Hello and welcome to the Gourmet Gilmore! I’m super excited to finally jump into this project that I’ve kept hidden deep down inside the nerdiest recesses of my mind for about the past two years.
Whether you have merely dabbled with a few reruns here and there or consider yourself a self-certified tour guide to the wonderful world of Stars Hollow and all that dwells in it, I invite you to join me as I dive even deeper into my near-institutional Gilmore Girls fandom.
I remember sneaking into the guest bedroom of our home in Danbury, Connecticut to watch the show (my mom had forbidden it after Rory and Dean were caught sleeping at Miss Patty’s – scandalous!) Soaking in the warm images of Stars Hollow, I swelled with pride that I might live only a short car ride away from the magical town. Being in the pre-Google era, my seven-year-old self naively failed to connect that I would have to travel to the WB lot in Burbank, California to see it – an item still listed on my bucket list… are you reading this, husband???
Even still, those images stuck with me as the show ran through my pre-teen years and then turned into after school re-rerun binges on ABC Family after the show wrapped. There are a few dark years in between where I neither owned the series on DVD or was able to afford cable after moving out of my parent’s house... but then – in glorious day in 2016 – God bless Netflix for streaming every season that has since allowed me to shamelessly loop each episode in the background of my life like a lullaby shrouding me in a glitter-lipgloss-blue-fuzzy-alarm-clock cocoon that is the early 2000s. A time well before social media, when beepers were a thing and people knew Melissa McCarthy as the sweetheart that was Sookie St. James.
I could basically write a dissertation on the psychological implications of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore’s life choices, and while they are the main characters of the show – let’s just admit to it, this is a safe space – they’re not the best people. Of course, we can still love them through their flaws; you don’t religiously stream a show about terrible people unless it has some redeeming quality to it, right? I also believe we can all agree that one of those redeeming qualities is the great Sookie St. James. Out of all of the images I can recall that makes Gilmore Girls the nostalgic wonder drug that it is, any time Sookie’s cooking makes its cameo in an episode, my heart swoons. Yes, more than any Jess episode. No, I don’t have time for that debate here.
If you’ve made it this far into my irrational ramblings on a show that premiered nearly 20 years ago - OMG. - I hope that means I’m in good company. Because here is where I’m about to get nerdy. Like, I’m blushing as I think about putting these words out into the universe for all to judge. Deep breath... okay. This is the purpose of the Gourmet Gilmore:
I have compiled a list of every recipe mentioned or made by Sookie St. James (and a few by Luke, too) in the entire Gilmore Girls series (sans A Year in the Life, I don’t have time for that here, either.) and I am going to bring them to life.
This is not an “unofficial” Gilmore Girls cookbook, as much as it is an opportunity to live out the Gilmore Girls’ philosophy of life of eating good food and talking about the Gilmore Girls… a lot.
As absurd as this looks in words, I know I’m not alone in my fanaticism. I hope you’ll read along as I discover whether Sookie St. James truly was “the Maestro,” or if Amy Sherman-Palladino was just screwing with us all.
For now,
Super cool party people bid you super cool adieu!
Lindsey
The Gourmet Gilmore