You know what a wrap is: a burrito that's been to California. But the sojourn was a success, because now that their celebrity has mellowed, wraps can be seen for what they really are -- perfect delivery packages for flavor and nutrition. Very handy, so to speak.

And wraps don't require much infrastructure. A tortilla. Fillings. That, plus a quick roll, fold, and tuck, and you've got a meal. Just about anything goes inside, from pepper steak with blue cheese to kale and cannellini beans.

Now that everybody has become more comfortable with the wrap concept (burritos notwithstanding, you could also trace the roots of wraps to Chinese spring rolls and Middle Eastern pitas), you can also extend their convenience. Instead of considering wraps as containers for a number of separate ingredients to be assembled buffet-style, for example, it's quite kosher to imagine them as one-pot meals -- with a pot you can eat. Just assemble all the ingredients into one mix, and serve from there. It's faster for weeknight dinners and so simple you'll think you've ordered in.

This approach also expands the universe of what you can think of as wrappable. Basically, if you can whip it up (and you can, easily), you can wrap it and eat it. Ginger-Peanut Chicken Salad, for example, is so tasty it could be munched by itself. And you can -- but put it in a tortilla, and the effect seems to beckon that much more. We don't really know why. Maybe wrapping meals into easily grasped forms satisfies a deep human need to unify all experience, to impose a wholeness on a seemingly random and uncaring cosmos. Or maybe not.