“It may sound strange,” says Alexa Hennig von Lange, “but this book spoke to me and changed everything.” As she says this, her fingertips are already dark yellow. She colored the turmeric, which she cut up into small pieces with some ginger, a shallot and a tomato in the blender. This is the sauce for the rice noodles, the tofu and vegetables, the lunch of the day. The writer is standing in her kitchen, a large room in a former mustard factory in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, with a long dining table and sofa corner, tiny shrimp swimming in an aquarium across from the fridge. The 49-year-old lives here with her husband and four of their five children. The eldest daughter has already moved out.
A book that speaks to you? Where’s something like that? “In the health food store,” says the 49-year-old. Two years ago, the guide on intermittent fasting caught her eye as she passed by, and for whatever reason: she took it with her. Shortly thereafter, she changed her eating habits. There is nothing to eat in the evening, and Hennig von Lange is now vegan. But there is more: Ever since the book spoke to her, eating has become something beautiful and joyful again.
The subject of nutrition no longer restricts her
It wasn’t like that for many years, basically most of her life. As a teenager, Hennig von Lange first gained a lot of weight, then lost a lot and became anorexic. Although she can overcome the disease, the experience sticks that wrong nutrition makes you fat. “I have to be careful – I kept telling myself this story,” she says, “and it bored me terribly.” For decades, she’s the one who only eats small portions while the rest of the table fills their stomachs. Today she puts as much on her plate as her children. “Mom is eating pasta now, sometimes they still can’t believe it.” The topic of nutrition no longer restricts her, she has much more energy today, “two weeks after I bought the book, the fear of eating was finally gone”.
Tofu with mushrooms and beans in a turmeric-ginger sauce, served with rice noodles.
(Photo: Julia Rothhaas)
The woman with the red curly hair is now peeling the mushrooms and adding them to the beans in the pot, which are already simmering in the bright yellow sauce. Watching her cook, Hennig von Lange exudes great calm. At no time does she rush from the fridge to the worktop, nothing falls on the floor, she carefully cuts the tofu into cubes, each of which is exactly the same size. “I learned that from my mother,” she says. She came every lunchtime from the architecture office that she ran with her husband and cooked for the three children. “I loved standing next to her at the stove, talking about school, learning how to do things and being in the peace of my mother. Coupled with the hope that it would be faster if I could help.” From her she knows how to cut something, how to move around in a kitchen. “I internalized the choreography of cooking at the time.”
Her grandmother was a home economics teacher. Although Alexa Hennig von Lange never cooked with her, the author was inspired to write her latest novel by her life story, which her grandmother spoke on more than 130 cassettes when she was old. “The Checkered Girls”, the start of a trilogy. In it she tells the story of a young woman who works as a teacher in a children’s home in 1929 and realizes late who has actually taken over the power in the country. Food also plays a role in this: what can you say about yourself with a dish, how much do you have something under control with it, but also, after all, the book is set at the time of the global economic crisis: how do you feed people?
“Kids and vegan, I’m careful.”
Alexa Hennig von Lange has been writing since she was eight. Her debut novel “Relax” in 1997 made her one of the most successful authors of her generation, alongside Christian Kracht and Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre. Food comes up as a theme in many of her books, so it’s only natural that for her, cooking is part of her writing. “I always write until the flow of energy in me runs dry, then I go to the kitchen,” she says. In this manual work, she finds peace and new strength. “When I sit down again after cooking, I always know how to continue in the book.”
Alexa Hennig von Lange cooks for six people several times a day, and the eldest daughter often joins them. The writer then prepares vegan dishes for herself, her eldest daughter and her husband, the journalist Marcus Jauer, and the children get meat and fish in addition to lots of vegetables. “Children and veganism, I’m rather cautious there. I don’t think it’s that radical.” Even if her eight-year-old makes tiny cakes, croissants, burgers and popsicles out of modeling clay: there is not much nagging at home. All children like to eat fruit and raw vegetables. Only when it comes to the carrots do the two little ones disagree. While the six-year-old likes cooked carrots, the eight-year-old only wants raw ones. If in doubt, there is a consolation bread after the meal, completely new is not cooked. Recently, Hennig von Lange tried to smuggle spinach into brownies, “but my kids noticed it straight away.”
The eight-year-old daughter loves to do handicrafts, for example tiny food. One of the two burgers made from play dough is said to be vegetarian.
(Photo: Julia Rothhaas)
Now it’s the turn of the tofu, “I find it tricky to fry because it tastes best when all the cubes are crispy on all sides. But that’s not that easy,” says Hennig von Lange. Works wonderfully that day, she wiped the pan with coconut oil beforehand. She now adds the tofu cubes and the cooked rice noodles to the vegetables in the sauce, sprinkles a few cashew nuts on top and the vegan lunch is ready, which will fill you up for many hours. “For me, it’s not just the result that’s important, but also what’s in the food,” she says happily, inviting people out onto the terrace.
Vegan cuisine has opened up a new world for her
For two years she has also been working intensively on the effect that individual foods have on the body. “Turmeric is very anti-inflammatory, but you have to add pepper to it, it works great.” The tomatoes are good for the arteries thanks to folic acid and iron, hemp seeds are added to the morning porridge as a second source of protein, and the bananas are allowed to get really dark in their kitchen. “The darker, the better for the cells,” she says, laughing out loud. She often does this when she talks about antioxidants, fats and minerals. “When I’m shopping, I always think about which food has what effect on the human body. Almost like a dentist. He also immediately looks at the teeth of the people he’s talking to at a party.”
She actually prefers to eat at home, but when she’s invited and there’s meat, she sometimes has a small piece of it put on her plate. And yet the vegan kitchen Alexa Hennig from Lange has opened up a new world; She was really surprised at how exciting and varied this type of cooking is. “When I consciously made a curry for the first time, I was completely amazed at what was in it. So much love! It’s not just about something tasting like curry. But that what tastes like curry is full of healing substances is.” A new world has also opened up when shopping. Today she puts completely different ingredients in the shopping trolley than two years ago: silken tofu and raw cocoa, sweet potatoes and soy-based quark. “I’m the woman who buys turmeric roots now!”
No passion without accessories. Alexa Hennig von Lange needs these items for vegan cooking:
Not without my blender! In it, Alexa Hennig from Lange prepares avocado dips, for example.
(Photo: Julia Rothhaas)
The Blender
“The blender is very useful in the kitchen: I use it to chop up naked oats for porridge or to prepare various sweet potato or avocado pastes that can be spread on bread. My husband bought it so we can make milkshakes for the kids. That’s it Happened exactly three times, after which it sat in the closet for years.”
Helps chop large quantities of vegetables: the Kitchen Aid.
(Photo: Julia Rothhaas)
The food processor
“I also use this machine very often, for vegetable soups or curries. Overall, we’ve stocked up on food processors quite a bit over the past few years: We now have a yoghurt machine and a tofu press so that it can hold spices better. We had even a machine that can be used to make plant-based milk. But we sent it back. It works better with a simple sieve.”
The book
Explains intermittent fasting and gives an impression of what vegan cuisine is all about: This guide helped Hennig von Lange to change her eating habits.
(Photo: Julia Rothhaas)
“When I walked past this book in the organic market, it said to me: Take me with you! I opened it at home and was immediately enthusiastic. It’s pretty tattered now, but I already know many of the recipes by heart.”