I've got one for personal use and it'sextremelyuseful, I'd say it's generally used for something everyday. From making homemade lemonade, steaming veg, making soup, risoto and that's just the start.I suggest you look athttp://www.forumthermomix.com/and alsohttp://www.ukthermomix.com/recindex.phpto get some idea of what it can do.
It does make egg and other sauces adoddleto make as it can heat and stir to an appropriate temperature, temp control is only in 10C steps with the exception of 37C (I believe for chocolate, and you can temper with it) it's not that accurate but enough for 99% of things.
Where it really comes into it's own is that the the blade can go from stir up to 10,000rpm and it can grind (and toast) spices and reduce most items to powder. Great if used to turn frozen fruit into sorbets and it can alsohomogenise ingredientsbrilliantly. E.g. Thermomix cream take milk and butter and at high rpms homogeniseback into cream. Or do the reverse and churn cream to get butter.
Working with modernist ingredients it's very useful as when adding hydrocolides or gums to liquids you can mix as you add alsothe ability to heat is an advantage (making fluid gells for example). Since it's at good at homogenising usingemulsifiers makes this even more effective. E.g. I madetruffle oil ice cream where the cream was made from truffle oil and stock.
If making something like a lobster bisque it can grind those shells and turn it to soup (If I want it perfect, I still strain through muslin to remove any hint of grityness).
I could go on, at home if you learn and can adapt to using, it's invaluable and saves so much time.In aprofessionalkitchen you spot them more and more these days. While there are individual tools that are better for a single function, the thermomix is one that brings them all together in one package that's brilliantly designed and easy to use.
It's also very sturdy, I've only had one problem and that was after four years when I had to replace the blade (£75) as the seals failed.Possiblydue to my dryexperimentsor someone put it in the dishwasher by mistake.
If possible I'd suggest you get a demo sorted, it's a brilliant way to see what it capable of.
In MC they show a TM21 the TM31 is even better
