Canberra Multicultural Festival

The Multicultural Festival is held on a February weekend in Canberra every year. Local and not-so-local restaurants and anyone else with food knowledge can set up a stall with food from a specific country/area/region, and the result is food from all over the globe and plenty of delicious choices. The embassies also set up stalls, so you can pick up information and learn about lots of different countries too. Finally, Government stalls provide an excellent source of freebies - I got a free cookbook (to encourage people to eat more fruit and veg), water bottle (I actually needed one!), a duck shaped shower timer (again, have always wanted to force my sister to use one), mini wooden cricket bat (for Bub) and more.

It is a little crowded for my liking and at most food stalls you have to queue for a long time to get your food, but it's a fun experience. There is plenty of entertainment - dancing and singing from around the globe, and kids entertainment. I would have loved to have watched some but it was impossible to get anywhere near the stage and I couldn't see anything from where we could find space to stand.

They have improved it from last year but it was still too squashy and there wasn't enough seating - if they spread it out more and added more seating areas, it would be much nicer.

Here are some happy snaps from the day:

 Police motorbike rides at the AFP stall - cute! You could also see and find out about the various instruments that police use for drug testing and other police work.

 Yummy waffles. A little overpriced at $10, but prices are generally inflated at this festival.

 These "chips on a stick" were all the rage!

 Behind the scenes at one of the Gozleme stalls.

 Mmmm

 A crowded eating area

I couldn't resist lining up for chips on a stick- although it was too oily and made me feel sick, I had to try one for the novelty value if anything!

For anyone who needs a business idea, these chips on a stick are super easy to make and people were going mad for them. They sold at $5 per stick. All you need is a spiral potato cutter, a deep fryer and some sort of spice mix to sprinkle over the oily potato. Maybe the business name has been registered in Australia, but you could call it 'Spiral Potatoes' or something and I don't think they'd be able to claim exclusivity over the product (it's worth checking anyway!).