Kyle MacLachlan Is Trying to Quit Dairy, But Still Loves a Damn Fine Cappuccino

The actor talked to us about his breakfast routine

June 27, 2012

Welcome to My Morning Routine, where we take a look at how people kick-start the day. In the first few installments, we focused on Bon Appétit staffers. Now we move into the wide world of everyone else (and by that we mean celebrities).

Kyle MacLachlan has lent his acting chops (and his amazing chin) to shows like Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, and Twin Peaks, where he made his name as a lover of good (and hot!) coffee. This fall, he'll be playing Donovan Stark in a new CBS legal drama called Made in Jersey. We don't yet know who Donovan Stark is, but he sounds like a real shark. In the meantime, he's traveling from his home in New York to Walla Walla, WA, to work on his Pursued By Bear wines. And by "work," we mean "taste," since spring release time just passed. For what else he's tasting right now, check out his morning routine. --Julia Bainbridge and Sam Dean

The morning is usually dictated by Callum. He's three and a half, and he's my alarm clock. He wakes up and crawls into my bed around 7:00 AM, and we snuggle for a few minutes. But then he says, "Daddy, it's time to get up," so I get out of bed and the first thing I do is I make some coffee.

There's a roastery that I found in Walla Walla, right next to where I make my wine, called the Walla Walla Roastery. They do small batch roasts--I love it! So I'll either do espresso--just neat espresso, double shot--or grind and brew straight black coffee. I'm pretty meticulous about it.

Then I focus on breakfast for Callum. There's a list of about six things. Cheerios: I try to mix the Honey Nut with the regular, because there's a little bit of sugar on the Honey Nut. (He likes to pour his own milk in, so he'll do that.) Yogurt: Fage yogurt with honey. Fruit: Cantaloupe, or a banana with an apple on a toothpick--kind of a fruit popsicle. And he loves cinnamon toast. Or I'll do toast with scrambled eggs--I start with unsalted butter and minced shallot and then add the eggs. And then there's French toast with a little bit of vanilla. He also loves pancakes.

While we're doing that, I'll probably have oatmeal. I throw raisins in and then maybe a bit of rice milk. I usually put [cow's] milk in, but I'm trying a non-dairy approach as much as I can. I mean, I still buy cheese every now and then. I have a really nice cappuccino machine at home and I used to make cappuccinos a lot, but I'm in the middle of that non-dairy experiment right now.

At about 8:30 AM, we leave for nursery school. We take the route that goes past this huge cylindrical aquarium so we can stop and see all the fish. We're learning each others' personalities now: one fish likes to play hide and seek, one fish likes to be at the bottom, one fish is always in the same spot every day.

Then we continue on to school. By the time I drop him off, I'm ready for another coffee, so if the line's not too long, I swing into the Ace Hotel for a Stumptown double espresso. One day a week I'll have a cappuccino--so I'm not militant about the non-dairy. I was trying to just lessen my milk consumption to see how it goes. In two weeks I'll probably be back to drinking cappuccinos.

When I'm filming I just do coffee in the morning. And then, of course, the battle of the day is to stay away from the [craft services] table, or at least just go and eat the vegetables, but it's not easy.

The pilot that I just shot, Baby Big Shot [now called Made in Jersey, it will air this fall on CBS], was actually in New York. It's great to be here. My wife has a company here, my son goes to school here. Plus, filming in New York is just so much fun.

--Interview by Matt Duckor