Back to the Cave Age � In Israel !

Troops in peace time, at Golan Heights, in Israel.

I was thrilled to bits, when my friend Kamala Laxman said, �Yes it�s okay, Laxman will be happy to talk to you�, which means, grant me that rare interview, for �talk� to him, I can at any time, I have that kind of an equation with him. And what a delight it is to chat with a man with a mind like his! He can be as humorous as he can be bitingly sarcastic, always truthful, never out of his depth. He can talk about anything under the sun. As for Kamala, she is an absolute angel, 18 at 80, she feels nothing has changed, except that she has become a grand mother. �I feel just as young as when I came to Bombay in 1947,� she says. Nupur Mahajan Sinh is one lucky girl. She returns from a holiday in Barbados, to go away on a family trip to Landour in the foothills of the Himalayas. Then again, she jets off to London and trips around, merrily indulging in the very traditional British custom, doing the Afternoon tea! At the Savoy, the Dorchester, the Ritz�

If tea is not your �cuppa�, try vodka. The Czar at the Intercontinental in Bombay, is well stocked. The barmen there can really get you going, the way they use this spirit, to ease up your summer-parched throat.

In a limestone cave where cheese is cured, Farzana Contractor poses with Shai Seltzer, a world renowned cheese maker, in Jerusalem.

Get there or get making your own Vodka Cocktails, we�ve got recipes galore. Israel has always fascinated me - it�s history, it�s geography, it�s political situation, it�s people, it�s multi-cultural cuisine. This was the second time, I visited the land and came over with a re-inforced love affair with this country. In three words - it is unique. But the food...Jewish cooking reflects the many places that Jews have lived throughout the centuries and not any one food can be called a �truly Israeli�. Largely, it can be divided into two styles: Ashkenazic and Sephardic. The former is brought by Jewish immigrants from east and west Europe and the latter relates to the Jewish people, who came in from the Middle-Eastern countries. The Sephardic food is full of aromatic spices and herbs, spicier and livelier than the Ashkenazic, which is delicate and sweetish. These days of course, the Israeli cuisine combines the two with modern cooking. Well, go to Israel you must, for more than just the food, it�s an UpperCrust destination alright!