“We’ll be gone all of December, including Christmas”

EMILY: Your father and I are going out of town the next day and we’ll be gone all of December, including Christmas, so it’s the last chance for the family to be together for the rest of the year.

Emily and Richard supposedly throw a dinner party two weeks before Christmas every year, before they leave for their winter vacation. They seem to have cancelled it this year, leaving for their vacation straight after Thanksgiving, so perhaps they are in bad moods over the Yale incident as well.

It seemed as this annual never-to-be-changed tradition was cancelled the year before as well, because Richard was in a mood over his forced retirement, so perhaps this tradition isn’t a tradition any more? Richard had to be rushed to hospital during the Christmas party of 2000, and it’s possible that put them off holding another one.

“You’ve missed two dinners”

EMILY: Yes, it is Thanksgiving. And before you sift through the dozen or so excuses you always have on hand, let me have my say. You’ve missed two dinners and avoided my calls because you’re mad at us about what happened at Yale. But I want you and Rory at Thanksgiving this year.

We learn that this episode takes place more than two weeks after “Let the Games Begin”, and that Lorelai has been so angry with Richard over the Yale interview that she has refused to attend two Friday Night Dinners in a row.

Because Emily says, “I want you and Rory at Thanksgiving this year”, it implies that they don’t usually go to Thanksgiving dinner with Lorelai’s parents. The episode strongly implies that they usually spend Thanksgiving in Stars Hollow, dividing their time between Lane’s, Sookie’s, and Luke’s.

“Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving”

EMILY: Well, I certainly hope you’re feeling better now because I want you to come to dinner tomorrow night.

LORELAI: Tomorrow? Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving.

In 2002, Thanksgiving Day was on Thursday 28 November – very close to the original episode broadcast date of 26 November.

There has actually been far too many events for them to have all occurred before the end of November, and by my reckoning it’s almost Christmas. But we’re in TV Land here, where the timeline can be stretched a long way.

“I’ve never heard you mention allergies before”

LORELAI: I’m still . . . uh, these allergies really just hit me like a ton of bricks.

EMILY: I’ve never heard you mention allergies before.

In a future season, Lorelai needs allergy medication, and has old packets stored at home, so it seems that she really does suffer from allergies (even if she’s making it up right now). Or they changed it so that Lorelai actually has allergies.

Dan Rather

SOOKIE: They still say, ‘And now the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather.’ You see? Dan is still associated with it even though he’s off snorkeling or something, just like I’m gonna be associated with the dinner because Bob is substituting for Sookie.

Daniel “Dan” Rather (born 1931), journalist, commentator, and former national evening news anchor. Rather became a national name after his reporting saved thousands of lives during Hurricane Carla in 1961, creating the first radar weather report, and helping to initiate the successful evacuation of 350,000 people.

Rather reported on some of the most significant events of the modern age, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf war, 9/11, the second Iraq war, and the war on terror. He famously reported from Dallas at the time of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. He was promoted at CBS News, where he served as White House correspondent beginning in 1964. He covered the presidency of Richard Nixon, including the Watergate scandal, and the president’s resignation.

In 1981, Rather was promoted to news anchor for the CBS Evening News, a role he occupied for 24 years. Along with Peter Jennings at ABC News and Tom Brokaw at NBC News, he was one of the “Big Three” nightly news anchors from the 1980s through the early 2000s. He frequently contributed to CBS’s weekly news magazine, 60 Minutes.

After a 2005 controversy over fabricated documents, he was fired in 2006. He now has a news program on cable television, a Youtube channel, and a Substack newsletter.

Hollandaise

SOOKIE: Bob has two seconds to get the hollandaise off the flame before I break his neck!

Hollandaise sauce, a mixture of egg yolk, melted butter, and lemon juice/white wine/vinegar, usually seasoned with salt and pepper/cayenne pepper. It’s a key ingredient in eggs Benedict, and often served on vegetables such as steamed asparagus.

The name is French for “Dutch sauce”, but it’s unclear why. The first known recipe was published as “fragrant sauce” in a 1651 recipe book by Francois de la Varenne, and it’s possible he invented it. A Dutch recipe for a similar sauce was published 16 years later, which may explain the name.

When making the sauce, it’s very important not to overcook it, or you will turn it into something resembling runny scrambled egg – hence Sookie’s stress about Bob leaving it on the flame too long.

Salmonella

LORELAI: What’s going on?

SOOKIE: Uh, chaos? Uh, a travesty of cooking? It’s a salmonella laboratory in here!

Salmonella is a genus of bacteria, named after a veterinary surgeon called Daniel Salmon (1850-1914). Most salmonella infections are caused by eating food contaminated by faeces, so poor hygiene is the usual culprit. They can cause food poisoning, or in more serious cases, typhoid fever.

In fact, Sookie’s food handling is pretty unhygienic anyway – she’s constantly tasting things with her finger dipped in the food, or eating from the spoon then using it to stir food again. In this episode, she goes through the garbage and doesn’t wash her hands. The way food is treated on this show, you’d expect a salmonella outbreak on a weekly basis!