BoomerGirl.com

Come this way, up the garden steps and into a back yard where the patio is shaded by an old avocado tree. Fill a plate from a buffet of dishes as springlike as they are fresh and take a seat in the mild morning sun.

Nibble a leek pancake wrapped around a crisp spear of asparagus, sip an herbal tisane, indulge in a chocolate-orange scone. Let the textures and aromas play over your senses like flowers in a bouquet. Relax, and celebrate spring with a leisurely brunch.

For the table's centerpiece is a stack of leek pancakes designed for wrapping around a roasted asparagus spear or prosciutto. Gravlax, arranged like a fan on a platter, is a perfect match. Basil and mint and lemon grass steep in a pitcher to make a fragrant tisane for sipping.

Then meander around the garden, and come back to the table for a plate of chocolate-orange scones laced with oat flour, leavened with cream and still warm from the oven, or a parfait of Greek yogurt and strawberries. The sweet notes segue to the end of the morning and the brunch itself.

Such a leisurely brunch is built not only by the arrangement itself, laid out buffet-style and assembled to suit personal tastes, but also by the fact that much of it can be done ahead of time.

For a Sunday brunch, you'll need to start curing your gravlax Friday morning. Take skin-on salmon fillets, spread with equal parts sugar and kosher salt. Add sliced fennel and a sprinkling of aquavit - a Scandinavian spirit similar to vodka that is typically flavored with caraway. Stack the fillets, wrap them in cheesecloth, add weights on top and put the whole thing in the refrigerator. After 24 hours, turn the package over; after two days, unwrap the fish, scrape off the salt-fennel mixture and slice very thinly on a bias.

Subtler than smoked salmon, gravlax has a velvety texture and a delicate taste - here scented with notes of anise and licorice - that pairs beautifully with creme fraiche studded with toasted caraway seeds.

The day before the brunch, toast caraway seeds in a pan, crush them and mix with a cup of creme fraiche, salt and pepper. The flavors marry overnight.

Pick up thinly sliced "prosciutto de Parma" from your favorite specialty or grocery store the day before. Store it, tightly wrapped, in the refrigerator; just make sure that it's served at room temperature.

The morning of your brunch, prepare fresh herbs to make a tisane, a refreshing tea. Fill a clear glass teapot or pitcher - so you can see the leaves inside - with a few stalks of lemon grass and lush sprigs of mint or basil, lemon verbena or thyme. For cool tea, boil water, pour it over the herbs and set aside. To serve hot, set the pitcher of herbs aside and at serving time, pour hot water over and steep for five minutes.

Next come leek pancakes, simple cakes enlivened with leeks and kamut flour, a high-protein wheat flour that has a nutty flavor. Instead of adding melted butter to the batter - the customary way of adding the fat that tenderizes the pancakes - saute the leeks instead. The butter cooks the leeks into aromatic threads and picks up their heady flavors. Cook the pancakes in a cast-iron pan or griddle, making them smaller than usual. Keep them warm on the stove, serve them at room temperature or put a platter of them in a sunny quadrant of your table.

Thin stalks of asparagus in market stalls and produce aisles signal the season. Break the stalks off at their fibrous ends - they'll snap at the right place - and put them into a hot pan with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt. They'll roast in a few minutes, tossed constantly over high heat. This method brings out the vegetable's flavor, while keeping its lovely crunch.

To prepare eggs, whisk them into homemade hollandaise sauce, torqued with minced dill. It's a classic match for the asparagus, and it tastes pretty great on the pancakes too.

Hollandaise is a simple emulsion of egg yolks and melted butter - it's easy to do, and it will hold just fine if kept warm on the stove until you're ready for it.

You can make the sauce the traditional way, by whisking egg yolks in a metal bowl set over a pan of hot water, then incorporating melted butter until the mixture emulsifies and finishing with lemon juice and a pinch of salt and pepper. Or make your hollandaise in a blender. In keeping with the menu's herbal notes, add minced dill for a fresh, bright flavor to the sauce.

