Many cultures, food on sticks

What else could this be then the National Multicultural Festival?  The first of our February fairs (the Canberra show is coming up soon - vegetable sculptures and all...), and it was fantastic.

Unlike the Lucky Dragon, the day didn't start with a toddler tantrum.  Rather, I got out of the shower to find a very happy toddler and a very patient dog.  It's amazing how she can look long suffering even when blindfolded.

She forgave him for the indignity.  At least, I think that's what the kiss was for.

After dress ups was over, we headed off to the festival.  Although we've lived in Canberra for 5 years now (I still can't quite believe that), we've never managed to get to the festival before.  And we have been missing out.  The festival takes over the city centre, and stalls from pretty much every country, each organised by region, more or less.  The embassies had their own tents, with information and displays.  But the food tents - oh, my, the food tents.  All kinds of community groups from many cultures have their own stalls (my end gozleme count was 6 stalls), all offering bits and bites at really very reasonable prices.

 We got into civic early(ish) - half an hour after we planned, so on toddler time that's a win.  It wasn't too crowded when we started, so we got right to the eating.  We had Cambodian beef satay - very lemongrassy, very good.  Then we continued the food on a stick with Thai chicken satay.  Very peanuty, very good.

Then a quick trip by the Iranian stall, to sample saffron and blackcurrant juices.  The saffron in particular was amazing.

Unfortunately the lamb spit roasting over charcoal wasn't quite done when we went by one of the Greek stalls.

But then Toby decided to get into the action with Chips on a Stick - a whole potato, spiral cut, battered and deep fried.  Tragically good.

When I say the whole of the city centre was taken over, I meant all.  Public art doubled as dumpling price holders:

Not pictured: the nepalese momo and the cannoli we also took on board.  If we had wanted to (and perhaps if it had been a little later in the day), there was also beer from many countries and vodka from the Russian tent.  It wasn't all food and drink though.  Toby got up close with a police motorcycle.

We also sat in on a Bollywood dance workshop.

The audience (including me) gamely tried to follow the instructions.  Toby wasn't too impressed.

By about 12:30 the crowds really started to increase, and moving about with a stroller became challenging.  Toby decided this was the time for his tantrum (like we were going to escape without one!) and although there were still many, many things I wanted to see (eat), we decided to call it a day. Lesson learned for next year:  go early, go hard.  Or leave the kid with his grandmother and go in the evening - the festival was open until midnight Friday and Saturday nights, and I think it would be great fun.  Overall, good fun, cheap (everything free except the food, which was very nicely priced) and the potential for educational.

Law Chicas and Geek Girls

A few friends on facebook linked me to an issue with Google Ads.   Google Ads is that nice bit of Google that tracks every site you visit, so they can target their ads to your demographic.  It's really not an invasion of privacy.  (All hail the new google overlords!)

Actually, I don't have such a problem with targeted advertising, and there are easy enough ways to escape your web browsing being tracked.

However, I do have a problem with the algorithims google is using.   Google Ads Preferences infers your age and gender, based on your browsing history.  It seems that if you are the slightest bit geeky as a girl, google thinks you are a man.   Now, I'm more an old school nerd than a geek (with a bit of dag thrown in) so I was interested to see what google thought of me.

At my home computer, I'm a woman.  At work - I'm a man.  The primary difference?  I do most of my legal research (you know, my job) at work.   The other browsing is pretty consistent between the two locations.  Including my more 'girly' interests - knitting, cooking, is-the-latest-toddler-rash-life-threatening?, asos.com, gossip sites.*  Apparently the fact I look up the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties twice a day at work (I know, I should know the darn thing already) is enough to push all of that over to the masculine side of the spectrum.

So there you go.  Law, in google's eyes, is still a boys club.  My little wooden lawyer girl is sad to hear it.

* I know there are men who knit, and cook, and are paranoid about their kid's rashes, and browse asos, and read gossip sites.  And if you are one of those - well, more power to you!

PS - For both computers, Google puts me 5-15 years older than I actually am.  I'd protest, but given my reading and hobby tastes, I suspect it's a fair enough call.

Lucky Dragon, Crying Toddler

We decided to start off FAIRPALOOZA (how many bad made up words do you think I can come up with?) with a festival with a cultural bent:  The Lucky Dragon Family Festival at the National Museum of Australia.

On the way, Toby initiated a conversation about all the activities we had done in the past month or so that ended with him having a tantrum.  Oh-oh, we thought.  This does not bode well. And sure enough, as soon as we got out of the car, the meltdown started.  Fast forward a running away, a telling off, some tears and finally a kiss to make up and things started to look better.

The Festival wasn't a Fair really, more a gathering at the museum with crafts for the kids, and performances.  It was billed as family friendly, and held on a public holiday, and it seemed every parent with a toddler in Canberra had decided a little appreciation of other cultures was needed on Australia Day.  We managed to squeeze into the craft tables and Toby made his own lucky dragon.

Then he posed with it.  The meltdown was still fairly recent, so smiles were not forthcoming.

However, the icecream changed that.

The ice cream was excellent actually - big cones of really nice ice cream for $3.50.  The raspberry sorbet did stain quite impressively though, and Toby managed not just to dye his face, but his belly also.  The scarlet splotches all over his torso caused momentary concern later in the day, before I worked out he hadn't actually come down with a sudden and virulent rash.

The festival itself was fairly small in what it offered, and I do wonder if the organisers expected quite the crowd they got.  The performances were good (the Choy Lee Fut Lion Dance troupe in particular) but it was so crowded it was impossible for us to see properly.  (Those of us not on Daddy's shoulders, that is.)

Still, in value for money terms (read: free admission, cheap ice cream and quite tasty sausage sandwiches for $5) it was a cheap, fun way to spend a few hours.  And sitting on the grass outside the museum with friends eating our lunch and watching the dragon boat races was a lovely, low key way to celebrate Australia Day.

A Fair to Remember

So, way back when I set up this blog, I was intending it to focus on what I was cooking, hopefully from the garden.

I thought up a title I liked, set up the blog, and promptly abandoned it.

I've been thinking about getting back into blogging for a while. I really enjoyed Things I've learnt from Magazines, and I do intend to revisit it. Now I have a full time job along with the kidlet, it's not going to be a new magazine a week, though.

In the meantime, there are things we are up to that I would like to write about.  I quite like the randomness of the title of this one though, especially if it won't mostly be about the colours of my kitchen.  I'm sure that will creep in here and there though.

In non kitcheny matters, the first thing to share is one that is going to be a monthly or so project in this house for the next year - FAIRMAGEDDON!* We live in a small country town masquerading as the nation's capital, and like all small country towns, it does fairs well. Not only does it do fairs well, but all the (proper) small towns surrounding Canberra also get into the local fair action.

This comes coupled with a 3 year old who is obsessed with fairs, thanks to My Naughty Little Sister at the Fair. (On a side note, Felicity Kendall deserves a medal in this house. Her voice and those stories have saved bedtime and our sanity on more then one occasion.)

So I've had a look around and we're planning on going to a least one fair/festival a month. Some are the ones we go to every year (like the Canberra show, or the wonderfully self-conscious bogantastic Charnie Carnie), others will be new to us (I'm looking forward to the Collector pumpkin festival in particular).

It should be a fun year. In the meantime, the colour of my kitchen for the past few months has been... green. Green for monster zucchinis, green for mint.

And green for the tomatoes that are longing for some proper summer so they can begin to ripen.

* Or fairocalypse if you prefer.