My books are about my passions and obsessions. Garlic seduced me in the 1970s and I spent a decade creating and promoting a “garlic revolution”—two books, a newsletter (Garlic Times), posters, bumper stickers, a garlic fan club (Lovers of the Stinking Rose), festivals in Gilroy, Berkeley, Los Angeles, and personal appearances. If I had stayed focused on garlic, I might have ended up the Wavy Gravy of garlic, a combination clown, philosopher, and activist. Not a bad fate! I did have plans for a Mr. Garlic product line that might have paid the bills but ultimately moved on to cookbook publishing (Aris Books) and another passion—making books. I love the process of writing, editing, illustrating, producing and publishing books. Both Foodoodles (2010) and Café French (2018) represent my passion for food and café culture, and the craft of creating books in collaboration with editors, designers and printers. As my own publisher and illustrator in the last two projects—and a third in 2021, My Little Plague Journal—I’ve enjoyed the challenge of putting words and images together to create an immersive experience for the reader.

My latests book, Portrait in Red: A Paris Obsession, is in collaboration with Heyday Books, a memoir with over 90 images, mostly photographs of Paris and reproductions of famous art works, but also a few of my own illustrations. It’s the story of an obsession (with Paris and a painting I found there), much in the way my first book published 50 years ago, The Book of Garlic, was about an obsession. All art is about obsession—first the artist’s obsession with his subject, then the viewer/reader/listener/taster’s obsession with the work. This shared obsession is what art—good art—is about.

I’ve had two opportunities to make documentary films with filmmaker Bill Chayes—Divine Food and Los Romeros. Prior to these projects, I was involved as a character in several films about garlic that followed publication of The Book of Garlic. The one I am most proud of is Les Blank’s “Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers,” filmed on locations such as Chez Panisse, the Gilroy Garlic Festival and the home of sausage maker Bruce Aidells. Blank contacted me after he read the garlic book and expressed interest in making the film. I got involved as a featured character, narrated part of the film and organized some of the scenes. When I met filmmaker Bill Chayes I was writing a book about American Jewish delicatessens and he thought the subject would make a great film. I agreed and we found backers for Divine Food. That was such a great experience for me as a writer and producer that we agreed to make a second film about another passion of mine, the classical guitar. The Romero film was co-produced by PBS in San Diego and became a national special and was nominated for an Emmy.

In my role as President of the Harris Guitar Foundation and now curator of the Harris Guitar Collection at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, making recordings using the instruments is a natural byproduct of having access to these wonderful vintage instruments and their unique sound. The world-class players serving on the faculty at SFCM, and the talented students there, are an obvious resource for producing high quality recordings on our Vintage HGC label.

The latest CD in the series is by George Sakellariou, the first guitar department chair at the SFCM in 1967. He was born in Athens, Greece in 1944 and studied the guitar at the Conservatory of Music in Athens. His studies with Andre Segovia led to a stellar career on the world stage. His previous CD, Sounds of Torres (GSI) was chosen as one of the top ten albums of 2018 by Classical Guitar Magazine. He resides in San Rafael, California.

Forthcoming in 2025 will be Marc Teicholz’s CD featuring solos on Harris guitars and his world premiere performance of Grammy-nominated composer Clarice Assad’s guitar concerto O saci-Pererê, performed with the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra in 2013.

The first CD in the series in (2017) featured the Polish guitar virtuoso, Marcin Dylla. While teaching at the Conservatory, Marcin expressed interest in recording on four guitars in the collection.