(Image: Kristi Carlson)

Forget the zippy dialogue and complex female relationships, the real heart of Gilmore Girls is food. After all, Lorelai and Rory bond with Rory’s grandparents each week over Friday night dinners, Sookie regularly whips up gourmet dishes with Jackson’s produce, and Luke’s diner is basically a free cafeteria for Lorelai and Rory. And while the Gilmore girls themselves were famously terrible chefs, this brand-new unofficial Gilmore Girls-themed cookbook will ensure you don’t have to be. Author Kristi Carlson has assembled dozens of recipes in her upcoming book Eat Like A Gilmore, and we’re debuting one exclusively here at The A.V. Club:

Recipe via Kristi Carlson


Founder’s Day Punch made its most iconic appearance in the fifth season episode, “Live And Let Diorama.” The concoction is described as being so strong you need a loaf of bread, a pound of crackers, and a quart of olive oil to survive drinking it. Or as Rory puts it, “Miss Patty’s leftover punch is used to remove tar from construction sites.” Carlson’s version seems a little less lethal, and involves several kinds of fruit juice, sparkling apple cider, vodka, and brandy. And since the episode ends with a drunk Rory throwing up/crying in front of a toilet, Carlson wisely advises, “Be sure to clean your bathroom before you drink it.”

Eat Like A Gilmore was funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign and is currently available for pre-order via Skyhorse Publishing. And while the phrase “eat like a Gilmore” literally means eating endless amounts of junk food and staying in perfect shape, Carlson’s book focuses on more than just pop tarts and pizza. As she explains on her website, she’ll feature recipes like mac & cheese in a jalapeño chipotle cream sauce, which is perfect for anything but children’s birthday parties; a goat cheese-stuffed pretzel basket, for when you want to auction yourself off at a town festival; and spaghetti and meatballs, for those nights when you feel like fighting.