wet/whet your appetite

Do you eat hors d'oeuvres to "wet" your appetite? Not unless you intend to slobber all over them.

The reason for eating these goodies in the first place is to prepare your palate for the really good stuff to come.

In this context, then, what you are doing is sharpening your palate or your taste buds just as a whetstone sharpens a blade.

Now you know. From now on, please refer to it as "whetting" your appetite, unless, as I mentioned earlier, you have a salivary gland problem.

I hope this whets your appetite for what is to come tomorrow.