"What's your overall plan?"

We had a pretty short demonstration today, as Chef showed off some quick zucchini and endive garnishes (everything looks better — curly — after it's been in cold water for a couple of days). Then he took a small watermelon and began to carve. He took a disk off the bottom so that the fruit would sit flat on the table, then he peeled off the green skin from the top half, leaving the white of the rind. He used a circle cutter to make an incision right in the middle of the top of the fruit, down to the red flesh (sort of a depth gauge), and he began making swirly cut-outs on both sides of the circle, using a paring knife.

"What's your overall plan?," Andy asked. "To retire while I'm still healthy enough to enjoy it," Chef responded, without hesitation. "What's your overall plan for this melon?" Andy asked. "Oh, the melon. We're just playing it by ear." It turned out to be a gorgeous huge rose-like sculpture that Andy used on the "twenty-minute fruit tray" he built before the end of class. "I never know what's gonna happen when I start," Chef said. "It's a live show."

Sylvia, Andrea and I each made different platters today, but we were set up at the same table so it was a nice morning of working and talking. Silvia made dilled lobster salad while I sliced swiss cheese for the student kitchen, then she made crab spring rolls. Andrea made seared ahi canapés, with a base of sushi rice wrapped in nori. She cut the ahi into 1-inch square strips, seasoned it with salt and TONS of cracked black pepper, and seared it briefly on all sides, then cut it into 1/3" thick slices. Atop the ahi, she put a dab of wasabi and two crossed strips of chives. Chef Marcus, who teaches Basic Skills in the adjacent classroom, walked through our kitchen a couple of times and took pieces every time he passed her tray. She complained to Chef Duffy, who said, "It's a great compliment when a Chef Instructor wants to eat your food." "But he's messing up my tray," Andrea grumbled. "You just have to deal," Chef responded. "Pretend he's a customer with poor manners."

I spent way too long making the barquette shells for the lobster salad. I first cut pot sticker wrappers and fitted them into the little tin pans but after they were baked, they were too thick and hard to eat. So I found won ton skins, and who knew? They're about 1/2 the thickness of pot sticker wrappers, and they worked just fine. Way too much fussing, though, but I guess the point is to experiment until you find the solution, then make a million of them.

I filled the barquettes with a small spoonful of salad ("Not too much," Chef Duffy said. "It's lobster!") and topped each one with a little sprig of dill and a tiny sliver of fresh lemon. I used a big mirror for the display, with the lobster body Andrea saved from the poaching as the main garnish. Then I sliced up some of the seafood mousseline terrine (little squares with layers of pale pink and yellow, dotted with chives), and some of the salmon roulade, both of which Chef demo'd on Tuesday. The end result was really quite fancy.

We talked about the techniques we're learning this week, and Andrea and I agreed that we'd be unlikely to use some of them after school was over. "If I ever say I'm serving aspic," Andrea said, "I want you to shoot me." Chef was walking by then, and said, "I want you to be prepared to do anything your Chef might ask you to do," and of course, that's understandable. It's what we're paying for, actually. He asked if we'd thought about our externships yet. Andrea is hoping to find a spot in a high-end Napa Valley restaurant before she returns to Reno, where she wants to open her own place. I told Chef that I want to work at the New York Times, in the Food Section. He just nodded and said, "I knew you'd have a plan."