medhatterchef said:Hi - this is my first post, I just found this board a couple days ago! Anyways, I just did this kind of thing last weekend, I called it an Open Kitchen. It was mostly my relatives that came that had never seen the house yet. I stuck some invites in my neighbors mailboxes, none of them came but I think it still turned out good.
What I did was made a bunch of PC appetizers and then I had some demo stations set up on my island - a plate with the garlic press and a bunch of garlic, a plate with the microplane and some lemon and ginger to grate, my cutting board with a loaf of bread and the serrated bread knife to cut it with and oil/vinegar dipping beside, corer and crinkle cutter with cucumber and carrots to make cucumber carrots. I also had the idea of setting up an area to show my favorite 'Top 10 Tools'. And of course I had catalogs lying around.
I wanted it to be more low-key, no actual show so they could snoop around better. I did offer everyone the past host discount of 10% off orders and put together some oddsn'ends of PC stuff I had for a gift basket draw prize.
I think the best part is that you can feed all your friends and write it off!