House Party Rocks

I just finished cleaning up from my first sponsored "House Party" and and totally impressed. This was sponsored by Calphalon Unison Cookware and Williams-Sonoma and it rocked!  So glad they found and selected me to host one of their parties.

House Party is a company that matches up consumer packaged goods with consumers that match their target demographic (i.e., people who like or should like a particular product or even TV show).  They ask about 1,000 consumers to host a party on a given day revolving around the sponsor's selected theme.  They provide all the props ( in this case TWO free Calphalon Unison non-stick fry pans and other cool stuff) and even a gift card to defray the cost of the dinner party.  In exchange, I promised to have a dinner party with about 10 friends and talk about the cookware.  That was easy.

The Unison pan lived up to the advertising:  Great searing qualities + a dishwasher-safe, non-stick surface.  All I can say is "Where have you been all my life?"  These are seriously the pans for me.

I was provided recipes for an appetizer, salad, entree and dessert. Emily helped with the appetizer and did a fabulous job garnishing the Grilled Bruschetta. We loved every recipe except for the Grilled Radicchio.  (No one liked it for that matter -- too bitter.)  Also, the quantity of the batter that is produced with the recipe for Lemon-Ricotta Blinis was WAY TOO MUCH. I have enough of these little pancakes to last me a month!  But they were yummy with the raspberry sorbet.

We even had a raffle for a Michael Symon cookbook that I received from the House Party people -- my buddy Liz won it in a drawing.

I was very happy to host this affair and hope to have the opportunity to do so again in the future.  It was fun and yummy - what more could you ask?