Spotted Pig owner Ken Friedman and Lockhart Steele

Lockhart Steele hosted a private bash for friends and foodies on the third floor of The Spotted Pig Monday night to celebrate the relaunch of his Eater site. The attendees included Gawker crew new and old: Nick Denton, Neel Shah, Elizabeth Spiers, Foster Kamer and Andrew Krucoff.

There was also a turnout of restaurant owners such as David Chang of Momofuku, and publicist-cum-anecdotalist Sloane Crosley, Fashism founder Brooke Moreland, and FourSquare developers Dennis Crowley and Harry Heymann. Spotted Pig owner Ken Friedman was also on hand to man the festivities.

–by Drew Grant

Earlier: Food Blog Eater To Launch Redesign, Expansion

— DIANE CLEHANE

We’ve truly hit the dog days of summer when there isn’t one Fiji water sipping-celeb in sight come high noon at 55th & Fifth. Luckily, that didn’t mean there was a shortage of Tinseltown talk in the dining room. The topic du jour — what else? — Lindsay Lohan’s latest arrest on suspicion of DUI. (For those two people who’ve been on the moon, it’s the starlet’s second bust in three months and comes on the heels of her recent 45-day stay at Promises and her big show of wearing an ankle bracelet that was supposedly programmed to detect any alcohol in her system). “If I were her publicist,” sighed one media maven, “I’d have my head in the oven.” Uber publicist Ken Sunshine, who represents one-time rehabber Ben Affleck, told me he’d received “tons of calls” from outlets near and far to weigh in on Lohan’s dire straits and said, “Her problems are beyond PR issues.” The Today Show‘s Marc Victor says Lohan’s relapse is sure to focus attention on the country club-like atmosphere of facilities that cater to coddled celebs: “That’s certainly something that will be looked at now.” The general consensus among today’s crowd is that this story has gone from tabloid train wreck to a truly tragic tale. “She needs compassion,” said Lisa Sharkey, Harper Collins’ senior vice president and director of creative development who, together with the house’s executive editor, Maureen O’Brien, was lunching with Sunshine. No doubt that’s exactly what the editors of Us Weekly, In Touch and TMZ.com are thinking …

Here’s the rundown on the rest of the crowd:

1. Jeff Greenfield, Jerry Della Femina, Gerald Imber and another gentleman we didn’t recognize.

2. Peter Brown

3. ‘Mayor’ Joe Armstrong, Today‘s Marc Victor and Men’s Health editor Dave Zinczenko. Our pal Dave was overheard thanking Esquire‘s David Granger for putting a call into none other than George Clooney inviting him to speak at the upcoming American Magazine Conference about his work in Darfur. (Politicians are so last year!) To entice the Oscar winner, seems plans are in the works to see if there’s a way to “incentive-ize” publishers into offering ad space to help promote Clooney’s off-screen endeavor.

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Last month, Ken Friedman and Andy Breckman, a pair of WFMU hosts, speculated about what components were necessary to get a piece into the the “unfunniest humor column on earth” — the Times‘ “Metropolitan Diary.” They determined “pithy tales of the filthy rich which were A) overheard, B) overwritten and C) dealing with the stock market” were sure winners.

Listener Amy called in to say that little kids with stock portfolios would be a sure winner, then Andy concocted the perfect overheard comment by an adorable five year old who was concerned that his stock broker daddy wanted to “sell his shorts,” (streaming realaudio) and then Irwin put the icing on the cake by suggesting that the entry be overwritten by using the word “consternation” to describe the tyke’s concerns.

A listener posted the story to the comments section of the show’s blog, and its Webmaster, Andrea Silenzi, submitted it to the Times and, as the hosts surmised, published it yesterday.

The result? “It took about six hours for The Times to remove the entry from the online edition of February 12th’s Metropolitan Diary. If only they had corrected Judith Miller‘s errors as quickly.”