prayers to st. lawrence sought

Martyrdom of St Lawrence 1592
Oil on canvas, 419 x 315 cm
Basilica, El Escorial

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for those of you who do not know, my hub and are the proud proprietors of a mom & pop cafe. we work hard. really hard. it has been difficult in the past for so many reasons, but every now and again we feel as though we truly are blessed and God does in fact love the mom & pop cafe so we continue forward in years and friendships that have developed through our business.

one of the cool things that has happened to us -- twice -- is we were voted "Best of the Best for Breakfast" in all of south jersey. the local paper, the Press of Atlantic City, has a "Best of" contest every year and it is a big deal to the small places like ours that compete with the bigger places like iHop and Dennys. they are very popular in this area i guess like they are popular across the country.

last year in south jersey, however, folks loved the jimbo's pancakes :) to our utter amazement, we won over iHop.

so i see in paper today they are having the balloting this week and next in wednesday's and sunday's papers. voting ends on june 28th, results out july 28th. we are hoping for the three-peat but penni is troubled: they are allowing on-line voting this year.

wherein lies the penster's conflict? i cannot stump for votes because most of my bloggie pallies are from out of the area (and across the globe, actually) to vote online which, i will shame-facedly admit to you now that i was going to bleg the vote - no can do, kemosabe - you have to be knowledgeable about the other places in the area and put in at least 35 people for categories or your online contribution will not be counted.

that, and it wouldn't be fair now, would it? we want to win meritoriously, do we not? are we all about the publicity or all about the amazing omelettes? the three-peat bragging rights or the french toast made with challah bread that is so good, you want to holla?

(sorry about the pun. typo)

is blegging the vote as bad as when the "paid feature advertisers" to load up their "vote for me" rhetoric surrounding said ballot so as to stand out when a voter is trying to think of their favorite breakfast spot and cannot remember their name? (which you will be able to see if you click on the link, above, what i am talking about in pdf format...)

shameful, i say!! really, really pathetic. in fact, i usually rail against such obvious attempts at garnering a vote and say, with the most noble of attitudes, i would rather win because people like us than win because i stuffed the ballot boxes.

really. i would.

however.

a THREE-PEAT would go a long freaking way to a mom & pop restaurant who has no money to be one of the "paid feature advertisers" so vote early, vote often, and if you enlarge the pdf, put the maloiks on anything that sounds breakfast-y, cater-y, lunch-ish.

oh, and say a prayer for us and ask for the intercession of st. lawrence (who is the patron saint of cooks) to put in a good word to the Big Guy who i am sure would like our freshly made corned beef hash over our competitor's.

thankie :)