If At First You Don’t Succeed

Happy belated quarantined Memorial Day.

In the good old days ─ good old days being ten/twelve weeks ago, us seniors would have gotten together and given ourselves a BBQ outside in the patio area by the pool.

There’s still a lock on the pool gate ─ rightly so, and we’re all in masks staying away from each other so instead, craving a Memorial Day themed meal (slaw, potato salad, turkey dog in a bun), I spent time in the kitchen.

The yeast having arrived before the gluten free masa (thanks again Anne Marie), I put tamales on the back burner and went back to my original plan of baking gluten-free hot dog buns. That project ended up being a waste of time, energy, flour, eggs.

The first recipe allowed the dough to be shaped as a bun before baking, but didn’t translate well substituting all-purpose flour with gluten free and baking powder with soda. Epic fail.

If at first you don’t succeed, try again.

The second recipe was specifically developed for gluten free flour and translated well with soda instead of powder, but called for a hot dog pan ─ which I didn't have. Substituting a cake pan for the hot dog pan turned out a bread cake. Taste wasn’t bad, but impossible to shape, after baking, into a useable bun.

If you don’t succeed a second time, go with what you know. I just wrapped those turkey dogs in a tortilla and called it a Memorial Day meal.

Before logging off last night, I checked Yelp to see if the complex received any further reviews, other than the two.

It did not.

However, instead of two reviews there was only one ─ the original negative review. The positive review from across the quad neighbor Quiet Old Guy, had been moved off the main page and, in its place, were the words “1 other review that is not currently recommended”.

How interesting.

My inquiring mind had to know why, so I Googled “Why would Yelp flag a review as not recommended?” Google replied, “According to Yelp, their algorithm chooses to not recommend certain reviews because it's believed that the flagged review is fake ...”

WOWIE WOW!

I can’t imagine that positive review did not come from Quiet Old Guy. It read like something his strait-laced, deferential to those in authority self would say. However, I can’t say it’s beyond the realm of possibility that management would have been so stupid, so desperate, as to have posted their own positive review posing as him.

Either way, there are no further reviews and seems there won’t be. It was incredibly ostentatious to ask residents for reviews in the first place. Especially when folks have other things on their minds, like surviving this pandemic. Management will now have to live with the one negative review, and suspicions they faked a positive.