Pierre Gourmet gave out an indignant sigh as he sat on his kitchen floor covered in various soups, casseroles and pastas.
Things had been this way for weeks now; well, he hadn't been sitting their under his own dishes for weeks, but rather had been failing dishes more and more often, acting like a complete klutz and having trouble remembering recipes.
This small and now rather dirty child-like character still sitting on the floor wallowing in his misery was the seventh official carrier of the Gourmet name.
The Gourmets were a prestigious family who excelled in just about everything to do with food.
They were all talented chefs and could prepare a magnificent feast within a single afternoon. Each of them was often asked to attend cooking contests as esteemed judges who would critique each dish with and accurate description.
And before one could even consider themselves a true Gourmet, they would have to pick a region of the world and search out a completely new and unique flavor.
In other words, they were kind of a big deal.
But as the main character and focus of our story continued to sit on the ground still in shock, he wondered to himself weather or not he was worthy of such a grand and prestigious title.
Sure, all of Pierre's friends told him that he was a great cook, and everyone on the island he now resided on respected his cooking abilities and listened carefully to his critiques and heeded his advice. But lately something had been off.
After the entire time it took you to read through, or perhaps skim through that introduction into our little chef's world, Pierre the Gourmet began to pick himself up.
Starting with his hat.
Pierre picked his hat off of his head, which is something he didn't often do, and placed it beside on a nearby kitchen counter.
He then proceeded to wipe off the long pasta from his sleeve, as he wiped it off though, a fair few of the actual noodles fell apart.
He had overcooked them.
Pierre was more frustrated then ever now, if there was one thing he hated, it was a failed dish.
After a while longer of clumsily cleaning himself up and mopping up the mess he had made after his "accident," (Tripping on a lone fork that had somehow made its way to the floor and knocking the three dishes he had been carrying waiter-style out of his hands an all over himself and the floor.)
He finally got back into his kitchen.
He would have stopped there and gone for a walk or something if it hadn't been for the guests coming that night.
It was kind of like an artist having artists-block, or a writer with writers-block, and we all know how awful that is.
But of course, with guests on the way, Pierre had no choice but to get his act together and cook something appropriate for the occasion.
The occasion of course wasn't really anything special, just that during his slump, Pierre thought that if he invited his friends over to have dinner at his house, that maybe his creative impulse would come back and he would be able to break free of this awful confine.
Pierre glanced at the clock and let out a little squeak when he realized that his friends would be coming any moment now.
Ugh, that really was an un-manly noise. He hated that about himself, but that had always been an issue, so he cast the thought aside; he had bigger fish to fry.
Wait…
…Fish? …Fry?
Ah! That was it!
Pierre dashed for his unusually large refrigerator and opened it up to reveal many wonderful and tasty looking ingredients.
Including a giant fish.
Denny, who was the local fishing genius had brought it over earlier that morning at Pierre's request.
Although even Pierre was surprised and how big it really was. All of his friends were so talented, in their own way.
Pierre stopped thinking about all this nonsense you've been reading and began to prepare a quick and delicious dinner.
He had Denny deal with all the nasty things such as scaling and gutting the fish, it wasn't that Pierre couldn't do those things; he'd just rather not.
And besides, Denny was such a manly man, so Pierre always just insisted he was good at it.
He continued to prepare the fish by marinating it in lemon and leaving it to cook in his large oven, producing a delicious smell.
As Pierre was browsing his impressive collection of spices, he heard a knock at the door.
Ah, they must have arrived.
"Pierre!" Lana cried out, "I'm so glad you invited me, I'm starved."
Pierre chuckled at his friends excited reaction. "Well I hope you brought your appetite, because I have a few courses coming."
"Are you kidding?" Lana continued as she sat down at his table. "I brought three."
And she wasn't joking about it, either.
Chelsea and Natalie walked through the door too, waving fondly at their cooking friend.
"P-Pierre…" Chelsea stopped in her tracks with Natalie besides her wearing a similar shocked expression. "Y-your hat?"
Pierre was confused for a moment, when he realized what she was on about. He wasn't wearing his hat.
He'd taken it off to clean up all that time ago and forgotten to replace it on his head.
"Whoa, Pierre without his hat? I wanna see!" Lana Shouted.
As Natalie and Chelsea sat themselves beside Lana at the table they began to talk amongst themselves. "You mean you didn't notice?" Natalie giggled.
Pierre always noticed how happy Natalie was around him; he had no idea why, though.
He had never really had to deal with affairs of the heart before so he thought nothing of it.
Pierre prepared the other various dishes for the night whilst listening to the first of his guests chatting away.
"So where is Elliot?" Lana asked loudly.
Natalie responded absent-mindedly, "He said he wasn't feeling well so he stayed home."
