Birthday Weekend – Part I

My entire weekend was packed full of birthday fun! Lunch with family, dinner out with friends and chocolate cake for dessert. Dan continued my birthday tradition by making the above cake – chocolate curls and all… it was delicious! He followed Pioneer Woman’s instructions for creating the curls. He used a Ghirardelli® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Baking Bar… It means so much to me that he takes the time each year to create my birthday cake masterpiece.

Deede and Josh sent me a link to my birthday present – it just happened to be a special birthday post on Deede’s new blog – Pie on the Run! – it made me get all teary-eyed that they celebrated from afar and took the time to create a post about it – just for me. Awww… awesome friends rule! Miss them both so much.

The next adventure was a drive to Oakland to meet up with Dave and Aaron/Paul/Jester 🙂 for some pizza. Jester suggested Zachary’s and that decision turned out to be solid. Dan had been to the Zachary’s in Berkeley, but I had never tried their pizza and Jester was a regular and deemed it one of his favorite pizza places.

Easy nearby street parking… the incredible smells were noticeable as we neared the place, OMG… so good!

The artwork was cool. Zachary’s walls are covered with customer created artwork depicting their love for Zachary’s pizza.

Dave and I shared the Sun-Dried Tomato pizza

Asiago and Mozzarella makes any pizza a fabulous pizza… loved the combination of flavors and the crust was perfectly crisped.

Dan and Jester opted to share the Carne – Stuffed Pizza with Italian sausage, pepperoni, salami, chopped bacon and mozzarella.

I will definitely be adding “Zachary’s” to my favorite pizza list. Good suggestion Jester – two thumbs up!

We had some time to kill before heading on to our next adventure… so we walked down College Ave. and checked out some of the shops.

We stepped foot into Berkeley and were greeted by this amazing sweet shoppe. Powell’s rocked… it was just what I was hoping to find.

So much going on… my eyes darted back and forth to every display… kid in a candy shop… oh yes!

His and Hers dental floss…

Come on… who doesn’t want their lips tasting like corndogs? Ummm… me. Mmmkay, thanks.

I had tried the Vosges Mo’s Milk Bar before (45% deep milk chocolate w/hickory smoked uncured bacon and alderwood smoked salt) … so the Chuao bars caught my eye. Chuao Chocolatier (pronounced chew-WOW) is the first Venezuelan Chocolatier based in the United States and Southern California’s premier artisan chocolatier.

I bought the Potato Chips in Chocolate bar – Wow! Premium milk chocolate with kettle cooked, lightly salted potato chips, yes please. Sweet and salty, my favorite kind of treat. Pretty sure I will be eating more of these bars in my future.

Dan and I also got some licorice (for him), watermelon and tangerine sour balls (for me) and I found the perfect gift for another friend… gotta send that off soon.

We had a great visit, said our goodbyes, and then headed off to our next destination… stay tuned…

 

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5 comments

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    • Amy on June 11, 2012 at 5:33 pm

    Potato chips in chocolate bar??!! Sounds awesome!! Glad to see you had a great birthday 🙂

    • Amy on June 11, 2012 at 5:34 pm

    Oh, and that cake is beautiful! Great job, Dan!!

  1. Great job to your hubs on the cake!! I’ve been to Zachary’s… I wasn’t the biggest fan (I know, blasphemy!), but it is definitely a unique place worth visiting. Happy birthday!!

    • Kristen on June 12, 2012 at 10:19 am

    Glad you had fun! Cake looks YUMMY! Good job Dan!!! 🙂

    • Dave2 on June 12, 2012 at 5:29 pm

    So happy that Jester and I could help celebrate with you and Phister! It was a fantastic day with great pizza and great friends, and it doesn’t get much better than that… it felt like it was MY birthday! But… uhhhhh… next year we get some of that cake. 🙂

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