Anja Janotta's "My Checklist to Fall in Love" was awarded the Delia Youth Literature Prize for the best romance novel. And in her latest work "Spice tour Africa - reinterpreting traditional cuisine" the 49-year-old takes her readers as a co-author to where the pepper grows.
Weßling - "What a Valentine's gift", the youth author wrote on her Facebook page in mid-February about the nomination for the youth literature prize. Given other competing “great works,” she said at the time that there was nothing more in it, she recalls. A few days ago, the unexpected news came: your youth novel won the prestigious prize, endowed with 1,500 euros.
The jury of experts thus decided this year on a story whose main characters are on the margins of society. On the one hand, the first-person narrator Naomi, the wallflower that “remains”. When it comes to friendships, it is just enough for the rest of us: "The silent, the defiant, the strange." Adrian with the diagnosed Asperger syndrome, which the author translates into "a human intolerance, a kind of social allergy".
Cheerful, yet profound, the graduate journalist Naomi and Adrian is involved in a liaison - and convinced the jurors with a "captivating love story between two people who are extraordinary and in which the reader can easily find themselves". The book also shows impressively "how much love we can gain in our lives if we only dare to get to know people better, even if we don't understand them at first".
The award-winning work was created at the kitchen table
The award-winning work was created - just like the six predecessors - on the kitchen table at home. The Wesslinger works there and wrote a spice book to match the ambience. Her muse was Angela Rolshausen, who successfully runs spice shops in Hechendorf and Munich. Angela Schult, a cookbook author, was at her side to help her write, who “cooked, partially reinterpreted and photographed” all the recipes in the book.
And Janotta did what she does best: she wrote stories. Stories about the curriculum vitae of coriander, anise, sesame, fenugreek or fennel. Flavors that she has been familiar with in Algeria since childhood. Among other things, she followed the routes of the allspice that Christopher Columbus introduced in Europe. Or saffron, a crocus plant that has to be picked by hand "with a lot of sensitivity".
Recipes accompany the spice biographies. The Harissa spice mixture, for example, becomes something special in vegetable couscous, while chilli in turn fuels the Jollof rice from Ghana. "Meat or fish is in almost every recipe," says the mother of two. This is because growing vegetables in Africa is more difficult and expensive than keeping slaughtered animals or fishing. By the way, the Janotta family has long had a taste for it - and of course the African-flavored menus were created at the kitchen table.
Michèle Kirner
Sources of supply
“My checklist to fall in love with” was published by magellan-Verlag and costs 15 euros. "Spice trip Africa - traditional cuisine reinterpreted" was published by "Spices of the World" and costs 24.90 euros.
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