Ever since the warmer weather headed our way last week, we’ve been out to the beach a fair bit. Being Canadians living in Ontario, beach weather simply means we don’t have to wear our big heavy winter coats and can go around in spring jackets. Just feeling the sun on our faces is enough so soon after winter, and I personally enjoy windy days.

We’ve already had two picnic lunches at the beach so far - and yes, we took the same thing each time.

When I was young, picnics always meant KFC, the bucket combo. But at the beach, I like simple, easy-to-eat, easy-to-hold fare. Enter the wrap.

So here’s what I call the perfect beach picnic food: you take a tortilla wrap (we prefer corn or spinach). Spread it with Caesar salad dressing. Add romaine lettuce, onions, cucumbers, diced chicken breast (Ward likes grated cheddar cheese, I like no cheese). Fold it up. Wrap it in cling wrap. Make several. Take to the beach, and enjoy.

It’s no mess, no fuss, and always tastes good.

Ward really likes Jamie Oliver’s cooking, so when I came across this recipe for Spaghetti All’Arrabiata at Serious Eats, I emailed it to him. I email him recipes all the time - every time I come across a good looking recipe online, I like to send him the URL.

Well, that was on Wednesday, and guess what we had for dinner yesterday? That’s right! Jamie Oliver’s Spaghetti All’Arrabiata!

This is a wonderfully aromatic pasta dish, and even better, it tastes as good as it smells. I find that a lot of pasta dishes deliver when it comes to a divine scent, but fall flat when it comes to taste. Not Jamie’s Spaghetti All’Arrabiata. The scent drew me from the office, which is at the other end of the house; it was garlicky and onion-y and I followed it into the kitchen, suddenly aware that I was very hungry, indeed.

What I liked best about the sauce was that it did not have that overly tomato taste that a lot of tomato-based pasta sauces have. Instead, it was savory, with deep garlic and onion flavors and a dash of chili; a perfect touch of chili, really: enough to add bite but not enough to overwhelm the other flavors.

And the scent really did work wonders on our appetite. Sean had three helpings, and Ward and I both had seconds.

Here’s what it looked like before we dished it out of the pan:

The pangrattato looks burnt in the picture, but it wasn’t - it cooked to a deep tasty brown but shows up in the picture looking a little dark. The crunch of the pangrattato contrasted well with the smoothness of the pasta and sauce, so it’s a nice addition.

This dish is what Jamie Oliver would cook as his “last supper” - it’s his contribution to the compilation of recipes called My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals by Melanie Dunea. Jamie says it’s his favorite comfort food; it definitely has a place now on our list of great, aromatic, flavorful meals to make when we want something tasty, elegant and easy.

Today we drove to Markham to have lunch at the Pacific Mall. If you go to the top floor, there’s a little sort-of fast-food-like place that offers up three different cuisines on the menu - and these literally are three different cuisines, with three different kitchens, all sharing the same wait staff. Plus there’s a fresh juice and bubble tea bar.

We all like going there because there’s something for everyone - and you can bet, with two adults, two teens and a preschooler, that’s as important as what the food tastes like. Here, we could order Thai, Korean or Japanese, or dishes from each menu. (I can never remember the name of the place, but next time we go, I’ll grab one of their cards and update this post.)

I had a lovely Korean ramen noodle soup dish that made me appreciate once again the simple elegance of breaking a raw egg into your hot soup bowl. The egg was beautifully softly done, and when I broke it up, it lent the soup an incredibly buttery taste that made the whole meal more than just ramen noodles and vegetables in broth.

But it wasn’t the food that made the day (unusual, I know). Afterwards, we took a stroll through some of the shops, and came across a store that sold Japanese tableware matching one of our favorite plates, a small rectangular light blue plate that we like to use for sushi and sashimi. Neither of us can remember how we ended up with this plate, so it was nice to discover that we could purchase various other pieces.

It’s not that we’re big on having matching plates - in fact, we like having all sorts of odds and ends and using a variety of designs on the table - but it’s always nice to find more pieces in a design that you like.

And so of course, that brings me to the tuna sashimi. I love how the mind works. Because the only thing I could think of, after seeing our dish in the store, was the last time we had used it. Last week, Ward decided to play around with some extra tuna that was left over from the wasabi tuna meal he had made the weekend before that.

This small piece was in the freezer, just waiting to be used as an appetizer. So Ward decided to just throw together some of his favorite Japanese flavours. He cut up the tuna into cubes, then marinated the cubes in a marinade made with wasabi, Japanese soy sauce, mirin and sliced green onions. The result was just gorgeous. The tuna was tender, and melted in your mouth. Our daughter doesn’t like sashimi, so he fried up a few pieces for her, and that tasted so good, we knew we had a winning marinade on our hands.

And yes, that’s the plate.