I was apprenticing at a restaurant in Belgium

I'm a connoisseur of the culinary arts, so I figured, where better to learn about them than in one of the premiere restaurant in French-speaking Belgium, namely Le Nie, in the heart of Bruges? So, much to my mother's dismay, I booked myself a flight and took off alone to meet my culinary destiny.

When I arrived in Bruges, I found my way to my hostel, where I met a lovely Norwegian girl who introduced herself as Sieglinde who seemed to share my interest in food, because she kept asking me what my wienerschnitzel was like. She became very excited when I told her it was among the best you could find in the States, but then seemed confused when I told her I prepared it with cajun seasoning, ground pepper, and garlic, and shortly thereafter she politely excused herself. Maybe I should have left the garlic out of it, on reflection, seeing as how she wasn't Italian. Probably just didn't have a taste for the stuff.

Anyway, the next morning I arose early and made my way to Le Nie, where I found myself greeted by a portly, jovial man in a vest, who introduced himself as Rassior don Guerres, the restaurant's maitre d'. I told him my name and said the chef was expecting me, and he smiled and indicated that I proceed to the kitchen, which I did.

I greeted the chef and shook his hand, we discussed the specifics of my apprenticeship, and he introduced me to the other apprentice he had taken on, a beautiful young Argentinian girl who wasted no time once the chef had left earshot in asking me about my burrito. I raised an eyebrow at her and asked her which one she meant, because I can make many different varieties of burritos, and would indeed be willing to do so for a hot tamale like her. She looked at me in befuddlement and then became very interested in her phone. I think I slipped up by forgetting that tamales are not Argentinian and they don't have them in Belgium anyway.

Anyway, we got over our rocky start and quickly became good friends, working under the guidance of Chef Shilo Bouffe (he explained that his father had been French, while his mother was Hebrew), who spent the first few weeks introducing us to the delicate art of making frittes.

He was very insistent that I needed to include a lot of mayonnaise on my fritte, or else it would not marinate properly and that Belgian quality so inherent to the item would be lost. I took careful heed and always made sure my frittes were covered in a thick layer of delicious mayonnaise.

This served me well in my first assessment, but it seemed that my Argentinian friend was not so cognizant, or perhaps encountered a language barrier. When her assessment arrived, her fritte didn't have nearly enough mayonnaise on it, and Shilo flipped his lid.

"What do you call this?" he barked at her. "It's all wrong, it's missing all of its character!"

"What do you mean?" she said, tearfully. "What did I forget?"

"Ayy!" he said, angrily. "Le mayo!"

^^^I ^^^am ^^^so ^^^sorry