A few days ago, as I was picking my boy up from daycare, one of his friends rushed up to me on the playground and asked when we were going on a picnic again. Last summer, we spent countless evenings with her family in Highland Park, letting the kids run amok while the adults set out dinner on blankets spread under a huge oak tree. And perfect picnic weather has finally come again: robin's-egg skies, puffy clouds, a light, warm breeze creating an occasional shower of cherry blossoms. In Highland Park, the magnolias are heavy with fragile flowers, and the hillsides covered with a riot of white and yellow daffodils. After she mentioned it, a picnic sounded like a great idea.

Deciding on what to take on a picnic can be difficult. Sometimes, all you need for is a couple of take-out subs, sodas, and maybe a brownie or a cookie to split afterward. But that's picnic table food. Good picnic food should invite you to sit back and relax. It can be as simple as a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of wine hidden in a backpack. Or it can be an elaborate spread worthy of a write-up in Gourmet magazine.

That said, a picnic should not be so complicated that you spend a whole day in the kitchen getting ready to eat outside. A bit of planning can be fun, especially when everyone brings things that come together for a grand feast. Above all, picnic food should be durable and more or less compact. You shouldn't need a Sherpa to carry your meal, and it should be able to withstand the rigors of being carried around for at least an hour without losing any of its appeal.

Cold sandwiches make ideal picnic food, particularly when they are well made, simple, and not too messy. The sandwiches made at the Park & Oxford Cafe & Deli (283 Oxford St, 242-8990, parkoxfordcafe.com) are nearly ideal picnic fare. Roxanne Armstrong and her son Jason have been making sandwiches at this basement deli for years, their food informed by an uncomplicated philosophy.

"It's just a sandwich," Jason Armstrong told me recently when I stopped by his shop to pick up two of them - a bacon and rotisserie chicken ($6.95 small, $10.95 large) and a prosciutto with provolone ($5.95) - on the way to the park. Any restaurant that devotes an entire section of its menu to things made with bacon is sure to be popular with me, and the combination of sliced roasted chicken, lettuce, tomato, and bacon with Thousand Island dressing on a sturdy roll is a real delight. The sandwich is substantial, but not so thick that you need to dislocate your jaw to eat it, or resort to a knife and fork because it's impossible to pick up. At the more rustic end of scale, a thick sandwich of prosciutto and provolone, dressed with olive oil, roasted red pepper, and herbs, is an indisputable bargain and a real trooper on the picnic trail: the leftovers were still delicious and the bread still firm the next day.

Farther down Park Ave, Sinbad's (719 Park Ave, 473-5655, mysinbads.com) offers everything you need for a leisurely dejeuner sur l'herbe in one stop. The gyro and chicken pitas are delicious, but they won't stand up to being schlepped around for long without becoming mushy. Other things on the menu travel much better. Consider a meal of mezze, small plates: smooth, cool hummus sprinkled with chopped scallions and accompanied by a tangle of fresh pita wedges ($5.50); balls of crisp-fried falafel served with a creamy sesame dip ($5.75); or maza, pita rolls stuffed with feta and scallions ($5.50) - all finger food meant for sharing, all delicious.

If the idea of a romantic rendezvous appeals, a loaf of crusty peasant bread or a baguette from Baker Street Bakery (745 Park Ave, 241-3120, bakerstreetbakery.net) is a good start. Then select a bottle of either a Provencal rose or a Portuguese vino verde (both consummate summer wines - light, refreshing, and food friendly) from its neighbor Wine Sense (749 Park Ave, 271-0590, wedefinewine.com). Supplement these ingredients with some local chevre from Lively Run goat dairy or a wedge of creamy Hudson Valley camembert, and some fruit, and you are well on your way to wooing the object of your affection.

While at Baker Street Bakery, buy yourself some insurance. The breads and pastries made there are superb, but the best dessert available is the revel bar, a cross between a granola bar and crumb cake on steroids that is then covered with thick layer of chocolate ganache ($2.50). Dense and so rich that one bar could easily satisfy two and maybe three people, this is a crowd pleaser. And it's so durable that even tossing it in the bottom of your knapsack won't damage it much.

If you are looking for peerless picnic food, though, cold fried chicken trumps everything else. Don't resort to the Colonel, though. Pick up the phone and call Chef Jerry Manley at Flour City Diner (in the Renaissance Building, 2500 East Ave, 586-7730, flourcitydiner.com) and let him know you'd like to take some fried chicken on your picnic. Flour City reliably offers fried chicken, often served atop waffles, during the summer (Thursdays through Saturdays, Manley tells me, are a good bet, $10). But with a few hours of lead time the chef can work miracles for you.

The problem with pick-up fried chicken is keeping it crispy outside and moist inside. Not many of us have the time to cook the chicken ourselves and chill it properly, and making fried chicken right takes lots and lots of time. At Flour City, the day before the bird is cooked, it is marinated in buttermilk and spices, which soften the flesh and infuse it with flavor. The following day, the bird is battered, fried, and transferred to the restaurant's blast chiller.

It's this last step that sets Flour City's chicken apart. Dumping hot fried chicken in a bucket, even if you allow it to rest, is a sure recipe for soggy chicken. By cooling the chicken quickly, the coating, which cleaves to the flesh, retains its crunch and the meat underneath remains moist and tender. It's not the cheapest fried chicken you will find, but it may well be the best, and it is sure to make you a hero to your friends if you take it along on a picnic with you.

By the way, don't forget the corkscrew.