Washington/Alaska

Checklist for Cookoff

• Secure a venue that has plenty of space to cook.
• Get prizes donated for winners.
• Create invitations and fliers to spread the word.
• Determine pricing - one for cooks, one for eaters.
• Create categories for winners and a corresponding voting sheet.
• Decorate the venue.
• Award prizes to winners

Step By Step

Hosting a Cookoff is a great way to involve people who love to cook and love to eat! Here are a couple things to consider when planning an event:

1. Venue:  Find a good location to hold the event. Somebody's house with a really nice, big kitchen works well.
2. Prizes:  Approach culinary businesses to donate merchandise or gift certificates to be used as prizes for the winners. Good ideas are Home Chef, Williams-Sonoma, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Bookstores-for cookbooks, restaurants, etc.
3. Advertise:  Advertise profusely! Tell people at work, your friends, relatives, neighbors, teammates, donors, etc. Send out invitations to attend, make flyers, e-vites, you can even try to get a small ad donated in your local paper!
4. Decorate:  Decorate the event rooms!! Get creative and have fun with this. Make display cards for each of the dishes. Use fun table clothes, candles, balloons, whatever works to create the right atmosphere. You can even get this stuff donated from a party supply store!
5. Pricing:  Charge $25 for people who want to enter the cook-off, and $10 at the door for people who want to come eat and judge.
6. Voting:  Collect votes from all the guests - you can have different categories, such as "most creative", "best presentation", best use of a certain spice, etc.
7. Awards:  Award prizes to the winners!

Tips

• Start early with finding businesses to donate prizes. Give yourself at least a month to plan. Remember to compose a great letter to present to the manager of the business.
• Pick at date that will work well for most people's schedule - A Friday or Saturday evening, Sunday afternoon. (you can even hold it during a major event on TV-people can watch the show while they eat!)