Tag: Food

An Invitation to the Birth of Georgia

RORY: I have been cordially invited to Sherry Tinsdale’s C-section … [reads from invitation] Friday, February seventh, six o’clock p.m. Join the girls for a toast, a hug, a wave to the mommy as they wheel her off, dinner at Sushi Sushi, and then back to the hospital for a formal viewing of brand-new baby Georgia. RSVP at your earliest convenience. P.S. Gifts are not necessary, but always appreciated.

I am stunned to inform you that the 7th of February reallly was a Friday in 2003, meaning that the writers of the show have somehow managed to find a calendar (maybe on the wall, maybe on their computer), and we are now getting real world dates in the show! Pretty exciting stuff.

Internal evidence tells us that the date in this scene is either Saturday the 25th January or Sunday 26th January. Unfortunately, that cannot be tallied with the number of Friday Night Dinners we’ve had, and we are already three weeks behind schedule. At this rate, Rory will be graduating in August.

Sushi Sushi does not exist in Boston, although there are many sushi restaurants there in the real world.

Dean’s Order to Jess

6 hamburgers – 3 with cheese (2 Cheddar, 1 Swiss), 2 plain, 1 with chilli, cheese and onions on the side

3 ham on rye toasted sandwiches – 1 with mustard, 1 with mayo, 1 with both

4 hot dogs

2 egg and salad sandwiches on white bread

1 chicken and salad sandwich on whole-wheat (wholemeal) bread

1 chef’s salad with ranch dressing

5 lots of French fries

5 lots of onion rings

2 lots of chips (potato crisps or potato chips)

Enough pickles on the side for everyone to have some

“Talk into the clown”

[Dean walks up to the counter]
DEAN: I gotta place an order.
JESS: Talk into the clown.
DEAN: I am.

A reference to the clown head at Jack-in-the-Box fast food restaurants that customers spoke into to place their order at the drive-through service. This option existed from the early 1950s to the early 1980s. It seems slightly odd this is a handy reference for someone born in 1984. Dean gets in a lot of insults to Jess in this scene.

Jackson’s Favourite Dinner

Lamb chops with Sicilian olives, rosemary, and garlic

Warm potato and chorizo salad (chorizo is a type of spicy Spanish pork sausage)

Cornbread (a quickbread made with cornmeal with origins in Native American cuisine)

Home made beef jerky (lean meat cut into strips and then dried)

Fried marshmallow pie (this only seems to exist as a Gilmore Girls-inspired recipe, suggesting Sookie invented it! It has been created as small hand-held pies with fried marshmallow filling inside flaky pastry, covered in glaze)

Note the specification of Sicilian olives, in line with the themes of the Mafia and betrayal in this episode, suggesting that Jackson feels really wounded.

Cherry Pie

LUKE: Dessert? …
LORELAI: Pie.
RORY: Cherry.

LORELAI: And whipped cream.

The Gilmore girls always have cherry pie for dessert on Wednesday nights, which Luke knows by heart by now. He seems to forget in this episode, either to tease them, or because having to do an emergency shop because Jess forgot to do the ordering has put it out of his mind. Whipped cream is apparently their preferred topping.

The rest of their dinner order is for cheeseburgers and Tater Tots, previously discussed.

Cumberland Sauce

[Sookie walks back into the kitchen]

JOE: So, at the risk of seeming like Joe the drunken chef, I added some more port to the Cumberland sauce.

Cumberland sauce, a savoury sauce of English origin, made with redcurrant jelly, mustard, pepper and salt, blanched orange peel, and port wine. It is thought to be of 19th-century origin. It may be named after a Duke of Cumberland, or have originated in Cumberland county. It is generally used as a sauce for cold meats, and for game. Sookie is pairing it with pheasant.

The amount of port varies from recipe to recipe. Some cooks add only a few tablespoons of port, while a third or a half of a cup is quite usual. Some use as much as a full cup. Joe seems to be at the upper end of the port threshold, and Sookie further down.

Calves Liver

JOE: I can’t tell you how many times I kicked myself for not asking you out that summer. It just seemed like every time I got close, we’d end up talking about the best way to make calves liver or something.
SOOKIE: Sautéed with caramelized onions.

Liver and onion is a classic dish, widely eaten in the US, UK, and Germany, often accompanied by bacon. It is sometimes called Liver Berlin Style. There are variations on the dish in French, Italian, Spanish and Latin American cuisine.

International Grab Bag Night

LORELAI: We are so in luck. It was international grab bag night at Al’s.
RORY: Cool. Did you peek?
LORELAI: And ruin the whole point of the mystery dinner? I think not. Pick.

Another quirky offering from Al’s Pancake World – on certain nights, how often is a mystery, Al offers an international grab bag, where you apparently receive a randomly assigned dinner from any national cuisine.

Who would be interested in this? Certainly not fussy eaters or people with food allergies, at least. To add to the chaos, diners apparently don’t know when it will be international grab bag night, as Lorelai proclaims that they are “in luck” that they happened to be buying dinner on that night.

Lorelai and Rory love this insane tradition because it is a game as well as food. They each pick one of the bags without looking, smell it, then try to guess what it is. Rory guesses hers is Moroccan, which is what she always says, on the basis that if you say the same thing every time, it will eventually be correct. Lorelai takes a cover-all-bases approach by declaring hers is Pan-Asian, with a hint of English Colonial and touches of South African.

Rory strongly implies that the food is old, suggesting that “grab bag night” might be a way of selling off out of date leftovers. It’s quite stomach-churning.

In the end, neither Gilmore girl can identify what food they have bought, and they end up going to Luke’s for dinner. What a waste of time, money, and food!

Pea Tendrils

MICHEL: Fill me in, please.
LORELAI: Jackson brought pea tendrils instead of Brussels sprouts.

Pea tendrils, also known as pea shoots, are the young leaves, flowers, stems, and vines of a pea plant. Pea tendrils are harvested before the pea pods are matured, and are therefore available in the spring and early summer. They have a similar flavour to peas.

Sookie complains that the pea tendrils are too delicate to eat with lamb shanks, and she is correct. They are more often eaten raw in salads, or lightly stir-fried and added to rice or pasta dishes.