Divergent Dating Lives

When Lorelai gets back from Hartford and returning Sookie’s car, she finds Rory is already home from the party and is crying on the sofa while eating from two enormous tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Lorelai immediately phones the delivery service and orders a pizza – luckily the pizza place is still taking orders this late at night. (Stars Hollow – where businesses open at 6 am and are still running past midnight; it’s the small town that never sleeps).

It is now Lorelai’s turn to comfort Rory, just as her daughter comforted her when she broke up with Max a couple of months ago. Lorelai cannot tell Rory that she is back with Max, as her daughter is too distraught about her relationship ending.

Lorelai and Rory started out with their dating lives running in parallel, but they are now divergent (although they both got kissed in Hartford on the same night). Rory and Dean have broken up while Lorelai and Max got back together. Just as Lorelai began dating Max once she saw that Rory was happy with Dean, she got back with Max once she saw how miserable Rory was without Dean.

The Art of Eating

This is the book that Rory reads at Madeline’s party; she mentions to Tristan that the party gave her a chance to catch up on her reading.

The Art of Eating is a book of essays by M.F.K. Fisher, first published in 1954. Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher was one of America’s greatest food writers, and wrote 37 books on food in her lifetime, which combine food literature, travel, and memoir.

The Art of Eating collects five of her most famous books into one volume: How to Cook a Wolf (1942), Consider the Oyster (1941), Serve it Forth (1937), The Gastronomical Me (1943), and Alphabet for Gourmets (1949). The books includes portraits of quirky family and friends, travel notes from Fisher’s time in France, and tips on surviving World War II, interspersed with recipes.

Although it might seem strange that the junk food loving Rory would read a book on gourmet food, M.F.K. Fisher has a wonderful and witty prose style that any aspiring writer could admire. Her life of travel and adventure is something Rory would love to have, and throughout the series both Rory and Lorelai showed a great interest in biography and memoir of all kinds. It is also reminiscent of Lorelai’s fascination with the Food Network after breaking up with Max.

(Another odd link between Rory and the author is that Fisher and her first husband celebrated their three-month wedding anniversary by going out to a good restaurant. It strangely seems to fit with Rory’s situation, as she and Dean just celebrated their three-month anniversary at a bistro. Perhaps the fact that it was Fisher’s first husband is also relevant – Dean is just her first boyfriend).

“Sweat the onions”

SOOKIE: I’m just – do you hear something?
LORELAI: Like what?
SOOKIE: Like someone using the wrong size pan to sweat the onions in.

In culinary terms, “sweating” means to cook something over a low heat in a small amount of fat or oil, usually in a covered pan or pot. It’s usually done with vegetables such as onions, carrots, and celery, and the idea is to soften them without browning before you add other ingredients. Sweating concentrates the flavour and releases sweetness, with the vegetables becoming tender, and onions in particular, translucent.

“The wrong sized pan” for sweating onions is probably one which is too small and would heat up too quickly.

Toaster Pizza and Beefaroni

LORELAI: I can’t wait to try the toaster pizza. It looks so gross which is usually the mark for a great junk food.
RORY: Beefaroni.

Toaster pizza is a frozen mini pizza that can be cooked in a toaster. It has a thick pastry crust, and only a little bit of sauce and cheese so it doesn’t melt inside the toaster, or is fully enclosed in pastry, like a savoury Pop-Tart. They were first made by Nabisco in 1969, but several brands make them now. (Incidentally, this shows that the Gilmore girls got their toaster fixed – it was broken when Christopher came to stay with them).

Beefaroni is a popular tinned food made by Chef Boyardee which is macaroni mixed with beef mince, tomato sauce, and (some) cheese. We later learn it is Rory’s favourite meal.

Sour Patch Kids and Milk Duds

RORY: … We could stuff our purses full of Sour Patch Kids and Milk Duds …

Sour Patch Kids are soft candies covered in sugar syrup and sour sugar, which come in a range of flavours; they are made by Allen’s. They were first sold in the 1970s under the name Mars Men; the name was changed in the 1980s to cash in on the popularity of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls.

