Esther McCarthy: Is the Thermomix worth the money? Not if you only use it four times

Esther McCarthy. Picture: Emily Quinn

The world is divided into two types of people; the kind that can walk past a display advertising a Hydrocleaner Telescopic Brush, and the ones whose pulse quickens, their pupils dilate, and the cash spontaneously vomits out of their wallet.

I’m in the second camp. I’m a slave to a smart advertising tag. “Hydroclean your solar panels safely,” coos the brush. I slap my credit card on the desk. I don’t even have solar panels.

“Long enough reach to clean second-story windows with the extended pole,” it boasts.

I’ve never even cleaned a reachable piece of glass! And any pole I’ve come across has been on a hen night and quite frankly, what followed was the very opposite of clean. 

But a vision of me in a 1950s gingham dress, soft curls held back in a fetching matching hairband, an ankle cocked prettily as I make the box room glass glisten, invades my thoughts.

I have squandered many a hard-earned ( debatable - Ed) euro on questionable accoutrements that I have convinced myself I need.

Rechargeable miniature chainsaw with Lithium-Ion battery? Yes please. 

Magic milk frother? Sign me up. Snazzy stitch machine? Hell, yeah! 

I am the proud owner of every contraption imaginable to conquer the humble egg. 

The exasperated husband wades through them daily, looking for a basic pot.

Two months ago, a friend mentions she’s put a stew on before she came out. She’s one of the gang I go swimming with (it’s sea swimming, actually, it's no big deal, obviously, we're just all really trendy, I don't even like to mention it, but it came up, like organically here, you know? I happen to enjoy humiliating my nipples and wearing disproportionately large coats on a weekly basis. If you think that makes me a hero, that’s your business.)

“I made it in the Thermomix,” she says, casually. The what now? I have to know more. 

I start to surreptitiously find other users — or Thermovixen, as I like to call them. Those in possession of this appliance are evangelical about it.

They bandy around phrases such as ‘gamechanger’, ‘the teen simply won’t stop making health bread’, and ‘Nigella’s only trotting after me’. 

But, I do my due diligence and send one text to one foodie I trust. “Raved about, but spendy. You don’t need it” comes the reply. 

Well. There is nothing else for it. It must be mine.

But you can’t just slope off to a shop and buy one. You must be initiated to connect with an agent. How thrilling! 

She comes to our house for three hours and makes a chicken curry, a pesto, and power balls, while I force the family to nod and smile.

“You can even make cocktails in it,” she purrs, driving home the deal. “Like what?” asks husband, through a mouthful of peanut butter and protein powder.

“A hot whiskey.”

“But I made one last night with a kettle and a glass,” he says, bewildered, before I nudge him in his powerballs.

The agent tells us The Thermomix is the world’s most powerful blender — but it also kneads, mixes, cooks, weighs, steams, assures you that you don’t look fat in those jeans. 

It comes with thousands of recipes, and instructs you, step by step, through any meal. 

“You cook without thinking about cooking — it does it all,” marvels the agent. “It even does …THIS” 

She cocks an eyebrow as she selects self-clean mode. Reader, the machine wasn’t the only thing turned on that night

I imagine my family ladling out magic mixer meals that we each take turns making, following a democratic weekly schedule. Our tinkling laughter drifts just loud enough to confirm our incredible parenting skills to the neighbours, as we recount witty tales from our day, the dog in the corner daintily eating his homemade nosh, with a bowtie on his flea-free neck.

“How much?” says husband pulling me out of my reverie, as we close the door on my messiah.

“Murmurmur,” says I. “We’re getting it.”

“I’ll bet you €20 you won’t be using it in two months’ time.”

Making a bet is his last resort when he’s trying to stop me doing something idiotic. He must be desperate.

“It’s a deal, sucker,” says I, downloading the app and alerting the bank of some upcoming unusual activity.

In the first week, I make two lemon drizzle cakes and that stew the swimmer told me about, but I didn’t have Guinness so I swapped it for cider and I may have missed a couple of steps, and I was out of bay leaves, but the dog ate it, bowtieless and scratching his scruff. 

Oh, and a hollandaise sauce that tasted fabulous but ended up separating immediately so we only used a tenth of it, which was a shameful waste of two weeks’ worth of butter.

Four recipes and eight weeks later, it hulks on the counter, taunting me.

“Ha!” says husband, “I think you owe me 20 quid.”

Joke’s on him. Since the blasted contraption cost €1,499, those lemon drizzle cakes worked out at €374.75 a pop. I’m (we're) flat broke. Thankfully, foraging is de rigueur and there must be a recipe for nettle soup a la garden escargot, with a dusting of... err, dust.

On the upside, I just spotted an ad for a robot vacuum that could genuinely change my life.