This unnatural, unexpected and entirely welcome burst of sunshine in past couple of weeks has had me rooting for the picnic basket. Maybe it's the southern Italian in me, but one of the great joys for me is eating outside. A meal in the open air really makes you believe that the winter's over, and a change of venue from the back garden to open country somehow invests the event with a sense of occasion.

I suppose I must have been six or seven when I first became aware of picnics. We were living in England at the time, and my earliest memories are of picnics in the New Forest, or on the tar-stained beach of Poole harbour. As far as I can remember these picnics consisted only of sandwiches with perhaps a bag of crisps by way of desert, all washed down with tartrazine coloured orange squash. I didn't think there was anything unimaginative about them at the time - all picnics, no matter who packed them, came like this.

Thankfully the dull British picnic was not all that I experienced. My first memory of an Italian picnic is at the age of eight, going with my uncle for a mountain picnic on the August Bank Holiday. I was unprepared for the Italian version. Three car-loads of family and impedimenta set off for the sanctuary of Canneto, high in the Apennines. In those days the road was what the Italians called a 'white road', which is to say its surface was non-existent. It was absurdly tortuous and narrow and it had no crash barriers to prevent a car from sliding off the edge into oblivion. The road arrives at the Sanctuary and opens out into what was once a lake - a flat expanse of small white rocks - over which my uncle insisted on driving, cursing all the way.

At the far end of the old lake bed an even worse road starts to climb, roughly following the cascades of the upper reaches the river. Up here we drove until my Aunt Gerardella persuaded uncle to stop. Some twenty yards below the car was the mountain stream. Across the stream, there was a small flat area of grass at the top of a waterfall, a natural terrazza with a view down the valley to the Sanctuary of the Madonna. We began to unpack the picnic; not as I had suspected some sandwiches, but tables, chairs and white linen table cloths, gas cookers and cylinders, pots and pans and food, lots of food. The men unloaded the cars, set up the tables and chairs and brought the water from the stream for cooking the pasta. The women cooked. As far as I could make out the purpose was not only to eat well, but to ensure that whatever standards of cuisine and comfort were set at home could be maintained even at the top of a mountain. This was a three course picnic. Pasta to start, then a meat dish, and finally a dessert. Like most Italian meals on special occasions we were eating for a good two hours. Even a natural fridge is available - all wines, beer, watermelons and fruit go into the freezing waters of the stream.

Ever since that day I have always made an effort to emulate the Italian version of a picnic. I mean, if you're going to go to the trouble of preparing and packing a load of food and driving it somewhere, it might as well be good food. Even if you have no intention of cooking in situ a picnic can still be a feast. A good start is to pack only good china and glassware. Any risk of breakages is far outweighed by not having to eat and drink from plastic, and anyway, it makes the whole thing look like more of an occasion.

So what would make my perfect picnic? I'd start with a couple of bottles of sparkling white wine, or champagne if I was feeling rich - and I'd want to drink it out of decent glasses. Assuming that there was to be no cooking on site, then I'd want food that tastes good cold. Fresh, crusty bread with Parma ham or cold meats; a tomato, mozzarella and basil salad; a thick, well-filled Spanish omelette with some good mayonnaise to accompany it; smoked salmon; some good cheeses and of course, a flask of proper coffee. Nothing complicated, just simple foods that always taste better when eaten out of doors.

You may notice that the above list contains no sugary things. It's not that I don't like them, but rather that I could do without the ministrations of visiting wasps, bees, beetles, midges and ants. And while we're talking practicalities, I would always try to choose a spot near water; a river, stream or spring. Even if it's only for giving the plates a rinse before you leave, running water makes for soothing background noise as well.