ThermomixBlogger Helene
Helene Meurer is a Canadian Bimby enthusiast and the originator of superkitchenmachine.com. She is also quite possibly Thermomix’s most “Frugal Fan”.
With a background that included gourmandise and Library Arts, Helene helped manage the first years of North America’s first cookbook-only bookstore, “Books for Cooks” in Toronto, which later became The Cookbook Store.
In 1986 she accepted the position of book reviewer for alive, Canada’s Natural Health magazine, a column she writes to this day.
Helene’s interest in food began at birth, and her interest in cooking developed soon after. A French Canadian mother and German father provided opportunities for many fond memories involving food preparation, food appreciation, presentation and celebration.
The childhood kitchen in rural Quebec was often busy with heady aromas of fresh bread rising, maple syrup being rendered over an open fire, and tourtières baking.
On winter mornings hot German styled lentil soup was poured into tartan-red thermos bottles to be savoured hours later in the dim green light of ice-fishing huts or while perched atop snowbanks watching Carnaval festivities.
In summer a back field grew tangy strawberries, sweet baby carrots, and Brussels Sprouts . The corn and peanut crops were less successful. Jewel-like potatoes revealed themselves to the hands of lucky children rooting in soil. An old apple tree offered somewhere to climb or swing from and provided spiced pink jelly in the fall.
Helene learned to make steak tartar at her daddy’s side, and how to make Zabaglione from her grandmother. From her mother she learned the questionable art of catching and cooking frog’s legs.
about Helene’s gastronomic preferences:
“I prefer savoury to sweet and I prefer warm food rather than hot. This applies to both temperature and level of spiciness, and has more to do with what my mouth will tolerate, rather than choice. I think we can all agree that food just tastes ‘more’ when its not too hot, and I do enjoy maximizing pleasures of the palate. I thoroughly enjoy the experience of alcoholic drinks in the mouth, but not their effect on my body and mind. (I’m allergic to sulphites, so I can’t and don’t drink much alcohol.) I am neither a vegetarian, nor a carnivore. I do enjoy meats cooked in combination with fruits. I drink coffee with cream, no sugar, and I like my chocolate at about 80%.
about Helene’s culinary preferences:
“I am happiest in the kitchen. I am a cook, not a baker. I am hard-pressed to follow recipes of any kind, and prefer to make do with what is on hand, stringing together delightful moments along the way. Pleasure for me is as much, if not more so, in the creative act of cooking, as it is in the enjoyment of savouring a meal. I shop by ‘what is on special’ rather than according to menu plans. I get a thrill from making really good food happen from a miserly larder. I love to stretch the envelope so that almost nothing is left for the compost bucket and all the goodness of nature has been consumed for the purpose of physical and mental energy production. I have always been a hands-on cook with excellent knives and not much more in the way of tools. Thermomix not only changed my approach to cooking, but has enhanced it by providing more precision and more predictable outcomes. This means more time and therefore — more freedom.”
Helene Meurer is a web writer with a solid background in online marketing and the creation of SEO-friendly content since 1997. To discuss hiring Helene for your business project, please use the contact form.
