Von Diaz on Reclaiming Her Southern Identity
The Local Palate | June 5, 2020
“Von Diaz, writer, radio producer, and cookbook author lays claim to two distinct places–the Deep South and the Caribbean. Her inaugural cookbook, Coconuts & Collards traverses her food life and its dualities. It’s a memoir that explores her roots through the foods that comforted her. Here, Diaz shares the experiences that shaped her identity and the places that bring her Southern comfort.”
Von Diaz, Converger of Coconuts and Collards
Somewhere South | JUNE 3, 2020
“Von Diaz’s book, “Coconuts and Collards,” epitomizes what is best about the American South. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Atlanta, Ga., Diaz merged her Caribbean roots with her Southern identity to craft a memoir/cookbook that is convergent in both its stories and its recipes.”
Meet Von Diaz: The Puerto Rican Storyteller and Cook to Listen to Right Now
The Kitchn | FEB 7, 2019
“When she set out to write a cookbook about the food she grew up eating, more than anything, author and storyteller Von Diaz wanted to do it justice. “It was never going to be, like, 15 Spicy-Light Puerto Rican Recipes. That book was never going to come out of me,” she says. Instead, she wrote Coconuts & Collards, which pays homage to her Puerto Rican roots and the complicated ways in which they intersect with the Southern dishes of her childhood in Atlanta, Georgia.”
jarry mag | dec 17, 2018
“Von Diaz’s Coconuts and Collards is in many ways a memoir, chronicling her two homes in Puerto Rico and Georgia. Food, of course, is the medium, and besides being engrossing reading, it’s an enticing introduction to some of the hallmarks of Puerto Rican cuisine.”
Cookbook Writer Von Diaz on The Magic of Puerto Rico
Milk Street | DEC 12, 2018
“On Milk Street Radio, Brooklyn-based, Atlanta-raised Diaz dove into the stories behind her book. She recalls the food she ate in her grandmother’s kitchen and the ways her mother reinterpreted certain dishes, as well as the island's long road ahead after Hurricane Maria.”
Author Von Diaz Explores Kinship Between Southern, Puerto Rican Food
The Atlanta Journal Constitution | aug 1, 2018
“Diaz decided to cook her way through a copy of her grandmother’s favorite cookbook, “Cocina Criolla.” That volume, by Carmen Aboy Valldejuli, is the kind of kitchen staple a new Puerto Rican bride might have gotten as a wedding gift in the latter half of the 20th century. Diaz documented the whole endeavor in You Tube videos and a video blog four years ago. It also was an homage to her grandmother, whose ability to prepare the kind of foods that so comforted two generations of their family was erased by Alzheimer’s.”
The Boston Globe | July 23, 2018
“Von Diaz introduces her new book, “Coconuts and Collards: Recipes and Stories From Puerto Rico to the Deep South,” with a simple confession: She’s a terrible salsa dancer, is prone to saying “y’all,” and is Puerto Rican.”
'Coconuts & Collard Greens' from Puerto Rico to the South
WNYC | June 29, 2018
"Von Diaz discusses her new book, Coconuts and Collards: Recipes and Stories from Puerto Rico to the Deep South. When her family moved from Puerto Rico to Atlanta, Diaz traded not only locations, her diet also changed. Brimming with humor and nostalgia, this recipe-packed memoir takes a close look at what it means to grow up Latina in the Deep South."
Author Von Diaz Shows Us The Healing Power of Cookbooks
tostada Magazine | June 21, 2018
“All too often the recipes inspired by traditions that span the globe and that fill the dining sections of newspapers and magazines everywhere are reinterpreted by white authors and are typically void of cultural context. In contrast, Diaz is a Puerto Rican-born writer and radio producer who grew up in Atlanta who is able to document in intimate detail more than 50 recipes that intersect her upbringing on the island and the American South. It’s a level detail that simply cannot be replicated by a white author spending a few weeks or months on the island “taking in the culture.”
A Delicately Sweet and Floral Coconut Pudding for the Summer
The New York Times | June 20, 2018
"You can split a hairy, brown coconut in two with a machete, if you’ve got one lying around. The force of a well-aimed throw against concrete will sometimes do the trick. At close range, you can clobber away at it using the blunt side of a cleaver and plenty of muscle, and it will, eventually, fracture all the way around the middle so that you can get to the sweet-smelling water inside and the firm, fatty meat. On a recent Friday morning in her kitchen in Brooklyn, Von Diaz was going to use an electric drill to break in, but when she realized its battery was dead, she improvised."
Go Deeper: What to Read, Watch, and Follow Before Visiting San Juan
New York Magazine | June 8, 2018
"Part cookbook, part memoir, this recent release shares recipes from author Von Diaz’s heritage, as well as memories of growing up in Puerto Rico and the American South."
