Gary Lum’s progress with losing weight | An update

Posted on February 20, 2014

My progress with losing weight | An update.

Canberra’s AWESOME 2014 National Multicultural Festival

Posted on February 15, 2014 Updated on February 15, 2014

This year was the 18th year that Canberrans enjoyed the biggest and best multicultural festival in Australia (maybe the world?). Over 260,000 people attended over three days from February 7-9. With each subsequent festival twitter has become a better source of advice about which stalls are worth seeing and what ford and drink is worth tasting. It’s an unsurpassed opportunity to try lots of different foods and beers and other drinks (kava, etc.) from around the world as well as enjoy several days worth of free entertainment from some amazingly talented people both in Canberra and from around Australia.

If you want to see (and hear) what happened then my best advice is to search for #NMF2014 in twitter and scroll through the amazing pictures, videos and posts from those attended, enjoyed and recorded the weekend. You can also follow the official twitter account @NatMultiFest and scroll through the many posts and reposts from the weekend. Enjoy!

Here are some random highlights (If anyone can teach me how to cleverly embed links I will buy you lunch):

Well-known Canberra camera whiz Greg (@gcnelson) posted this short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dODSVOsdge8&fb_action_ids=10152315693952577&fb_action_types=yt-fb-app%3Aupload_ne&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B253060494855091%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22yt-fb-app%3Aupload_ne%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%5D

trying again with a different link:

/code<blockquote%20lang=en><p>A%20look%20back%20at%20the%20party%20that%20was%20<a%20href=a%20href=https://twitter.com/NatMultiFest">@NatMultiFest</ahttps://twitter.com/NatMultiFest>@NatMultiFest</a/a>%20<a%20href=a%20href=https://twitter.com/search?q=%23NMF2014&src=hash">#NMF2014</ahttps://twitter.com/search?q=%23NMF2014&src=hash>#NMF2014</a/a>%20by%20the%20talented%20<a%20href=a%20href=https://twitter.com/gcnelson">@gcnelson</ahttps://twitter.com/gcnelson>@gcnelson</a/a>%20<a%20href=a%20href=https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Canberra&src=hash">#Canberra</ahttps://twitter.com/search?q=%23Canberra&src=hash>#Canberra</a/a>%20<a%20href=a%20href=http://t.co/uZMHrs6u3P">http://t.co/uZMHrs6u3P</a></p>&mdashhttp://t.co/uZMHrs6u3P>http://t.co/uZMHrs6u3P</a></p>&mdash/a;%20Siobhan%20Heanue%20(@siobhanheanue)%20<a%20href=a%20href=https://twitter.com/siobhanheanue/statuses/432659375828652032">Februaryhttps://twitter.com/siobhanheanue/statuses/432659375828652032>February/a%209,%202014</a></blockquote><script%20async%20src=//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js%20charset=utf-8></script>%20code

Healthy Snacks … not my idea :)

Posted on February 15, 2014 Updated on February 15, 2014

Before you reach for that packet of chips or Tim Tams…. here are some good ideas for healthy snacks from the Forbes website (not that I’m a regular reader). http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/02/11/10-healthy-snacks-to-eat-at-your-desk-2/?utm_campaign=forbestwittersf&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

Canberra Food and Wine Expo

Posted on February 15, 2014 Updated on February 15, 2014

(one #Canberra Beanie)

The Canberra Food and Wine Expo held at the Canberra Convention Centre promised “ingredients to tantalize your taste buds! From Gourmet food to exquisite wines there will be something for everybody to indulge” – wow, which foodie could possibly resist?

The website offered a downloadable 6MB pdf of the Expo Program http://www.foodandwineexpo.com.au/assets/2014-CFW-Schedules.pdf

I have to admit after the excitement and variety of the Canberra Multicultural Festival the number of food and drink outlets was slightly underwhelming. That said, if you’re a wine connoisseur there were plenty of tables and stalls to enjoy. Not being a big wine drinker I settled on a six-pack of Kenyan Malt Lager.

Although lots of places offered tiny morsels to taste there didn’t seem to be a lot of affordable lunch-time fare, which was disappointing. Two stalls which caught my eye were the Vietnamese (VietYum) and Turkish (Master Gozleme) .

Bought some delicious and attractive rice-paper rolls from the Viet Yum boys (who are based in Sydney). 3 rolls for $9 was not the cheapest option in Canberra (there are several Vietnamese cafes and restaurants in Canberra who can better this price) but it was tasty and fresh. I enjoyed the prawn, chicken and vegetarian rice paper rolls and dipping sauce was ok as well. They also offered various other menu options. I am assured by intrepid Canberra photographer and tweeter @richardtuffin  that “the vege gozleme was bloody brilliant!” 🙂

Overall the Expo is worth attending if you haven’t been before. It’s not as amazing and mind-blowing yummy as the National Multicultural Festival but nothing compares to the biggest party of the year in Canberra. One insight for me was learning from a regular attendee at the Sydney Food Expo @sassez (who has attended the Sydney Food Expo an amazing 10 times in the past 10 years) that I should put that one on the calendar as well. I will come again to the #Canberra Food and Wine Expo but will not drive and hit the wine stalls hard 🙂 One #Canberra Beanie