We here at the eastern-most outpost of SFist's empire hosted a protein party last night. It was a party for my wife's (sorry, SFist plural voice style, I don't share my wife) birthday and she decided to celebrate it with as much meat as humanly possible: pulled pork, tri-tip, fried chicken, chicken-apple sausages, pigs-in-blankets, Greek Balls (meat balls with some feta cheese in them), soppresatta and virginia ham. To round out the protein we also had nuts and a cheese plate (Parmesan Reggiano, brie and a cheese which had some horseradish in it, but whose name escapes us). A fabulous time was had by all--we're friends for a reason--and most of the food was gone by the end, which made cleaning up much easier but also meant everyone had enough to eat, because there was still some left. In short, it was a successful dinner party. Which brings us to Restaurant Girl Speaks. We really like Restaurant Girl, whom Sam speaks of so lovingly here. But her posts last week about a Ghetto Gourmet event she attended rankled us for some reason, and it took as a while to puzzle out why.

We promise it really had nothing to do with Restaurant Girl, find out more after the jump

It had nothing to do with her, or her friends, who sound fabulous. It finally dawned on us the morning after our party. Maybe we're dense, but how is a Ghetto Gourmet event anything other than a well-heeled catered dinner party? OK, maybe in this celebrity-chef environment the kitchen isn't hidden anymore, but still. Despite all the breathless press lavished upon these happenings over the past few months, is there really anything substantially new about these things? It just seems to us to be some bobo attempt to justify a party. Worse, there's not even some sort of philanthropic cause attached to the dinner party. (Although, come to think of it, having suffered through a few of those ourselves, that may be a good thing.) It just seems like a sly foodie way of perpretrating yet another class/taste barrier between those who truly get it and those who only get it because Alice Waters went and put organic food in the schools. We don't mean to sound so snarky, but we just don't see how new-wave dinner parties are actually a revolution in food. (We may not agree with Slow Food entirely either, but at least we can see how that changes things.) Please, please, please feel free to enlighten us in the comments, or in your blogs.

We now return to your regularly scheduled round-up.

How about some sweet stuff to wash out the taste of snark? If you just need something simpler, head over to Anna's Cool Finds where she manages, in a blog feat nothing short of stupendous, to make toast interesting. And we have no idea how Celeste manages to make Deep-Fried Milk Balls in Rose Scented Syrup at all, so we'd love to see some pics of them. And speaking of photos, you can check out the SFGate article, read anh-minh's reaction to it, or just head over to Meathenge and read the sad but ultimately triumphant story of his camera repair.

Pic is from Albion Cooks and is very pretty. And calming. Calming, calming calming. We are letting go of the snark, and opening ourselves to the bounty of restaurants in the wild. . .