Sanderson Media

Why Vietnam sparkles Have you ever had the urge to hug an entire country? Although some countries won’t let you get close to them, but this is not a problem in Vietnam. Would delicious draught beer on tap for around 50 cents a mug, tempt you to this very special destination? Vietnam probably has the most friendly and polite people on earth and  as a bonus, they make healthy, delicious street food for less than $1.50 a bowl. Could that tempt us away from cold, unfriendly Westernised destinations that won’t talk to you?

Why can we be certain that migrants are  good for your health? Lets wind the clock back to the early years of Australia’s proud Anglo Saxon heritage when many began looking suspiciously and obliquely at migrants. Governments of all colors promoted this critical and superior attitude by devising the “white Australia policy” which was strongly backed by Australia’s mainstream churches. These groups conveniently forgot that their Lord might have had a neatly trimmed beard and olive skin.

Mentoring eccentrics When my children were quite young, my second daughter took great interest in serenading our chickens which could not escape because they were firmly tucked under each arm as she walked around the house, talking and singing. Her next sign of good communication and eccentricity was to regularly climb our huge mango tree and sing and play her school recorder to the birds that parked thereon. I kept up her supply of musically challenged chickens.

Pictured below, the author discovered a great sense of community at Vanuatu fruit and vegetable markets. It was open for business 24 hours a day. You could buy freshly cooked food at 2 a.m. in the morning and talk until you dropped from exhaustion. Understanding migrants with diverse cultures might provide insight into youth suicide and how to prevent it. Is this an outlandish claim or is there serious evidence to back it up?

Some races, like the Pacific Islanders, have never lost their sense of community. Family food and conversation My local commonwealth bank did something very scary today. As I walked in the front door, a cheery employee asked me if I needed anything and then I met Cassie, the bank teller, who engaged me in a very interesting conversation, while banking my cheque. I wasn’t ready for this and it really took me by surprise.

  Today TV chefs are treated like rock stars. In Australia, the final of the country’s Master Chef program, a couple of years back, was watched by 4.1 million people. It was many more than watch the finals of any football code, almost double the ratings that some finals get. The following year’s cooking final pulled in even more viewers. It has been a worldwide trend but there are good reasons why this has been happening?

Why the addiction to chilli? Why do some people crave spicy foods, chillies, curries, noodles and so forth while others go through life never wanting to challenge their taste buds? Australian Chinese chef, from Sri Lanka, Jimmy Shu, has put forward a plausible theory. After years of tempting foodies, he concludes that a palate corrupted by eating chillies and curries seems to turn a person into a discerning eater. He has noticed that the more his customers like chilli and curry, the more they need variety and spice. It’s all in the “corruption of the palate”, he says. It is well known that chilli speeds up your metabolism, plus the hot little critters are a rich source of vitamin C and it might even work against the formation of cancer cells. Nutritionists also claim that chilli helps fight pain and eases nasal congestion. Just imagine it. When we put chilli in our cooking, we may be promoting good health, as well as good conversation. Ever since the Portuguese brought chilli to India,...