With the savory side of the menu done, you'll want to hit the sweet spot, and chocolate-orange scones are the perfect fit. These scones are from Alice Medrich, a San Francisco baker and author who has a light touch and a way with chocolate. They're light and tender, a cinch to make because Medrich uses neither eggs nor butter - all the fat and liquid come from heavy cream.

We've added orange zest and substituted oat flour for half the regular flour, both flavors that pair beautifully with the high-cacao chocolate for which the recipe calls. The resulting scones are subtle, simple wonders.

For those who linger over coffee, make individual fruit-and-yogurt parfaits. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of sugar and the peel from two lemons over a bowlful of fresh sliced strawberries, stir and let the fruit macerate.

After 15 minutes, when the strawberries have released their crimson juice, spoon a generous amount of Greek yogurt into pretty glasses. Add strawberries, layer fruit and yogurt about three-quarters of the way up each glass. Toss on a mint leaf or a lemon peel, and you're done.

Chocolate-Orange Scones

This recipe is adapted from Alice Medrich's "Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales From a Life in Chocolate." Oat flour is available at select health food and baking supply stores.

1 cup flour

1 cup oat flour

1/4 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

Zest from 2 oranges

4 ounces coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate (65 percent to 70 percent cacao)

1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream, plus extra for brushing

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, oat flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir in the orange zest and the chocolate.

3. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the cream. Using a spatula, mix the ingredients until just moistened; the dough should look rough and shaggy. Gather the dough into a lump with your hands and knead it together five or six times, until it holds together and the sides of the bowl are clean.

4. On a lightly floured board, pat the dough into an 8 1/2-inch round. Using a knife or a dough cutter, cut the round into 12 wedges. Place the wedges about an inch apart on the baking sheet. Brush the tops with cream and sprinkle them lightly with sugar.

5. Bake the scones until they begin to turn golden brown, about 15 minutes. Allow the scones to cool on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Total time: 30 minutes.

Servings: Makes 12 scones.

Each scone: 225 calories; 3 grams protein; 22 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams fiber; 15 grams fat; 8 grams saturated fat; 34 milligrams cholesterol; 208 milligrams sodium.

Pan-Roasted Asparagus

4 egg yolks

2 sticks butter, melted

1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

Fine sea salt

Freshly ground white pepper

1/8 cup finely chopped fresh dill

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 1/2 pounds asparagus, ends trimmed

1. Make the hollandaise sauce: Boil a few inches of water in a medium saucepan. Turn off the heat and place a metal bowl large enough to cover the saucepan on top, making sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water directly. Add the egg yolks and 2 tablespoons of water to the bowl and whisk continuously until the mixture becomes light and frothy. Continue whisking until the mixture thickens and forms a ribbon when you lift the whisk, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the melted butter, a little at a time, to the egg mixture, whisking continuously, until you've incorporated all the butter. Add the lemon juice, a pinch each of salt and pepper, and the dill. Keep the hollandaise barely warm over the hot water. (Makes 1 1/2 cups sauce.)

3. Alternatively, you can make the hollandaise in a blender. Place the egg yolks, lemon juice, pinch of salt and white pepper in a blender. Add 2 tablespoons boiling water and blend for a few seconds. Melt the butter until it just starts to boil. Take the butter off the heat, turn the blender back on and add the hot butter in a slow, steady stream until combined. Pour into a bowl and stir in the dill.

4. In a large skillet over high heat, heat the olive oil until quite hot. Toss in the asparagus and a pinch of salt and cook, flipping the spears of asparagus so that they sear evenly. Continue cooking over high heat, until the spears roast and begin to caramelize but haven't lost their vibrant color or some of their crunch, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and place on a serving platter; serve with a bowl of the hollandaise sauce.

Total time: 40 minutes

Servings: 6

Each serving with 2 tablespoons hollandaise sauce: 184 calories; 2 grams protein; 3 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram fiber; 19 grams fat; 11 grams saturated fat; 109 mg. cholesterol; 23 mg. sodium.

Fennel-Aquavit Gravlax With Caraway Creme Fraiche

Start the gravlax 48 hours before you want to serve it. You will need about 2 square feet of cheesecloth to wrap the gravlax. The Scandinavian liquor aquavit is available at many liquor stores.

