This recipe was inspired by a tea themed for Canadian artist Emily Carr.

Delight comes in many shapes and colors, and in a cornucopia of tastes. Well-crafted food covers all that like paint on canvas.

An outlier to breakfast, lunch and dinner is formal tea. My wife, Laurie, built a fine reputation around hers. And that is why, when she saw an advertisement on the streets of Vancouver, British Columbia, for an Emily Carr tea — Carr was a Canadian painter and tea lover — Laurie was excited.

At the tea, one of many appetizers placed on a three-layered serving tray was an exquisite mouthful defined as smoked sockeye salmon with seaweed cream cheese, served on a delicate blini — a little bit like an open-faced sandwich. Looked great and tasted even better.

Here is the good part: it is a completely doable recipe.

One by one, place the ingredients on the blini while pretending you are painting a canvas. Start with the cream cheese spread. Add a piece of salmon lox (or smoked salmon), one slice of cucumber, 1/2 teaspoon of salmon caviar and a garnish of pickled ginger and fresh fennel or dill. It looks beautiful and tastes divine.

Sockeye salmon blini

Ingredients

• One dozen blini (see below for recipe)

• 12 squares smoked salmon or salmon

lox, 1 inch apiece

• 12 cucumber slices

• 12 pickled ginger pieces

• 6 tablespoons salmon caviar

• 12 sprigs fennel or dill

• Seaweed cream cheese topping (see

recipe below)

Laurie’s rye blini

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole milk

• 1/4 cup buttermilk

• 2 teaspoons granulated dry yeast

• 3/4 cup rye flour

• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided

• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon buckwheat flour

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• Grated rind of one orange

• 1/4 teaspoon each of ground cumin and

fennel

• Two eggs, separated

• 1 ounce unsalted butter

Warm the whole milk to about 85 degrees in a small saucepan. Add the yeast and stir to dissolve. Transfer this to a large bowl and add the rye flour with 1 tablespoon of sugar, stirring to incorporate.

Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and allow it to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Then, sift the remaining flours with the baking powder, baking soda and salt into another bowl.

Add the two egg yolks, the orange rind, ground cumin and fennel, stirring to incorporate. Add the yeast mixture to the egg mixture, along with the buttermilk, stir gently and set aside.

Whip the two egg whites until frothy, then add the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar and whip until soft peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the rye flour and egg mixture gently with a rubber spatula, until thoroughly blended.

If the batter appears too dry, add a little buttermilk. If too wet, add a little rye or white flour.

Drop heaping tablespoons of batter onto a preheated cast iron mini pancake grill which has been brushed with melted butter. Cook the blini for 2 to 3 minutes on one side until they are nicely browned, then flip and cook the opposite side. Remove and serve on a platter.

Wipe the pan occasionally with a paper towel, add melted butter and cook the successive batches in the same manner until all the batter is used.

Seaweed cream cheese

To make this topping in a food blender, mix six thin dried seaweed squares with cream cheese, six drops of Tabasco, 2 tablespoons heavy cream and one teaspoon of soy sauce. Spin into a smooth and creamy spread.