The Last Sweet Bite

Every recipe carries a philosophy, every meal a history, every shared table a future. But what happens when war, displacement, and cultural erasure threaten not just lives but the very ideas and traditions embedded in what we eat?

In The Last Sweet Bite, Michael Shaikh, a former human rights investigator who spent nearly two decades in conflict zones, uncovers how war and violence reshape a fundamental aspect of human culture: what and how we eat. Moving between refugee camps, diasporic kitchens, and war-torn cities, Shaikh reveals the quiet heroism of home cooks who fight to preserve ancestral recipes as acts of survival, memory, and defiance. Part memoir, part travelogue, part cookbook, The Last Sweet Bite is also an account of how the history of violence is recorded in kitchens.

Joining Michael at Clio's is Bryant Terry, James Beard Award winning author and editor of The Best American Food and Travel Writing 2025, a collection to remind us that food and travel are as much about remembrance, resistance, and connection as they are about sustenance or movement. In conversation with anthropologist Cari Borja, they will explore how food functions as an archive of ideas, a carrier of culture, and a site of both rupture and repair. This evening is not just about cuisine, it is about the power of food to gather us and bind us and remind us who we are.

Michael Shaikh is a writer and human rights investigator who has worked for twenty years in areas marred by political crisis and armed conflict. He has help positions at Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, the Center for Civilians in Conflict, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice. Shaikh is on the board of both Adi Magazine and Fortify Rights.

Bryant Terry is a multidisciplinary artist, chef, publisher, and author. Terry is the author of five highly acclaimed cookbooks and the editor and curator of the anthology Black Food. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief of 4 Color Books (an imprint of Ten Speed Press/Penguin Random House). After completing an MFA in Art Practice at UC Berkeley, Terry was awarded a 2025–26 Graduate Fellowship at Headlands Center for the Arts, where he is exploring Black foodways, cultural memory, and collective liberation.

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