Before he rocked western culinary civilization with Spago in 1982, Wolfgang Puck had worked in his native Vienna and Paris. He went to the U.S. in 1973 and landed in Indianapolis, Indiana, not exactly a gourmand's Mecca -- in fact, it's heartland Midwest meat-and-potato country.

When he moved to Los...

Mumbai Chef Rahul Akerkar is a bicultural, multi-culinary anomaly. Born to a German Jewish mother and an Indian Hindu father who met as students at an American university, he spent winters in Mumbai and summers in Manhattan throughout his youth. He was tracked for a career in biochemical engineering after...

In 1990, Sam and Gretchen Feldman cashed out on their share of a national chain of men's apparel stores and retired to Martha's Vineyard, Mass. There, they devoted their time to volunteer work and an active social calendar. The following years were golden ones for the Feldmans, but in 2007...

I arrived in Hinduism's holiest city on Judaism's holiest day. It doesn't get more auspicious than that for a nice Jewish boy from New Jersey who has been falling on and off the meditation cushion since the mid-70s.

This was my fourth trip in three decades to Benares (a.k.a....

You expect restaurants at the India-based Taj Hotels to serve great Indian food, right?

Not necessarily, it turns out. Or, to be more precise, not only. To be quite clear, eateries at the majority of the Taj hotels (even those increasingly found beyond the Indian subcontinent) serve...

Right-brained people have been brainwashed into believing their left-brained fellow sapiens are the creative ones. Just like writers are supposed to be verbal and painters visual and musicians auditory. These are the little corners we paint (or write or sing) ourselves into, for no reason and with little benefit.

Photo courtesy Eternal Mewar, City Palace Complex, Udaipur

Two of the world's most distinguished professors of family business last week gave a periscope view of an ongoing study examining the Mewars of Udaipur, Rajasthan.

What, you never heard of the House of...

Tis the $eason to be $pending. That's the less-than-spiritual message retailers are blasting from radios, TVs, billboards, newspaper and magazine ads, circulars, direct mail, Facebook walls, tweets, and e-blasts (have I missed any media?) in these last weeks before Chanukah and Christmas.

Far be it for me to put a...

UDAIPUR, Rajasthan - Life has brought many advantages to Arvind Singh Mewar, not the least of which is an unobstructed view overlooking Lake Pichola from his palace terrace here, the city Travel & Leisure readers recently voted best in the world.

Now more than the view -- the lake...

A fascinating cultural phenomenon will take place in India from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3.

This one will not involve an out-of-body experience or levitation. No Bollywood crossover star-turn. No Bangla-meets-hip-hop CD release. No spontaneous third-eye opening. Not even a humungous garland-laden...

UDAIPUR, RAJASTHAN, India -- I am just returning from a summer in India, where, I have observed, the most frequently used words these days are "iconic" and "brand."

These words may have become clichés partly because, with reference to the former, India is a...

Did you hear the one about the schizophrenic Buddhist filmmaker who thought he was at two with himself? Buddha-bing, Buddha-bang.

But seriously.

OK, director/screenwriter Harold Ramis's new film, Year One, may pander to a lower common denominator, with bathroom humor, physical comedy and sight jokes targeted...

There is eco-travel to protect the environment -- plants, birds, fish, mammals, waterways, land and air -- and then there is eco-travel to protect an endangered indigenous species called Homo sapiens. This blog is more about the latter than the former, because when we...

My father, for all his lack of domestic skills, was a brilliant grill-meister. On a New Jersey summer night, like the ones we begin to savor now, he would start the grill early on the back patio, Pabst Blue Ribbon in hand.

There wasn't much to prepare. This was long...

La Fortuna, Costa Rica - This country's modern-day Big Bang came in 1968 when its only constantly active volcano, Arenal, woke up from a 400-year geologic nap with a huge eruption that not only displaced thousands of villagers circling the mountain but also disrupted the lives of countless species of...

Back in the dark green ages of 1994, I helped launch the first national magazine dedicated to a then burgeoning travel trend called eco-tourism. Short-lived though it was, EcoTraveler focused on environmentally, ecologically and culturally sensitive travel, and I was proud to be a part of it.

Now that style...

I spent last Groundhog Day with Harold Ramis, the director and co-writer of "Groundhog Day." He was on set in Shreveport, Louisiana, directing his next film, "The Year One," produced by Judd Apatow, starring Jack Black, Michael Cera and others, and due out in June.

A large sandy tract...

The Aronies are the bravest family I know.

Nancy and Joel are a warm and funny couple in their mid 60s - she the raging extrovert who shares every unedited thought both verbally and in print, he the quiet introverted steady-eddy with a wicked sense of humor once he...

A study I found while researching my most recent book, Buddha or Bust, reported that some 30 percent of Americans practicing Buddhism come from Jewish backgrounds.

They call themselves Bu-Jews, or Bu-ish. I am among them, though I just call myself...Perry.

Except for one or two teeny...

The other day I called David-Dorian Ross, a three-time Olympic medal winner in t'ai chi and the wellness manager at the Montage Resort & Spa in Laguna Beach, California, just to make him beat me up about the fact that seven months have passed since he strongly advised me...