best croissant in TO!

I have an idea. I've had it for awhile.

This idea essentially combines the following:

• my ridiculous love of croissants...
• ... and Saturday post-yoga coffee dates.
• my goal to rediscover the pleasure in food...
• ... and to explore more of Toronto. 

So, without further ado, I am launching my new project: 

The Hunt for the Best Croissant in Toronto!

I'll be exploring some of my usual stomping grounds (Lit Espresso Bar, Thor, Mercatto) and some new ones, like BlogTo's list.

first edition: Thor's Croissant

Today was my first, official, project-related croissant tasting and boy did I enjoy it! I met my lovely sister-in-law for yoga at 889 Thompson and after, we look our super-stretched and zen bods to Thor Espresso Bar for some almond mylk lattes, croissants (me), and power cookies (her) - side note: if you're looking for a meal in cookie form, you must try some of the amazing cookies at Thor.

But back to the croissant...

Terrible, terrible picture of a truly delicious croissant.

flavour: good ol' reliable butter (a.k.a. plain)

rating: 8/10

butteriness: major

flakiness: ideal 

pairing: almond mylk latte

Thor's croissant was small but mighty. The inside was super duper buttery and the shell crispy and flaky. It was truly delicious. My only complaint: it was a wee bit too buttery. I had to wipe my fingers after each taste, and silence the judgy inner calorie-counting critic (I'll deal with her soon). But it was good enough that I look forward to going back soon.

This project is going to be fun with a capital YUM!

Any recommendations for places I absolutely must try?

mxo

P.S. I am also going to use this as an opportunity to improve my iPhone photography skills. Apparently sunshine = shadows. No part of this croissant was black. It was beautiful. Silly Maya. 

beautiful messiness

August hit hard, so hard that it the reset button on my life. I turned 28 and a few things happened to remind me just how fleeting life really is. 

I've also started to really truly accept that life is supposed to be messy. 

My pops and I...

Somewhere along the way, many of learned/ decided/ started believing that:

• life is supposed to be neat and tidy, and
• if I only do x, or stop doing y, my life will finally be neat and orderly, and I'll be happy.

Until a few days ago, I completely subscribed to all of the above. This whole blog has been based on these ideas - if I only do more yoga, eat less gluten, run more frequently, save more money, etc, I'll find the missing puzzle piece and then I'll be happy. All of this assumed that I wasn't happy and couldn't be happy all along.

I've recently realized that that kind of thinking more often than not leads to anxiety, burn out, and generally missing the beautiful messiness that is life.

Now, after all that August was, I've been mulling this over instead:

"We think we're supposed to figure out how life should be, and then make it that way... How did we come up with the notion that life is not okay just the way it is, or that it won't be okay the way it will be? Who said that the way life naturally unfolds is not all right?"

                        ~ the untethered soul

mxo