Make that, "you had me at 'gelato'..."

Met my friend S (not my apparently former friend S who no longer returns my calls or emails ever since my attendance with the Good Doc dropped off) for lunch today at the Bedford Post. We both live nearby, and we've been meaning to go there for a while now, always joking that we're hoping to run into the owner, who happens to be Richard Gere.

It's a very cute place. Basically, a dining room at a country inn. There's a "yoga loft" there too, although no Ashtanga is offered there...yet.

Two minutes after we were seated, who should walk in but...the owner, himself. That might not seem surprising unless you've been to Tribeca Grill and never seen DeNiro and Southern Hospitality and never seen Justin (or Planet Hollywood, and never seen...anyone). S and I managed to remain demure and composed notwithstanding that we had been talking about this moment for months. Of course, now that it had arrived, what was there to do but make sure that we didn't chew with our mouths open or get spinach in our teeth?

Mr. Gere seemed to be puttering around the grounds. At one point, I looked outside the window and saw him walking by in his parka. S and I enjoyed a nice lunch, so nice in fact that we wanted to prolong it a bit. So we ordered coffee and desert. I got the pistachio gelato, which I just kind of picked at because it didn't really have that gelato-creaminess that I remember from a long ago trip to Rome with my family.

But I didn't tell the truth about it when Richard sidled up to our table and said, "Isn't that ice cream the best?! I just love it, myself!"

I was all, "Yeah, mmmm, it's so good!!"

Before he walked away, I asked him if he was planning to offer Ashtanga classes at the yoga loft. He said that I should talk to his wife about it because she was in charge of scheduling the classes. So, I just have to talk to Carey. She's supposed to be in tomorrow.

The whole thing, which wasn't really much of a thing at all, reminded both S and me of the time when we were first years in law school at NYU, and our classmate, John Kennedy (Jr.) suddenly materialized at our table in the commons and asked us who we had for Constitutional Law.

Silly as it may seem, you just don't forget those little moments.

YC