When Texans emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown two years ago, many of them did so with new hobbies in tow. For Roanoke resident Larisa Kliman, it sparked a passion project that married her two loves: food and 2000s-era dramady Gilmore Girls.
The show follows fast-talking mom-and-daughter duo Lorelai Gilmore, 32 and Rory — 16 at the show’s outset — who live in the fictional storybook town of Stars Hollow, Connecticut. Chock full of pop-culture references and eccentric characters, the show centers on Lorelai and Rory’s friends-first relationship as they nurse their ambitions, navigate weekly dinners with Lorelai’s overbearing, wealthy parents and contend with a litany of quirky small-town dramas.
Though it’s always had something of a cult following, Gilmore Girls has inspired a new generation of fans who prize the show’s aesthetic and, as Kilman puts it, “low-stakes drama.”
Although it ended in 2007 after seven seasons, a four-episode revival, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, aired on Netflix in 2016. But it’s the show’s distinctive, pithy dialogue and early aughts fashion that have allowed it to find new life among Gen Z fans who didn’t grow up with it.
“I know a lot of people and myself would describe it as like a weighted blanket — it’s very familiar,” Kilman said.
It’s the type of show one might lean into during, say, a global pandemic. Kilman, 32 grew up watching syndicated ABC reruns during summers (her dance lessons kept her from watching first-airs on the WB during the fall), then binging the box sets in college. She also nourished a love of cooking, picking up new techniques from helping her mom in the kitchen and thumbing through her aunt’s cookbook collection.
With the encouragement of a friend and inspiration from a UK home cook who had cooked his way through the Harry Potter movies, Kilman launched “Eating Gilmore,” a food blog where she created a dish for each episode, in November 2020. Three years later, the Eating Gilmore Instagram has more than 90,000 followers who share in Kilman’s love of the show.
“I really just started it five or six months into the pandemic and wanted something to fill my free time,” Kilman said. “I decided to put it on Instagram, and I genuinely thought maybe 1,000 followers would be really cool and it would be awesome if I made it to season two. It’s really hard to wrap my head around where it’s gone the last couple of years.”
With two of the show’s main characters being chefs — Sookie, who runs the kitchen at the inn her and Lorelai own, and Luke, the curmudgeonly, small-town diner owner — along with many episodes centering on Lorelai and Rory’s weekly dinners at Richard and Emily Gilmore’s stately house in Hartford, it seemed a perfect fit for a food project. For each episode, Kilman recreates a dish from the show or invents her own based on something the characters ate or mentioned. She also regularly hosts fan polls, and a fall challenge last year invited followers to try out some dishes for themselves.
Every fall — or “Gilmore Girls season,” to the inclined — Kilman sees a new surge of followers who have discovered the show. Despite the large fanbase, though, Kilman has never advertised for the project.
“I made the decision not to monetize it, just because I I knew as soon as I started trying to make money off of this it wouldn't be enjoyable anymore,” Kilman said.
And it has, for the most part, been enjoyable, allowing Kilman to experiment in the kitchen and go deeper into the show’s world. While she started out making two dishes a week, these days Kilman cooks on the weekends and during time off from her full-time job at a nonprofit, sharing a new recipe weekly. Among her favorites to make have been Sookie’s edible pretzel picnic basket from Season 2 (which she made in one try), while the tassel hat cake filled with chocolate-covered espresso beans, also from the same season, was the most challenging (it took five).
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Like her own love of the show, she doesn’t anticipate Gilmore Girls’ newfound popularity will subside anytime soon.
“While I connected more with Rory when I first watched it, I'm now Lorelia's age when it first started so there's elements connecting more there, and when I'm Emily's age, I can still find things to relate it to — it has that longevity,” Kilman said.
Even still, she’s approaching the end of the original run, set to cook her last dish next week. But with plans to cook four dishes for each of the hour-and-a-half episodes of A Year in the Life, Kilman isn’t done yet. She’s also planning a special announcement for the project’s 3-year anniversary in a few weeks.
As for what comes after Eating Gilmore, Kilman says she has explored collaborating with other creators for similar projects but hasn’t committed to anything. She’ll probably look forward to a break from the kitchen first — and it might be awhile before the next Gilmore Girls rewatch.
“This has been a huge part of my life for three years, but I feel really proud to be finished and also kind of excited for what’s next,” Kilman said.