THERE are some cities in the world, where they eat camel meat. I know Indian foodies who think it's a great delicacy. I've tasted some unusual meats myself, but never camel. And I'm glad for it, because in Jaipur and Jodhpur recently, I got to quite like the ill-tempered beast. Besides, I would never have been able to look the Rajmata Gayatri Devi in the eye, nor employ her camels in the Rambagh Palace. Not that the Rajmata, at 82, is squeamish about these things.

When she ruled Jaipur, she told me over lunch, she had hunted and consumed game food with passion. Likewise the Maharaja Gaj Singhji II of Jodhpur, our handsome cover man (check out his �handsomer� son here!), who invited me to dine at his Umaid Bhavan Palace. I don't know how they, and Rajasthan's other maharajas and maharanis, lived before their constitutional powers were withdrawn. But in these days, as hotel-keepers and individual entrepreneurs, they are comfortably modest and homely.

Most of Rajasthan's royal families converted their lovely homes into commercial ventures once the institution of Rajpramukh was abolished in 1956. It was not as if the rights, properties and privileges of their princely orders were unsafe and insecure. But Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, and Jaisalmer, these cities desperately needed first class hotels to put them on world tourists' maps.

And the palaces would be better maintained and serve a more useful purpose if they were converted into hotels. I salute this spirit of the maharajas. My recent experiences in Jaipur and Jodhpur also opened my taste-buds to Rajasthani food. What a wonderfully different cuisine! It's split down the centre in two. One's Marwari, as vegetarian as it may please a pantheon of Indian gods. And the other's Rajput, spicy, robust and meaty, but a tamer version of the old game cooking.

My work on this issue also gave me new insights into wine, especially Indian wine. Just as they are coming of age, just when gentlemen vintners like Sham Chougule and Kanwal Grover are beginning to uncork the finest bottles in their cellars, the best vintages of the world are going to be available off the shelves.

The wait's only until April! I'm glad for wine connoisseurs that foreign wines are going to be locally sold in the new free world trade order. Am I worried for Chougule and Grover? Not at all! They are real competitors. Not only did they have the gumption to make wines and champagnes in Narayangaon and Dodballapur, but they also sold them abroad in wine-drinking cities. And Indian wines are good... take my word for it.

UpperCrust has completed one year of publication. How the year has been, you as the reader, who followed me on all my culinary journeys, in word and through picture, must know. I'll simply say, it was fun. One year ago, I was asked by a food critic whether I would be able to sustain the magazine. �There's only so much you can write about. What will you do for the third and fourth issues," she had asked uncertainly. Happily, I've got my issues for 2002 planned as well. Bon appetite, and happy reading!

Farzana Contractor