Zester contributor L. John Harris, is a native of Los Angeles, lives in Berkeley, Calif., where he attended art school at the University of California, Berkeley, in the 1960s. In the 1970s, he worked at food shops and restaurants in Berkeley's Gourmet Ghetto and wrote "The Book of Garlic" (1974). In the 1980s, Harris' publishing company, Aris Books, published cookbooks by Bay Area chefs and food writers, including "Women Chefs: A Collection of Portraits & Recipes from California's Culinary Pioneers (1987)" by Jim Burns and Betty Ann Brown. Harris' "Foodoodles: From the Museum of Culinary History" (www.foodoodles.com) won a 2011 Bay Area Independent Publishers Assn. (BAIPA) award in the category "Graphic Memoir."

As a garlic activist, his Lovers of the Stinking Rose club and its Garlic Times newsletter inspired garlic festivals and garlic theme restaurants from California to New York. His second book, The Official Garlic Lovers Handbook, was published in 1986.  After selling Aris Books in 1990, Harris shifted his focus to documentary film making. He wrote and co-produced Divine Food: 100 Years in the Kosher Delicatessen Trade and wrote and co-directed the Emmy-nominated PBS special Los Romeros: The Royal Family of the Guitar.  Mr. Harris lives in the Bay Area and Paris, France.