Welcome Reception for 2020 Lehman Brady Professor Von Diaz

This event welcomes the CDS Spring 2020 Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor, Von Diaz. Von Diaz is a writer, documentary producer, and author of Coconuts & Collards: Recipes and Stories from Puerto Rico to the Deep South (University Press of Florida, 2018). At CDS, Von will be teaching DOCST 246S "Feeding Diaspora" on Wednesday afternoons. The welcoming event will run from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.; Von will have remarks at 5:15 p.m.

Food will be provided by the Boricua Soul food truck-a new local food business that blends West African and Caribbean flavors with a Southern-Latino cooking style. The proprietors will then join Von briefly on stage at CDS at 5:15 p.m. to share their personal journey from the Bronx to Durham.

Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, she explores food, culture, and identity through memoir and multimedia. In addition to her debut culinary memoir, she has contributed recipes and essays to a number of cookbooks and anthologies, including America the Great Cookbook (Weldon Owen, 2017), Feed the Resistance (Chronicle Books, 2017), Women on Food (Abrams Book, October 2019), Tasty Pride (Penguin Random House, Fall 2019), and Rage Baking (Simon & Schuster, February 2020). Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, Better Homes & Gardens, NPR, StoryCorps, The Splendid Table, and the Southern Foodways Alliance's Gravy.