A chance for redemption (4/21/04)

You’ve never met Andy.

You’d like him if you did.

I first came in contact with Andy Lippman when he came to Indiana as chief of bureau for The Associated Press in Indianapolis. That was almost 25 years ago.

He’s one of those people you hit it off with instantly. Smart, funny, articulate, and with an infectious laugh, Andy is the sort of guy you seek out at any gathering, knowing that he’ll be full of stories that are funnier when he tells them than when anyone else attempts to follow suit.

Divorced and unattached, he’s also the sort of guy you take under your wing. Connie and I routinely talked about who we might be able to fix him up with.

At any press association convention, the three of us would inevitably head out for dinner together.

Both our best and our worst dining out experiences have come with Andy.

The worst was in Chicago. Andy, a Northwestern grad, kept raving about a Greek place he’d loved when he was a student.

“We have to go there,” he insisted one year.

With Andy and restaurants, you don’t argue.

But we knew we were in trouble when we pulled up in front of the legendary Greek restaurant only to see that a newer Greek restaurant had opened directly across the street. And judging from the traffic through the door, the new place was vastly more popular than Andy’s old haunt.

Andy’s favorite Greek restaurant was nearly deserted. A big guy smoking an equally big cigar sat alone at a table.

“This looks like a scene out of ‘The Godfather,’” said Andy, mixing his Greeks and Italians together.

He was right. It was a pretty spooky scene.

The food was pretty spooky too, though we survived.

Years later, still apologizing for the Greek place that didn’t live up to his student memories, Andy insisted on taking us out when we were in San Francisco for a newspaper gathering.

It was our wedding anniversary, and Andy was determined that we have a memorable meal.

It was, in fact, the most perfect meal I’ve ever eaten.

The restaurant was a place called Charles Nobb Hill, and its chef had won fame when he traveled to Japan and won the cooking challenge on the TV show “Iron Chef.”

We took the waiter’s recommendation and ordered the “tasting menu,” 12 tiny courses of amazing gourmet cooking, each course about four bites in size.

When we walked out onto the street, all three of us were dazed.

We’d eaten the perfect amount of food. Every bite of it had been delicious. And we’d been served dishes we’d barely heard of.

It was truly a dinner for royalty.

And as the three of us walked home, Andy expressed a sigh of relief.

Finally, after all these years, he could stop apologizing for his big fat Greek disaster.[[In-content Ad]]