My Passions

I have other interests when I'm not in the clinic:

My wife and I have a business which sells equipment and services to olive oil producers around the world. Our olive oil website is the most visited site for olive oil according to Google, type in 'olive oil' and you'll find it. I write the ASP code, edit the monthly newsletter and answer plenty of questions about healthy eating.

Travel is a passion, my family traveled by bus, train and camel around the world for 4 mos while the kids were in grade school to let them know that not everybody lives in Marin county. Spring of 2007 I was in Southern Spain with my wife at an olive oil convention, then in Barcelona sketching the architecture. March 2008 at a family campout in Death Valley we were chased by a feral donkey and enjoyed the wildflowers.

Exercising for 30 minutes most days reduces my chance of having a heart attack or stroke. Our beautiful Bay Area weather and scenery has me looking forward to a 2 hour mountain bike ride in Tennessee Valley or on Mt. Tam or a 30 minute walk during my lunch hour at Terra Linda.

Eating right is easy in the Bay Area. I belong to the Slow Food movement which celebrates regional cuisines and local, fresh ingredients. I love to cook after growing up on my father's Indian curries and my mother's New Orleans red beans and rice. My specialties are stews, baking, and unusual jams and jellies.

My wife and I are empty nesters; two kids are off at college and one has graduated and is finding herself.

When I get a chance I sketch and watercolor, usually when I'm traveling and everyone else is shopping.

My patients are great at recommending good reading; I try to read a book a week. Here are the latest from most recent to previous years. Not all the books I read would I recommend, just the ones with the stars

----------------------------- 2008 -----------------------------------

*The Ancestor's Tale - Richard Dawkins

Hornet flight - Ken Follett

The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd

*In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams - Tahir Shah

Spook - Mary Roach

Stiff: the curious lives of human Cadavers - Mary Roach

The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins

Conquistador: Hernan Cortes - Buddy Levy

***Infidel - Ayaan Irsi Ali

Idle thoughts of an Idle Fellow - Jerome K. Jerome

Fatal Voyage - Dan durzman

What the nose Knows - Avery Gilbert

*A doctor's Occupation - John Lewis

Three men on the Bummel - Jerom K. Jerome

First Foot Steps in E. Africa - Richard Burton

*The Day the World Came to Town - Jim Defede

Chuck Amuck - Chuck Jones

Eye of the Needle - Ken Follett

Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M. Auel

Rescuing Sprite - mark Levin

Escape from Sadaam - Lewis Alsamari

The Chord of Steel - Thomas Costain

The Professor's Room - Will Cather

One of Ours - Willa Cather

The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova

Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Salmon Rushdie

In Search of King Solomon's Mines - Tahir Shah

bangkok Tatoo - John Burdett

Bangkik 8 - John Burdett

Three Men and a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome

Sierra Railway - Dorotea Newell Deane

*Under the Banner of Heaven: - Jon Krakauer

Collected Works - Arthur C. Clarke

Animals in Translation - Temle Brandin

The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand

*Cradle to Cradle – William McDonough and Michael Braungart

The Omnibus of Adventure – various

Many Inventions – Kipling

*A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World – Gregory Clark

Tales of the East and West – Joseph Conrad

The Rainbow Hued Trail - Cosette Faust Newton

Choosing your boat

**Among the Believers – VS Naipaul

----------------------------- 2007 -----------------------------------

**A Farewell to Alms - Gregory Clark

**1 dead in Attic: After Katrina - Chris Rose

Maud – Flora Fraser

Very New Orleans – Diana Gessler

Bent not Broken – Lauren Roche

The world on one leg - Ellery Walter

A Beachcomber in the Orient – Harry L. Foster

Stranger in the forest - Eric Hanson

***A Thousand Brilliant Suns – Khaled Hosseini

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – J. K. Rowling

Around The world – Leander A. Bigger

Eat, Love, Pray

Up Front – Bill Mauldin

***The trees – Conrad Richter

***The field – Conrad Richter

***The City – Conrad Richter

***The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Cicely Mary Barker, her art

The Adventures of Buffalo Bill

***White Shadows in the South Seas - Patrick O'Brien

The Castles of Friuli

**Strapless – Deborah Davis

The O. Henry Prize Stories – various

The Last of the Mohicans – James Cooper

Holmes on the Range – Steve Hockensmith

The Republic of Pirates – Colin Woodward

**Skeletons of the Zahara

Snow

The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster

*Zorro – Isabelle Allende

Saving Fish from Drowning – Amy Tan

-------------------------- 2006 ----------------------------------

Bayou Farewell – Mike Tidwell

Goodbye, Darkness – William Manchester

Airframe – Michael Crighton

ACE! – Bruce Porter

**The Long Walk – Rawicz

Shadow of the wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafσn

Mananga - Alvin Guthertz

***Cape Cod – Henry David Thoreau

The Tenth Man – Graham Greene

The Story of Henri Tod – William F. Buckley

Then and Now – Somerset Maugham

Puck of Pook’s corner – Kipling

**The Light that Failed – Kipling

Magical Thinking – Augusten Burroughs

Random Harvest – James Hilton

Good-bye Mr. Chips – James Hilton

Rising Tide – John Barry

The Barbary Coast – Herbert Asbury

Lost Horizons – James Hilton

Yes I can: the story of Sammy Davis Jr. – Sammy Davis

A mind in Prison – Bruno Manz

Locked Rooms - Laurie King

Blue shoes and Happiness – Alexander Smith

Timeline – Michael Crichton

Keeping Watch - Laurie King

Seabisquit - Laura Hillebrand

My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult

Self Made Man - Norah Vincent

***Gimme A Break - John Stossel

Artists at Continent's End - Monterey Bay Artist Colony - Scott Shields

A Salty piece of Land - Jimmy Buffet

50 years in Death Valley - Harry Gower

Hold the Enlightenment - Tim Cahill

Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins

The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

**Folly - Laurie King

Prey - Michael Crighton

Roads of Destiny - O'Henry

***Galileo's Daughter - Dava Sobel

The Green Flag - Conan Doyle

The Adventures of Gerard - Arthur Conan Doyle

Sword and Honor - Mike Ashley (Editor), Bernard Cornwell

Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petraea and the Holy Land – John Lloyd Stephens ***

