Princess Grace

PARIS: You have to go to college.
LOUISE: Princess Grace didn’t go to college.

Princess Grace, born Grace Kelly (1929-1982) was an American actress who began her career on television and starred in several Alfred Hitchcock films, such as Dial M for Murder (1953), Rear Window (1953), and To Catch a Thief (1955). She also starred in the classic western High Noon (1952) and the musical High Society (1956), winning a Best Actress at the Academy Awards for The Country Girl (1954).

She retired from acting to marry Prince Rainier III of Monaco in 1956, becoming Princess Grace of Monaco, and having three children. As a princess, she founded children’s charity AMADE, formed the Princess Grace Foundation for artisans in Monaco, and became known as a fashion icon, being inducted into the Best Dressed Hall of Fame in 1960.

Louise is correct – Princess Grace, who came from a wealthy family and attended prestigious private schools, was rejected by Bennington College in 1947, due to her low scores in Mathematics. However, she graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, the oldest acting school in the English-speaking world, so she did have a distinguished tertiary education.

“Putin arms race thing”

RORY (while reading Lorelai’s newspaper veil): Wait, don’t move.
LORELAI: Rory, stop it.
RORY: This Putin arms race thing is really getting crazy.

In June 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the Bush administration’s proposed national missile defence system could trigger an arms race, as he had no option but to upgrade his own country’s nuclear forces. In real life, this was reported on June 18 2001, which is later than it appears to be in this episode, as Lorelai’s June 21 engagement party is still some time away.

Saturday 21st

SOOKIE (on phone to Emily): Listen, I’m sorry to call so late, but I need to ask you a question. I’m planning a surprise wedding shower for Lorelai and Max, and it’s gonna be more like a big party actually. But I’ve cleared the date with everybody around here, so we’re all set to go, but I wanted to make sure you guys were gonna be around before I finalised everything. It’s going to be Saturday the 21st.

The surprise wedding shower for Lorelai and Max is planned for June 21; this is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and traditionally the high point of summer. It is a symbolic day to celebrate an engagement, when the sun is at its zenith, and there is more light available than any other day. Traditionally, the time around the summer solstice is associated with love and fertility.

In real life, June 21 was a Thursday, not a Saturday, in 2001.

Because of Sookie’s phone call, where she discovered that Lorelai had got engaged without telling her parents, a distressed Emily orders Richard to apologise to Rory. She is afraid that if they push Rory away as they did with Lorelai, that they will lose her as well, and the thought is unbearable to her.

This will set up a pattern where Richard and Emily try to treat Rory as differently from Lorelai as possible. They were strict and even harsh with Lorelai, but Rory the angel child will receive little else but praise and indulgence, for fear that if she doesn’t get her way in all things, she will become another Lorelai and escape. Whether this plan is a good one for Rory’s character and independence is never questioned.

Twinkies

LORELAI: Uh, uh, well, pens are very nice, but I just bet there is a fabulous fancy dessert just sitting out there in that kitchen of yours.
EMILY: As a matter of fact there is. Twinkies.
LORELAI: What?
EMILY: Well, Rory told me that was her favorite dessert.

Twinkie is a brand of snack cake formerly owned and made by Hostess Brand. First invented in 1930, they were conceived as a sponge cake filled with banana cream; when bananas were rationed during World War II, the company switched to vanilla cream, and it proved so popular that it remained the predominant flavour.

Emily’s cook Antonia makes her own Twinkies to reproduce Rory’s favourite dessert – of course Emily could never just buy a box of Twinkies. Home made Twinkies are more difficult to make than Beefaroni, but well within the range of a competent home cook. A professional like Antonia would have no problem, but oddly enough doesn’t make them ahead of time, so the Gilmore girls never get to try them.

Emily supplying Rory with her favourite foods, even though her choices must have made her grandmother shudder, is a callback to when Emily served Lorelai and Rory pudding, one of their favourite desserts. Lorelai was so impressed by Emily’s effort that she must have thought she’d try it again.

Beefaroni

RORY: Grandma, I can’t believe you found the recipe for Beefaroni.
EMILY: It wasn’t easy. Antonia thought I’d gone insane.

Beefaroni was earlier mentioned as a food Rory liked, and now we discover it is actually her favourite meal, requested for her special dinner.

Because home made Beefaroni is basically just macaroni, beef mince, tomato puree, and cheese, even a very average home cook could easily make up their own recipe for it. Non-cooking Rory is amazed to discover that homemade Beefaroni even exists, while equally non-domestic Emily apparently had great trouble finding a recipe.

If Antonia the cook is from Europe, and most especially from Italy, no wonder she thought Emily had gone insane with her request. She had probably never even heard of Beefaroni before.

Emily said the “secret” to Beefaroni isn’t beef. She may have got Antonia to reproduce Beefaroni based on the list of ingredients on a can, which involves all sorts of things that a regular home recipe would omit, including textured soy protein, caramel, yeast, ammonium chloride, citric acid, and the like.

Lorelai and Rory seem to assume she means the Beefaroni is made from some kind of mystery meat, and quickly stop eating. We never discover exactly what Emily means.

Mencken’s Chrestomathy

EMILY: Richard, don’t you dare get on that phone. They’ll be here any second.
RICHARD: I’m not getting on the phone. I’m going to give Rory that first edition of Mencken’s Chrestomathy.

Mencken’s Chrestomathy was earlier discussed as a book that Richard called Rory about after they first bonded at Richard’s country club. A first edition is difficult to find and would most likely cost more than $100 today.

