“The power of food cannot be underestimated! Whether it’s children eating together at school or parents preserving a cherished family recipe in a refugee camp, The Last Sweet Bite beautifully demonstrates how a cuisine can not only hold communities together but also help them rebuild after a crisis.”—Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse and New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Simple Food
Join us on October 15th at the Goethe Institut for an in-person book talk at 6:30 pm with human rights activist Michael Shaikh, the author of The Last Sweet Bite: Stories and Recipes of Culinary Heritage Lost and Found, winner of the 2026 James Beard Award for Literary Writing. Michael will be in conversation with Kat Romanow, Jewish food historian, founder of the Wandering Chew, and Programming & Human Rights Coordinator at the Museum.
ABOUT THE LAST SWEET BITE
War changes every part of human culture: art, education, music, politics. Why should food be any different? For nearly twenty years, Michael Shaikh’s job was investigating human rights abuses in conflict zones. Early on, he noticed how war not only changed the lives of victims and their societies, it also unexpectedly changed the way they ate, forcing people to alter their recipes or even stop cooking altogether, threatening the very survival of ancient dishes.
Much of what we eat today or buy in a market has been shaped by violence; in some form, someone’s history and politics is on the dinner table. The Last Sweet Bite aims to tell us how it got there. Weaving together histories of food, migration, human rights, and recipes, Shaikh shows us how reclaiming lost cuisines is not just a form of resistance and hope but also how cooking can be a strategy for survival during trying times.
Tickets are $10 and reservations are required. Books will be available for purchase at the event and vegetarian appetizers and desserts (non-Kosher) will be served.
This event is being run in partnership with PAGE Rwanda and the Wandering Chew.
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