-------------------------- 2005 ----------------------------------

Plato’s Republic – Plato

Race of the Century – Julie M. Fenster

The Colonel and Little Missie: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley – Larry McMurtry

The Invisible Man – H.G. Wells

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

The Chevalier de Maisen Rouge – Dumas

Notes from a small Island – Bill Bryson

Coincidence, chaos and all that math jazz – Edward B. Burger

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – J. K. Rowling

The Game - Laurie R. King

Sherlock holmes – a biography

Sherlock Holmes – the complete edition

Cochrane – Robert Harvey

Collapse – Jared Diamond ***

Flyboys: A true Story of Courage - James Bradley

Alan Quartermain - Haggard

King Solomon’s Mines - Haggard

She – H. Rider Haggard

The devil in the White city – Erik Larson

Seaspray and whiskey

Born Fighting: How the Scots Irish Shaped America – James H. Webb

***The Three Musketeers – Dumas

***The sex Lives of Cannibals – Troost

***Shannon’s Way – A.J. Cronin

The Passionate Olive - Carol Firenze

In the company of beautiful women – Alexander Smith

Where is Joe merchant – jimmy buffet

Song of Sixpence – A.J. Cronin

Angels and Demons – Dan Brown

The Angel Tree – Alex Dingwall-Main

Heavenly Date and other Flirtations – Alexander Smith

***Below the Salt – Thomas B. Costain

Seven Years in Tibet – heinrich Harrer

***The Dante Club - Matthew Pearl

My Secret History – Paul Thoreaux

Blue Hurricane (civil war) Van Wyck Mason

Sunday Philosophy club – Alexander Smith

A River runs through it

Portuguese Irregular Verbs– Alexander Smith

The Full Cupboard of Life– Alexander Smith

The Kalahari Typing School for Men– Alexander Smith

Tears of the Giraffe– Alexander Smith

Morality for beautiful Girls– Alexander Smith

The #1 Ladies Detective Agency – Alexander Smith

On Food and Cooking: The science and lore of the Kitchen – Harold McGee

Whose Grammar book is this anyway – C. Edward Good

To the Moon and back – Jules Verne

Adventures in two Worlds – A. J. Cronin

***High Towers – Thomas B. Costain

Yankee from Olympus

Collected stories - Costain

***The Kite Runner – Hhaled Husseini

The Making of the Wizard of Oz –

Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee – Van Gulik

The haunted Monastery – Robert Van Gulik

-------------------------- 2004 ----------------------------------

Days and Nights on the Grand Trunk Road – Anthony Weller

A Pirate looks at Fifty – Buffet

Nights in Rodanthe – Sparks

**Far Pavilions – McKay

Spix’s Macaw: the race to save the world’s rarest Bird – Tony Juniper

*Taps – Willie Morris

Sandstorms – Peter Theroux

*Hotel Honolulu – Paul Theroux

Kingdom by the Sea – Paul theroux

About a Boy – Nick Hornby

1000 White Women – too dumb DNF

The Opposite of Fate - Amy Tan

Sharpe’s Company - Bernard Cornwell

5 quarters of the Orange – Joanne Harris

A darker Place – Laurie R. King

Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress- Dai, Sijie

The life of Pi - Yann Martel

Rascals in Paradise - Michener

Deception Point - Dan Brown

Song of the Sirens – Ernest Gann

*Desert Queen – Janet Wallach

Dead in the Water– Julie Smith

Justice House– Laurie R. King

O Jerusalem – Laurie R. King

*Letter to Mary– Laurie R. King

*The Moor – Laurie R. King

*A Monstrous Regient of Women – Laurie R. King

*The Beekeeper’s apprentice – Laurie R. King

Influenza - Iezzoni, Lynette

Jummy the Greek – James Snyder

The Piano Tuner - Daniel Philippe Mason

The man who mistook his wife - oliver sacks

Bird by bird annie Lamont – DNF

The Voyage of the Snark

The Olive Season – Carol Drinkwater

The Jester - James Patterson

The Piano Teacher - Lynn York

*Dark Star Safari – Theroux

Digital Fortress - Dan Brown

DaVinci Code - Dan Brown

The Young Wan – Brendan OCarrol

Five People you meet in Heaven

The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe

Northwest Passage – Kenneth Roberts

Codes and Cyphers – Fred Wrixon

Those were the times – Marion Davies

Finding Fish – Antowone Fisher

Teachings of Don Juan – Carlos Castenado

Corridor of storms - William Sarabande

Bias – Bernard Goldberg

Prime Meridian

The Curious Incident of the Dog - Mark Haddon

Islands of Silence – Martin Booth

True North – A Memoir – Jill Conway

Road from Coorain – Jill kerr Conway

Einstein’s clocks, Poincares maps

Straight Man - Russo

Its not about the bike – Lance Armstrong

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