White Castle

SHERRY: Great. Oh, of course this does leave you a sad little orphan.
CHRISTOPHER: Oh, that’s okay. I’ll have one of my patented White Castle bachelor dinners.

White Castle, a hamburger restaurant chain in the US operating in 13 states, mostly in New York and the Midwest. It is credited as the world’s first fast-food hamburger chain, founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921 by Walt Anderson and Billy Ingram. Anderson is credited as the inventor of the hamburger bun, while Ingram’s business savvy helped popularise the hamburger. The chain is still owned by the Ingram family.

In real life, the nearest White Castle restaurant to Litchfield is in Nanuet, New York, almost two hours drive away. Possibly Christopher is simply using the name to mean he’ll be grabbing a burger somewhere, or eating at a chain restaurant.

Amazon.com

RORY: I don’t know if I have time to pick it up.
LANE: What? Rory, do you wanna hear how I used up my five minutes of phone time today? Talking to Amazon.com trying to get them to overnight it to me in a plain package with a return address referencing something Korean and religious.

Amazon, previously discussed as the place Rory buys many of her books. Apparently it’s where Lane buys her new and used music as well.

I’m not sure why Lane couldn’t have just had the CD mailed to Rory’s address, except that I’m starting to think Lane actually enjoys devising zany schemes.

Hellman’s Mayonnaise

RORY: The other night when we were watching Julia, and Jane Fonda was playing Lillian Hellman.
LORELAI: Oh yeah, and I made the Hellmann’s mayonnaise joke.

Hellman’s is an American brand name for a line of condiments, owned by the British company Unilever since 2000. They are sold as Hellman’s east of the Rocky Mountains in the US, and around the world, and as Best Foods west of the Rocky Mountains and in Asia/Oceania.

The company was begun by Prussian immigrant Richard Hellman, who opened his first factory in New York City in 1913 to make Hellman’s Blue Ribbon Mayonnaise. It was voted the best mayonnaise in the US in 1920.

PowerBar

DEAN: I’m fine with the whole hating him thing, thank you.
RORY: I just think it’s a waste of energy.
DEAN: You know, I’ll have a PowerBar.

The PowerBar was the first “energy bar” made to be used during competitions for endurance athletes. The company was founded by Canadian athlete Brian Maxwell in Berkeley, California, in 1986; the recipe for the bars was formulated by nutritionist Jennifer Biddulph, later Maxwell’s wife. The company was bought by Nestle in 2000.

Florida People and Anita Bryant

RICHARD: Oh, I always start my breakfast off with half a grapefruit.
LORELAI: Hm, do the Florida people know about you? Because Anita Bryant left this huge gap that has yet to be filled.

Anita Bryant (born 1940), previously mentioned. Singer who had a string of hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and was Miss Oklahoma 1958.

In 1969, she was chosen as the ambassador for the Florida Citrus Commission, with commercials featuring her singing Come to the Florida Sunshine Tree, and saying the tagline, “Breakfast without orange juice is like a day without sunshine”.

In 1977 she became a controversial figure as an anti-gay rights activist, leading a coalition of conservative Christians who wished anti-discrimination legislation to be repealed. They were successful, but earned the ire of gay-rights activists, who organised a ban against orange juice. She became an object of ridicule, and after her divorce in 1980, the Florida Citrus Commission allowed her contract to lapse. This is the “huge gap” that Lorelai suggests Richard might like to fill. It also seems to be another comment about censorship.

Rice-a-Roni

LOUISE: It’s just a contest, Paris. It’s not like you get a car or a lifetime supply of Rice a Roni.
MADELINE: God, I love that stuff.

A boxed food mix containing rice, vermicelli pasta, and seasonings. It’s prepared by browning it in butter, then adding water and simmering until cooked, so you end up with something a bit like pilaf. It’s made by Quaker Oats, a subsidiary of PepsiCo.

It was invented by Vince DeDomenico in 1958, inspired by a home recipe of his sister-in-law Lois, who had received it from an Armenian immigrant friend named Pailadzo Captanian. Originally called The San Francisco Treat, and later Pasta Roni, it was bought by Quaker Oats in 1986.

Chanel Patent Leather Pirate Boots

LORELAI: Ooh Dad, see if you can find a pair of the new Chanel patent leather pirate boots stuffed back behind your Churchills.

Chanel, fashion brand, previously mentioned.

Patent leather is that shiny, almost plastic-looking, leather, and pirate boots, more correctly cavalier boots, are knee-high boots with a cuff around the top. A pair of Chanel boots of this type could cost around $1000 today. The boots sound suspiciously like something Amy Sherman-Palladino would wear.

Mallomars

LORELAI: I got your note.
RORY: Yeah, well pinning it to the Mallomars is always a safe bet.

Mallomars are graham cracker biscuits overlaid with marshmallow, then coated in dark chocolate. First introduced in 1913, they are manufactured by Nabisco and produced in a factory in Ontario, Canada (like the pilot episode of Gilmore Girls). They are a seasonal item, only available from October to April, so it fits that Lorelai and Rory are eating them in the middle of winter.

Jackson once gave Lorelai a recipe which sounded very much like home made Mallomars with jam instead of marshmallow.

Energizer Bunny

LORELAI: Again, yes, just like the pink bunny with the drum. Uh, anyway, I was wondering if, um, you have had a chance to reconsider my loan? . . . Uh, no, I think it’s Energizer . . .

The Energizer Bunny is the marketing mascot of Energizer batteries. It’s a fluffy pink mechanical rabbit that beats a drum. It began as a parody of the Duracell Bunny (the mascot for Duracell batteries), which first appeared in commercials in 1973. The trademark had lapsed by 1988, so that Energizer were free to use a similar concept.

The Energizer Bunny is promoted as a toy which is able to last much longer than others, because he’s powered by Energizer batteries. In the same way, Mr Rygalski sees Lorelai as indefatigable in her attempts to get a loan. When she corrects him by saying it’s called the Energizer Bunny, Mr Rygalski, being older than Lorelai, was probably thinking of the earlier Duracell Bunny.

Cup-a-Soup and Slim Jims

RORY: Four people asked me when we were tenting, two people asked me if we were moving, and one person asked me if we were atheists.
LORELAI: See, we have to stop talking to people. We have to stay at home with the curtains drawn collecting stacks of old newspapers, muttering to each other, eating nothing but Cup-a-Soup and Slim Jims.

Cup-a-Soup [pictured]: an instant soup mix sold in sachets, added to boiling water and stirred in a cup or mug. Comes in minestrone, chicken noodle, tomato, and chicken and vegetable flavours. In North America, it is made and marketed by Unilever’s Lipton brand.

Slim Jim: a processed meat snack in stick form that is basically a fermented sausage, very popular in the US, manufactured and sold by Conagra. It was invented by Jack Cornella in Philadelphia in 1929, and developed for production in the 1940s.