"But you wouldn't miss Pierre's cooking for the world, would you?" Lana said musically as she nudged Natalie in the side.
"Wh-what are you t-t-talking about?" She stuttered, her face almost the same shade as her hair.
Pierre could hear the girls giggling but he wasn't entirely clear on what was so amusing, he really appreciated it when people liked his cooking.
"He's a good chef, so what? And like you're one to talk, Lana." Natalie was doing her best to stay calm.
"Hey, you don't get to eat much of anything in the pop star business, I appreciate a good meal."
Suddenly there was a banging at the door which almost made Pierre drop his newly made soup dish.
"Nobody panic, I've arrived!"
That happy-go-lucky voice couldn't have belonged to anyone else but Denny.
"Hey guys, are you hungry?" Pierre began to announce that the food was ready.
There was a happy cheer that erupted from the table, Pierre smiled, maybe this was what he needed after all.
Before he had a chance to sit down, Pierre asked Denny if he would help him carry everything to the table.
Of course his fisherman friend happily obliged.
Pierre deliberately dawdled in the kitchen doing this and that so that Denny would have to do most of the carrying himself.
He didn't want to risk falling over and ruining something in front of all his friends. That would be unbelievably embarrassing.
As Denny walked back for the last item of food Pierre grabbed the napkins and gestured towards the fish for Denny to carry.
"Oh wow, is this the fish I caught this morning? It looks great!"
Receiving compliments like this always lifted Pierre's spirits and helped him to be the cheery fellow everyone knew and loved.
Denny picked the tray up in both hands proudly and headed for the table, Pierre then followed suit.
As they sat down with the last of the food they all shared a common desire; to eat.
But Pierre had other things on his mind.
"So is this everyone?" Chelsea asked, before digging in.
"Yes, I think so." Pierre answered, offering to serve her some of the curry. "I invited Sabrina, but she said her father had plans tonight and When I asked Vaughn he mumbled something about a risk of carrots and walked off."
Chelsea giggled a little at that, but Pierre didn't get it. Carrots were completely delectable.
"So Natalie" Lana began, with a face full of some food or rather, "Pierre looked pretty cute without his hat on, huh?" She made it look as though she was having a private conversation, but was so obviously not.
"What? Pierre wasn't wearing his hat and I didn't see it? No fair!" Denny looked truly crestfallen.
"It wasn't all that exciting." Natalie explained, "He just wasn't wearing it when we walked in."
As the four of his guests droned on about how much Natalie must have loved it, Pierre just stared at his portion of the fish, almost as if having a staring contest with it.
He was still deep in thought about the rut he was in, because somehow, he knew this wasn't helping.
Chelsea then cut off his trail of thought. "Oh wow, Pierre, this is delicious!"
"O-oh, uh, thank you, Chelsea." He stuttered, a little shocked to be woken from his daydream.
"What did you expect from our little Gourmet?" Lana joined in. Natalie too. "It really is good, Pierre."
"I didn't think my fish could taste this good, and that's a real compliment, since I'm not too bad a seafood chef myself." Lana giggled. "Oh really, Denny?"
Again, Pierre drifted off into his own world, wondering if the members of his family would hold his food in such high regard.
"Pierre, are you okay?" Natalie asked in that caring tone that not many were lucky enough to receive from her.
"Oh, yes, I'm fine- absolutely fine." He popped into action. "Now then, I should eat something." He smiled awkwardly.
His friends watched on as he bit into a large chunk of fish on the end of his fork.
Silence.
Pierre placed his fork down beside his plate and reached up to his mouth, opening it slightly he reached inside and pulled out a bone.
A bone.
He had left a bone in the fish.
"Uh, Pierre? You don't look so good." Denny broke the silence.
"I don't… look so good?" He began, placing the bone on the edge of his plate. "Well it's NO WONDER." He boomed, uncharacteristically loud for someone of such small stature.
"IT'S BEEN WEEKS NOW AND I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO MAKE A SINGLE DISH RIGHT!" He really was yelling at the top of his lungs, and all his friends were shocked, to say the least.
"…But…" Denny murmered, "I really liked the curry…"
"Well of course you liked the curry." Pierre spoke it like poison. "All you ever eat is POORLY COOKED FISH!" Denny flinched, for such a manly man he was pretty scared by Pierre right now, probably because nobody ever would have guessed Pierre could be angry at all.
Chelsea stood up. "Calm down Pierre, you shouldn-"
"And you!" Pierre ignored her, standing up too. (Even though he wasn't nearly as tall.) "You just eat rubbish at the diner every day!"
Even Chelsea was kept quiet by this rambling chef.
"None of you understand, no real gourmet would ever eat this garbage- it's VILE! It's DISGUSTING! It's INEDIBLE."
With that last cold note Pierre stormed out the door and into the night, leaving his speechless friends behind.