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The hottest cooking show isn’t on the Food Network. It’s on Jennifer Garner’s Instagram feed. If you haven’t caught her ongoing Reel series, “The Pretend Cooking Show,” yet, tune in and you’ll realize the 13 Going on 30 actor knows her way around a kitchen. Her latest endeavors have included peppermint bark ice cream, fresh zucchini noodles with Marcella Hazan’s three-ingredient sauce, and Sarabeth’s Cloud cookies, and each recipe called for a slew of tools, gadgets, and attachments. So what are the cooking staples she keeps at the ready? We recently caught up with Garner, an ambassador for KitchenAid, to find out. 

The Tool I’d Gift This Season

handheld vacuum
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KitchenAid Go Cordless Kitchen Vacuum (battery included), Target ($90)

This isn’t only nice, it’s you-should-have-it-before-a-dishwasher. It literally fits in a deep drawer. You know when you’ve been baking and you get flour on the counter and wipe it up with your sponge and your sponge is all goopy? This takes it out. You will use it 100,000 times. It’s the perfect thing to put under the tree. 

The Tool I Use the Most 

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KitchenAid 7 Quart Bowl-Lift Stand Mixer, Contour Silver, Amazon ($500)

Growing up, you watch Martha Stewart and, of course, the Barefoot Contessa, and you see them casually flipping on their KitchenAid stand mixers. It was a real rite of passage for me to have a stand mixer. I would say five out of seven days something happens in the stand mixer. We use it for so many different things. We use it if I’m making chicken taquitos for dinner (while the chicken breast is still hot, I don’t want to use my fingers to pull it apart, so I will put it in the mixer with the paddle and it tears it apart for me).

The One-Use Tool I Actually Find Useful

garlic press
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KitchenAid Classic Garlic Press, Amazon ($12)

I really do prefer cutting up garlic with a garlic press. I’m not great with a knife. I use it religiously.