A marvelous painting of a gourmand at his table hangs in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris -- a portly, pink-faced figure happily gorging on a regal casserole, with a bottle of wine at one elbow and a luscious-looking soufflé at the other. It is traditionally believed to be a portrait of Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent Grimod de la Reynière, an aristocrat notorious in Napoleonic France for gratifying his palate with the same abandon as his contemporary the Marquis de Sade showed in indulging carnal desires. Whether or not the painting is actually Grimod's likeness, it captures the eccentric, omnivorous spirit that made him not only a gustatory symbol in the Paris of his day, but the grand-père of all modern food writers as well. (Today)

"The big empty" is how my seatmate describes the landscape as our plane makes its descent to El Paso. To me it is the opposite: this is a place I've visited and lived in for the last 13 years, and it is a land filled with memories, adventure and possibility. (Today)

INDIA is modernizing rapidly, sometimes too fast. You have giant malls, but grandmothers afraid to use the escalators. There are villages in the middle of nowhere, with ornate temples soaring into the hot sky. Still, old Rajasthan endures, evoking rulers with giant mustaches, harems of beautiful women in the finest colored silks and some of the most spectacular palaces ever built. They can be found in the state's three biggest cities: Jodhpur, Jaipur and Udaipur. (Today)

BED-and-breakfasts are starting to man up, doing away with the lace bedspreads and trading high tea for brewskies. (Today)

A hotel tapas bar located smack in the middle of one of Madrid's busiest tourist hubs? Easy to pass up, perhaps. But then I took a closer look. An artfully stylized pattern of filigree mantilla combs -- the restaurant's logo -- covered the ceiling and swept down the wall. The menu promised the classics, but with more than a whiff of innovation. I was hooked. (Today)