Alas, your regular Wednesday lunch at Michael's correspondent, mediabistro CEO Laurel Touby, was sadly out of town today. To compensate for her absence, we defaulted to the usual Plan B: I (mb editor in chief Elizabeth Spiers) go to Michael's and bring back slightly inferior reportage (lunching not really being my thing, inherent misanthropy, etc.). So here's your Wednesday lunch roundup. I'm sure I missed people, so please send corrections, additions and BRING BACK LAUREL emails to elizabeth@mediabistro.com.

Without further ado:

Table 7: Vogue editrix Anna Wintour and Isaac Mizrahi. Anna in red, Isaac in black.

Table 8: NBC President Jeff Zucker and Tommy Mottola. (Iiiiiiinteresting. I also noticed a piece of tomato in my salad looked strangely like Andy Lack. Coincidence?)

Table 1: Lunch party with lots of ladies. Ten or so of them. Ladies who were lunching, but not, perhaps, ladies who lunch. We weren't sure. There were red feathered fans waiting for them in front of each place setting before they arrived, though. The last time I went to Michael's I speculated that Court TV CEO Henry Schleiff's pre-ordering of a cobb salad (that was waiting for him when he arrived) was some heretofore unnoticed gradation in the Lunch at Michael's status heirarchy that was perhaps the next step up from a good table in the front of the room. This, of course, begs the question: red feather fan waiting for you when you arrive > or < cobb salad waiting for you when you arrive? And if I called at tried to pre-order a red feathered cobb salad, would they seat me in the very back of the back of the back room? At any rate, if anyone knows who the ladies at lunch were, do share.

Table 2: MTV President Christina Norman with ??

Table 4: Initially, PR guru Howard Rubenstein with ?? Rubenstein left and was replaced by the Observer's George Gurley, PR guy Richard Valvo, a lovely young woman who was introduced to me but whose name I didn't catch (and UPDATE: who another lunchee IDed as possibly Wafeh Bin Laden, and if Google Images is to be believed, was in fact her), and a running tape recorder. George?

Table B: Men's Fitness editor in chief Neal Boulton, AMI SVP of corporate communications Stu Zakim and Women's Wear Daily's Jeff Bercovici. Neal offered me his spinach. For once media-industry-as-third-grade-playground analogy has a positive ring to it: we've learned how to share with others.

Table 16: New York Post media reporter Keith Kelly (who recommends that you read Seth Mnookin's book, Hard News, by the way) with Domino editor in chief Deborah Needleman and ??

Table 19: Me (mediabistro EIC Elizabeth Spiers) and Vintage Books Publicity Manager Sloane Crosley. [Sloane: "I think Anna Wintour is judging my pants...(pause. silence)...They're Theory."]

Table 26: My ex-colleague and New York magazine communications director Serena Torrey with Steve Rubenstein.

Table 17: Peter Price, flipping through an issue of the somewhat Avenue-esque Gotham magazine, until his guest (?) arrived.

Table 11: Media Village's Jack Meyers and Cheyenne Group CEO Pat Mastandrea

Table 15: Seated so close we could have reached over and snatched his copy of the Observer, Senior Vice President and Executive Editor of HarperCollins Publishers David Hirshey with CBS's Gil Schwartz, a.k.a., "Mr. Bing."

Also present, but didn't spot where she was seated: Martha Stewart CEO Susan Lyne