Deliciousness in the details

Yesterday was Canada Day (Yay Canada!) and while I usually celebrate by walking through the local ravine park system and the neighbourhoods near it... um, shinsplints. Even the tops of my feet hurt after speedwalking in sandals on Tuesday. What was I thinking?

Instead, I 'celebrated my country's French roots' with lunch at a boulangerie et patisserie. I love when the name over the door actually says that! It means ham and cheese sandwiches on super-fresh baguette with some totally unhealthy but awesome mayo/mustard combo - in this case, the ham even had chives or something baked into it - and if I'm very lucky, Florentine cookies.

If you've never met these, they're a combination of candied cherries, gooey sweet stuff, and sliced almonds, pressed together into a flat round and dipped in chocolate. When I lived in England I was able to buy some the size of my hand, but my local Belgian bakery makes them in adorable tiny discs.

And here's the delicious detail: the ones I bought yesterday were the same mini size, but had fewer candied cherries, and rather than being dipped in chocolate they were pressed into a small rounded cup of chocolate flavoured with orange. The flavour combo was amazing, as was the change in ratio between chocolate and cookie. I know this will sound weird coming from me, but I prefer the more balanced partnership at my local source - still, I was impressed by what a huge difference a tiny change can make. Another life lesson, I think.

That and you shouldn't have three ice creams on the same day you have a little bag of Florentine cookies, even if it is the day you celebrate living in a really terrific place.