Adobo Seasoning and the Art of Puerto Rican Dry Marinade
TASTE Magazine | June 4, 2018
"The recent release Coconuts & Collards, by Von Diaz, puts three varieties—chicken and seafood, pork, and beef—right after the sofrito, the island’s foundational cooking sauce."
Eat Your Words | EPISODE 342: COCONUTS & COLLARDS
Heritage Radio Network | June 3, 2018
"This week, Cathy sits down with Von Diaz, a radio producer and the author of Coconuts & Collards. Guided by generations of female survivors, Von breathes new life into the cuisine of Puerto Rico and the American South in her recipes, and shares their stories in this highly narrative book. Listen to their discussion on why food is the perfect focal point for storytelling, and the importance of diversity in today’s food media."
It's Puerto Rican Because I Made It
Bon Appétit - Healthyish | April 23, 2018
"On the surface, Coconuts & Collards by Von Diaz is a cookbook slash memoir about a family’s journey from Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico to Atlanta and the blending of Puerto Rican and Southern dishes in Diaz’s kitchen. There are recipes for adobo, sofrito, sazón, and the flavorful caldos (stocks) that are the building blocks of Puerto Rican food. But, beyond the surface, Coconuts & Collards is about the complex blend of history and agriculture that have shaped the island’s food and how Diaz found a way to blend two distinct cultures in a way that felt true to her own life."
Puerto Rican Cooking And The American South Mix In 'Coconuts And Collards'
NPR Weekend Edition | March 18, 2018
"When Von Diaz was growing up, her mother sent her away from her home outside Atlanta to spend summers in Puerto Rico. Diaz was born on the island in Rio Piedras, but she found the trips back disorienting. She didn't speak Spanish well. She lay awake at night, pestered by mosquitoes and wilting heat. In her grandmother's kitchen, she found relief in grilled cheese loaded with ground beef picadillo, aromatic olive oil infused with garlic and oregano, and fried cinnamon donuts."
Epicurious | March 27, 2018
"Let's turn the idea of authenticity on its head. That's the provocative idea Von Diaz introduces at the beginning of her new book, Coconuts and Collards: Recipes and Stories from Puerto Rico to the Deep South. "People are very interested in eating authentic food from the places that they're not from," Diaz told me over the phone recently. "But authenticity, when it comes to a culture, a community, an island like Puerto Rico, is really complicated to drill down.”
Spring 2018 Cookbook Preview: The 37 New Cookbooks to Buy This Spring
Epicurious | March 21, 2018
"The first book from writer Von Diaz is part memoir, part cookbook, part photographic tribute to the landscape of Puerto Rico. Diaz moved from Puerto Rico to Atlanta, Georgia as a small child. The book chronicles the food of her two homes: Puerto Rico and the mainland American South. The recipes aren't strictly Puerto Rican and they aren't strictly Southern—they're Diaz's own, based on her personal food history and her love of both cuisines."
Every Spring 2018 Cookbook That Matters
Eater | March 21, 2018
"Diaz may not be a trained chef or have a direct connection to a restaurant, but she has the voice to bring Puerto Rican cookery, as it exists today, into a broader consciousness. Recipes — especially her PR antipasto, fried plantain soup, and sofrito Bloody Mary — read like modern American Puerto Rican cookery. Like soul food, it’s a cuisine that is about making something nourishing and nurturing out of almost nothing."
Garden & Gun | March 15, 2018
"It’s too simple to call Diaz’s dishes fusion food. What emerges through these recipes is something greater than the sum of its two cooking cultures—the mainland South and the United States’ island South. “The goal was to interpret the flavors and dishes that I love from my childhood and adapt them to a style of cooking that looks more like how we cook on a day to day basis,” she says."
The Best New Cookbooks for Spring 2018
Tasting Table | March 14, 2018
"In a hypothetical venn diagram of Puerto Rican and American South cuisines, Diaz fills the overlap with adobo-marinated fried chicken and coconut milk grits. The book is at once a memoir, an ode to the inspiring women in her family and a resource for highly original recipes."
Former Atlantan meditates on cuisines of her two homes: Puerto Rico and the American South
The Atlanta Journal Constitution | March 1, 2018
"Diaz doesn’t candy-coat the rougher contours of her dichotomous experience, the bumps and bruises, the sorrow and pain, the yearning. “Coconuts & Collards” is a clear-eyed, achingly tender confession of how food can hurt, and how it can heal.
Von Diaz Cooks Her Way Through Puerto Rican Cooking Classic 'Cocina Criolla'
Newsweek | May 15, 2014
“Diaz, 32, a Puerto Rican journalist who grew up in Atlanta, is obsessed with her native cuisine. Much like the story Julie Powell wrote about cooking her way through Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Diaz is working her way through a Puerto Rican classic. Cocina Criolla, by Carmen Valldejuli, a kind of Puerto Rican Joy of Cooking, is a thick cookbook that, according to Diaz, "every Puerto Rican owns."