Cake Day!

When I lived in LA, Sundays were 'Cake Day.' In case you couldn't tell from the name, Cake Day was the one day each week that I'd get myself a piece of cake. As a rule, I don't make desserts at home, nor do I typically order them in restaurants. But on Cake Day, I'd go all out: chocolate cheesecake from the French bakery in Westwood Village, a slice of something delightful from Sweet Lady Jane, or an assortment of pastries from the Persian bakery near our apartment. Each week, I'd start looking forward to Cake Day around Tuesday or so.

Since we moved to Chicago, Cake Day has fallen by the wayside. There just aren't any exciting cake bakeries in our neighborhood, and Jeff and I are both trying to eat more vegetables and less junk. But a few weeks ago, Cake Day made a surprise weekday reappearance! Let me start at the beginning…

This particular tale of cake actually starts with hot dogs. One of the places on Jeff's restaurant list is Max's Take Out in the Loop, and on this particular windy, drizzly day, we'd decided to go there. First, I made Jeff take a few pictures of me while we were waiting for the bus.

I decided to take my Pinup Girl Clothing Heidi dress out for a spin (...sorry not sorry), and paired it with a red petticoat and shrug, because red and leopard print is possibly the best thing ever. I even wore heels! This dress is super fabulous. I've found that the Heidi dresses from PUG tend to run a bit bigger than some of the other styles I've tried, and I was actually able to size down to a medium. I don't typically want my petticoat to stick out the bottom of the dress, but because my tea-length red petticoat and shrug match perfectly, I wanted that little hint of ruffle showing at the bottom. 

My outfit made a valiant effort to absorb Jeff into the layers of fluff and skirt on the bus, but he survived.

It is really hard to lift your petticoat neatly through your dress.

Max's is a tiny little place. It's mostly a takeout restaurant, but they have a few seats, which is good, since we didn't have anywhere else to go with our food. I got a Polish Dog, and Jeff got a Jumbo Dog. They were super tasty, if a little unwieldy because all good Chicago dogs are a delicious challenge to eat. The fries were epic, so much so that I couldn't stop eating them for the ten seconds it would've taken to snap a picture.

L to R: Jeff's, mine. Not that you can really see the hot dog under all the toppings…

Did you know that there was a giant hotdog in the skies above Chicago? No?? Me neither.

Because it was a takeout place, it didn't take very long to eat, so after we finished eating, we decided to walk around downtown Chicago a bit. Because it was drizzly and chilly, I got it in my head that we needed hot chocolate. And lo and behold, as if summoned into existence by my freezing hands, Magnolia Bakery rose in the misty glow of the streetlights, and there was Much Rejoicing.

Oh Cake Day, how I'd missed you…

World's cutest shop alert! I'm definitely a sucker for fairy lights.

L to R: delicious, also delicious

I know it's kind of mean to show you a photo of cake, since you might not have cake available to eat at this very second, but look at all its sugary majesty!! I actually only made it about 60% through this slice,  because it was roughly the size of my head, but Jeff fell on his sword and finished it for me. He's a keeper.

All in all, it was a very successful evening of stuffing my face!