1/4 cup black peppercorns

1/2 cup kosher salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 medium fennel bulb with fronds

2 (1-pound) skin-on salmon fillets (the tail section)

1/3 cup aquavit

1. Crush the peppercorns either with a mortar and pestle or by securing them in a thick, sealable plastic bag and mashing with a hammer or a thick-bottomed pan. In a medium bowl, mix the salt, sugar and crushed peppercorns. Set aside.

2. Cut the fennel bulb very thinly into lengthwise slices and mince the fronds. Place a small rack in the bottom of a glass baking dish big enough to accommodate the salmon fillets.

2. Place one of the salmon fillets, skin-side down, in the middle of a piece of cheesecloth big enough to wrap securely around the fish fillets. Sprinkle half of the salt-sugar mixture on top of the fish, being sure to cover all of the salmon. Then press the sliced fennel and the minced fronds over the top of the salt-sugar mixture. Drizzle half of the aquavit over this, then cover with the rest of the salt-sugar mixture.

3. Place the second salmon fillet, skin-side up, on top of the covered first fillet, making sure that the two fillets align. Drizzle the rest of the aquavit over the top layer and tightly wrap the cheesecloth over the fillets. Cover with plastic wrap. Place a second baking dish (smaller than the first) on top of the wrapped fish and put the entire thing into the refrigerator. Weight with heavy items from your refrigerator (beer bottles, mayonnaise jars) and allow to sit for 24 hours.

4. After 24 hours, remove from the refrigerator and turn over the wrapped fish (you'll notice that brine has begun to fill the lower baking dish). Pour a little over the top of the fish, replace the weights and return to the refrigerator. (If there is a lot of brine in the bottom of the pan, pour it off; you don't want the bottom of the fish to touch it.) Allow the gravlax to sit for another 24 hours.

5. After a total of 48 hours in the refrigerator, remove the fish, unwrap, and scrape off the fennel-pepper mixture. With a very sharp knife, slice the fillets, one at a time, very thinly on a diagonal. Fan the slices out on a plate; serve with caraway creme fraiche.

Caraway Creme Fraiche

1 tablespoon caraway seeds

1 cup creme fraiche

1/8 teaspoon sea salt

1/8 teaspoon white pepper

In a small saute pan over medium heat, toast the caraway seeds until fragrant and beginning to pop, about 5 minutes. Let cool, crushing them a little with a heavy spoon or with a mortar and pestle. In a small bowl, mix the cooled caraway, creme fraiche, pepper and salt.

Total time: 30 minutes, plus curing time.

Servings: 8 to 10.

Each of 10 servings: 224 calories; 19 grams protein; 3 grams carbohydrates; 0 fiber; 15 grams fat; 5 grams saturated fat; 64 milligrams cholesterol; 431 milligrams sodium.

Leek Pancakes

Note: Kamut flour is available at Whole Foods stores and select health food markets.

4 large leeks, white parts only, washed and thinly sliced (about 4 cups)

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter, plus additional for greasing the pan

1 teaspoon plus a pinch of sea salt, divided

4 eggs

2 cups whole milk

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

1 cup flour

1 cup kamut flour

2 teaspoons baking

powder

1. In a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat, saute the leeks in 6 tablespoons of butter with a pinch of salt until soft and just barely beginning to caramelize, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool in the pan.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk until well-blended. Add the flour, kamut flour, 1 teaspoon salt and the white pepper and baking powder and whisk together until combined. After the leeks are cooled, mix the leeks into the batter, being sure to add all the melted butter from the pan.

3. Heat the same cast-iron skillet over medium heat, adding a little more butter if necessary. Ladle a heaping tablespoon of batter for each pancake into the pan, and cook until bubbles form and the underside is golden brown, about 1 1/2 minutes. Flip and finish cooking about 1 minute on the other side. Repeat with the rest of the batter, keeping the pancakes warm on a plate near the stove.

Total time: 45 minutes plus cooling time

Servings: Makes 5 1/2 dozen small pancakes

Each pancake: 34 calories; 1 gram protein; 4 grams carbohydrates; 0 fiber; 2 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 16 mg. cholesterol; 58 mg. sodium.