Happy Birthday to me, part deux

These gorgeous people are (from left) my daughter, Alexis; her BFF, Lisa; my neice, Shelby; and in front there is my hilarious nephew, Owen. These are the little chefs that made the cake you see in the next photo for my birthday.

Alexis & Lisa baked the cake from scratch, using Hershey's Deep Dark Chocolate cake recipe, one of my favorites. It's a very reliable, very moist, very decadent cake! The frosting is a cream cheese frosting, some left vanilla and tinted, and some made chocolate. Both delicious!

They also did the decorating :)

I had a wonderful birthday! My husband took me to lunch while the girls made the cake and decorated the house, including a huge banner on the front door for when we returned. Blue and silver balloons and stars and streamers made the living and dining rooms a party zone fit for a Queen. I was truly impressed, and filled with love for my amazing girls (and boy).

For dinner we went to a favorite local place called Lefty's, which specializes in Chicago-Italian cuisine. I'm talking Chicago style pizza and dogs, as well as Italian beef and some of the best pasta this side of the Mississippi. My favorite is the Al Capone, which has artichoke hearts, bacon and basil tossed with linguini in a tomato cream sauce. So good!

We hadn't ever tried the pizza before last night, so we picked on each of the thin crust and the deep dish styles. (We were rather hungry, and so decided not to wait the 60+min for a stuffed pizza). Both the pizzas were good and for different reasons. For the thin crust, we chose the Gold Coast, which had chicken, artichokes, garlic, and basil. The sauce on this one was very intense, hearty sauce with lots of herbs. Quite tasty!

On the other hand, the deep dish Monster of the Midway, which had Italian sausage, pepperoni, and hot giardiniera also had a light, crushed tomato style sauce that was completely different from the sauce on the thin crust, but equally delicious. What made this pizza for me (and Alexis) was the cheese. Aged mozzerella, lots of it. Ooey Gooey wonderful messy yumminess!

Lefty's is located at 3448 30th street in North Park. You can get there easily by taking the 805 to El Cajon or University and heading west to 30th. I recommend getting there early for either deep dish or stuffed pizzas. Manga!