The special family dinner may be Friday June 1, meaning that the school year just finished for Rory, and they are celebrating the end of her first year at Chilton, and the success she attained during it.

Rory Invites Dean to Dinner at Her Grandparents’ House

While Dean is changing the water bottle for Lorelai on the back porch, Rory comes out to talk to him. (Apparently the Gilmores always drink bottled water – I don’t know if the Stars Hollow water supply is undrinkable, or if Lorelai and Rory prefer the taste of bottled water, or drink it for health reasons, or some other reason. Much of the Connecticut water supply has chromium-6 in it, the cancer-causing agent that featured in the 2000 biographical film Erin Brockovich, but the official statement is that it is at levels too low to be dangerous. The Gilmores may be playing it safe, especially as eleven other cancer-causing agents have been detected in the Connecticut water supply at levels above the legal limits).

Rory invites Dean to come with her to the special dinner her grandparents are giving in her honour. Emily told Rory she could “invite her friends” to the dinner, probably meaning her “friends” from Chilton (Emily doesn’t know that Rory is currently at outs with the few friends she has made at school). She almost certainly did not mean Rory to invite Dean, who she last saw taking Rory to a school dance, which ended in disaster when the pair of them fell asleep and didn’t get home until dawn.

Dean has the good sense to point out that Rory’s grandparents probably aren’t madly keen to see him again, but eventually accepts Rory’s invitation to please her (their relationship has only just re-kindled, and he probably doesn’t want to start off by saying no to her).

The scene is shot almost like a proposal – Dean is kneeling at Rory’s feet with the water bottle, while she holds out her hands in supplication, as if ready to receive a ring. It’s a reminder that Lorelai never got this traditional down-on-your-knees proposal from Max. If you look at how happy and excited Rory appears at the thought of taking Dean to her dinner, it’s in stark contrast to the sad, anxious face Lorelai has when we see her and Max getting engaged over the phone.

The show seems to be saying, “This is what you deserve, Lorelai: this is how happy you should be”.

“A study on rats”

MICHEL: I am weighing my turkey.
SOOKIE: Why?
MICHEL: A group of scientists did a study on rats where they cut their daily calories by thirty percent.
SOOKIE: And you felt left out?
MICHEL: No, the rats lived thirty percent longer. And the scientists were so impressed that they cut their own calories just like the rats.

Michel is referring to a famous and oft-cited 1934 study, which found that when scientists cut the calories of mice by 30-40% but still gave them all the nutrients they needed, they lived longer than expected – sometimes twice as long as the expected lifespan.

It has been difficult to prove conclusively that this works on humans also, and sometimes it doesn’t even work on mice – the mice have to be young and well-fed to begin with for the calorie reduction to be of any use. Older and leaner mice died earlier than expected when on a calorie-restricted diet (which doesn’t seem like good news for Michel, who isn’t all that young, and already slim). Furthermore, mice on a calorie-restricted diet can find it harder to fight infections.

Since 1997, The Calorie Restriction Society has been collecting data on its 900 human members who are on calorie-restricted diets, but it may be decades before a definitive answer is reached. However, a 2012 study on monkeys found no difference in lifespan between subjects who ate a normal healthy diet and those who ate a calorie-restricted healthy diet.

It’s notable that Michel is eating turkey, since in the Pilot episode he said he didn’t eat meat. Possibly that was a dietary fad, or perhaps he only considers red meat to be “meat”.

Luke Hears Lorelai’s News

With great trepidation because everyone has made it seem like such a big deal, Lorelai tells Luke that Max proposed to her. He has already guessed (or heard it on the Stars Hollow grapevine), and deliberately behaves in a nonchalant manner.

She is already taken aback, when he begins questioning her about what her plans for married life with Max are. Of course she doesn’t have any – she hasn’t even decided whether to marry Max or not, let alone thought about the reality of it.

Luke’s questions, which are quite rude and intrusive, have the effect of making Lorelai realise in a panic that she and Max haven’t had even one conversation about where they will live as a married couple, whether Max expects Lorelai to keep working, if they plan of having children together, or even how they will manage their joint finances.

Incidentally in this scene, you can get a good look at the coffee brand that Luke uses in the diner. It’s Hills Bros. Coffee, a brand from San Francisco sold since the early twentieth century. It was owned by Sara Lee in 2001, and is now owned by Massimo Zanetti Beverage USA.

Hills Bros claim their coffee has a bold, smooth flavour, but reviews for it tend to say it smells better than it tastes, and is generally pretty mediocre, although very strong and good value for money. Somehow Luke manages to make this average, budget-wise coffee taste amazing – which is quite a feat for someone who doesn’t drink coffee and doesn’t approve of it. Perhaps Lorelai and Rory aren’t as fussy about coffee as they think they are, or they are heavily biased by their love for Luke.

InStyle Weddings

RORY: What’cha reading?
LORELAI: Oh God, do not sneak up on a person like that.
RORY: InStyle Weddings. Very interesting.

InStyle Weddings is a quarterly periodical put out by InStyle magazine, previously mentioned as one of Lorelai’s favourite magazines. It features celebrity weddings, as well as wedding tips and ideas.

Lorelai is reading the Spring 2001 issue, which featured actress Courtney Thorne-Smith on the cover, who had married scientist Andrew Conrad in June 2000. Famously, by the time the magazine came out, Thorne-Smith had already filed for divorce. This is another sign to Lorelai that marriage doesn’t always last.

In real life, it wouldn’t have been possible for Lorelai to buy the magazine as late as May.