a lot over the pandemic, and now I’m made of gardening and carpentry. And I became obsessed with all things Victorian, which is sort of like what inspired the book that I’ve written. It’s also what inspired my love of Victorian molding and window trim, and so I have begun making and installing my own window trim. My work is riddled with mistakes, but I’ve never been prouder of anything in my life. I didn’t want to bother with an air compressor, so I got myself this battery-powered, 16-gauge nail gun to install the trim. With a pneumatic nail gun, there’s a loud pop, but not with a nice battery-powered finish nail gun — no muss, no fuss.
There are so many middle-grade books that I adore and that have been informative to me in terms of voice and tone and the possibility of the genre. But the one I have read the most, that I read a few times a year, whenever I need to calm myself, is Wise Child, by Monica Furlong. It’s about a girl in, I want to say, 12th-century rural Scotland, who is orphaned and who gets taken in by the town witch, though they don’t call her a witch. She’s more of a shaman-type figure; she does a lot of herbal healing and stuff like that, and most of the book is just this little girl learning how to dry herbs. It’s just beautiful descriptions of this Scottish cottage and all of the herbs they’re drying, and I’m like, Oh, God, take me there. All of my homesteading fantasies are realized and all the themes about having the thing that’s different about you be the thing that’s going to help the world around you are realized in this one book. So I just read it and luxuriate in the images of gardening, basically. I am so relaxed reading it.
Every year, I go on the Hudson Valley Seed Co. website and choose my seeds for the year. They are a great and local-to-me purveyor of heirloom seeds of an infinite variety of fruit and veg. If you grow food, you always want to try new heirloom varieties of stuff that you can’t get at the grocery store, and that has become one of the greatest parts of my life, eating from a garden in the backyard. There’s an Asian mustard green called komatsuna. I threw these things on the ground, and they are two feet high within a week. Not really, but they grow like weeds. It’s a beautiful, tender mustard green, and that’s breakfast. That and some chickpeas, hello!? What else do you need?
A typical dinner would be some of the aforementioned greens and this brown-rice pasta, which I find has just the best, chewiest texture. I like it better than any regular white-flour pasta. I’m not going to denigrate anybody, and, to be fair, I have not systematically gone down the list of all non-white-flour pastas. I sort of happened upon this one, I loved it, and I’ve been a loyalist ever since.
I don’t actually know how to use an Instant Pot, but this one is an Instant Pot and pressure cooker. I make a pot of beans at the beginning of every week. I’m really coming across as like, wow, something else. Anyway, I make a big pot of beans, and I was distressed that they were taking so long on the stovetop, and that I was going through so much propane, so much energy to cook these beans. So, I sprung for this pressure cooker, which will get her done in 30 minutes. And they’re perfect, and I think it’s a wonderful invention. I start with dried beans and soak them overnight. You don’t have to, not with the Instant Pot, but it improves the texture. Then I pop them in there with water to cover, press a button, come back an hour later, and there are your beans for the week.
I don’t own a purse, and I don’t know what kind of bag to carry in a formal setting. I still haven’t figured that out 40 years later. But in a casual setting, you can’t beat a backpack. I got mine at Staples, and it is flawless. I don’t quite understand the principle of not distributing the weight of your belongings on both shoulders. I think if it were socially acceptable for everyone to carry a backpack in all situations, it would help our world. Mine is black. It’s not embroidered or anything. It’s just a sack, a beautifully designed sack.
Life starts at the feet, and you need a good foundation. The trick is to get a 35-pack of these socks. I don’t think you can actually buy 35 of them, but you get enough so you always have socks. And those socks will always be thick and delicious. I like ankle socks that come above the ankle because I can’t mess with the sock falling into the shoe. I don’t have time for that. I don’t think anyone does in this day and age. This sock comes over the ankle bone. It has good support, and it’s an attractive sock. It’s not thin, not bulky, just perfect.
I’ve been looking for a baseball hat or trucker-style hat for my entire life. This was purchased for me by a dear friend at the Tractor Supply Company when it was widely available at Tractor Supply Company. Then, maybe, they discontinued it. It’s pronounced “coop queen,” like a chicken coop. Anyway, I put it on and I thought, This is my new personality, this hat. Then, I was on a trolley in New Orleans with my mother and my sister, and the hat blew off my head onto the trolley tracks, and I couldn’t get it; it was gone. I said, “Oh my God, my personality is gone.” So my mom said, “I’ll get you another one,” and she had to go on eBay to get it for me. It’s meaningful that my mother gave me my hat back. I don’t have the room for chickens at this point, but it is a life goal of mine, chickens and a pet goat.
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