Milk Duds are caramel candies coated in cocoa manufactured by Hershey; they have been made since 1926. They are called “duds” because they are not perfectly round, but slightly misshapen.

Fondue

RORY: … We could go to the Swiss place for fondue for dinner …

Fondue is a Swiss dish of melted cheese served in a pot over a portable stove, from which two or more people eat by dipping bread using long forks. Variations of fondue have been known since the 17^th century (originally it was more like scrambled eggs with cheese), but it only became the smooth modern creation in the early 20^th century, once cornstarch was introduced to Switzerland. It began being heavily promoted as Switzerland’s national dish in the 1930s to encourage cheese consumption.

Fondue was introduced to the US in 1964 at the World’s Fair, and it became very fashionable in the 1970s. Since the 1950s, the word fondue has been applied to other communal dishes in North America, after Swiss chef Karl Egli introduced them at his Chalet Suisse Restaurant in New York, including the popular chocolate fondue.

We learn here that Stars Hollow has a Swiss restaurant – Stars Hollow seems to have several good restaurants, but everyone eats at Luke’s Diner and Al’s Pancake World.

Tiramisu

RORY: Okay, have I mentioned how much I’m loving the three month anniversary thing?
DEAN: Yeah, you did.
RORY: Because this tiramisu is so good that if the anniversary were completely sucking right now, this would save it.

Tiramisu is a popular coffee-flavoured Italian dessert, made of ladyfingers soaked in coffee, layered with a sweet mascarpone cheese mixture flavoured with cocoa. It’s generally thought to date to the 1960s, and may originate from a restaurant in the city of Treviso, but the word tiramisu isn’t found until the 1980s. The name means something like “pick me up, cheer me up” in Italian.

It’s not surprising that the coffee-loving Rory would enjoy tiramisu.

Tomato sauce

When Lorelai interrupts them kissing, Sookie and Jackson start hurriedly discussing Jackson’s plan to start making his own jams and preserves from his excess produce. Jackson tells Lorelai that he might make his own tomato sauce.

In the US, “tomato sauce” is a tomato puree seasoned with onion, garlic, bell pepper (capsicum), and herbs, which can be bought in a jar or can, or home made. It isn’t the same as the tomato sauce they call ketchup.

Iron Chef

RORY: You can make soup.
LORELAI: No. I wanna really cook like on the Food Channel. I wanna sauté thing and chop things and do the BAM, and I wanna arrange things on a plate so they look like a pretty little hat. I wanna be the Iron Chef!

Iron Chef is a Japanese television cooking show which is a head-to-head contest between one of the show’s cooking masters, the titular Iron Chefs, and a challenger who is a professional chef. The timed cooking battle always requires use of a specific themed ingredient, such as eel, tofu, or asparagus, made into a multi-course meal with several dishes all using the theme ingredients in different ways.

Successful in Japan since 1993, the show became a surprise cult hit in the US after it was shown on the Food Network in 1999 and dubbed in English. American audiences were amused by the (to them) exotic flavour combinations on the show, while the dubbing gave it camp appeal.

This episode provides a rare example of Lorelai actually wanting to cook, apparently inspired by the shows she has been watching on the Food Network, a cable TV station devoted to cooking. It seems that her sudden urge for domesticity is caused by her heartbroken depression – and maybe missing Max’s cooking. Lorelai may be able to do some basic home cooking, as Rory says she can make soup, but I suspect that for the Gilmore girls, “making soup” means opening a tin of condensed soup and mixing in the water or milk before heating it on the stove.

Hamburger Helper

When Rory gets home, Lorelai is reading a box at the kitchen table. She’s holding a box of Hamburger Helper, a convenience food made by General Mills under the Betty Crocker brand, first introduced in 1971.

Hamburger Helper is a box of pasta packaged together with packets of sauces and seasonings. You’re supposed to combine the contents with cooked beef mince (hamburger) to create a complete meal. It’s a bit confusing for non-Americans, as hamburger usually refers to a hamburger patty; minced meat is just mince.