The dirt on Heloise: the queen of household hints helps her own health with a meatless diet - Ponce Kiah Marchelle Heloise Cruse - Interview

Everyone has heard of Heloise, the helpful-hints maven who knows more about keeping house and home than the Brady Bunch's Alice and Martha Stewart combined. But few people know much else about her - outside of San Antonio, that is, where she tools around town in a shiny black car with "HINTS" on the license plate.

Heloise is short for Ponce Kiah Marchelle Heloise Cruse, who took on her mother's name and legacy 19 years ago. Vegetarian Times caught up with her for a behind-the-scenes look at the real Heloise.

Dear Heloise: Newspaper readers everywhere think you're the happy homemaker who knows 38 ways to use nylon net, whisk water stains from velvet and dust the draperies. True?

Dear Reader: It is amazing what you learn from this job. But I also head a business with seven employees, eight books, a radio show, a Compuserve forum, and the hints column - which appears in 500 newspapers in 20 countries.

Dear Heloise: What other misconceptions are there about you?

Dear Reader: People think I'm my mother. They see my 45-year-old face and ask, "You've been doing this for how long?" (My mother started it in 1959.) And it's far more than housework; we cover consumer credit, safety, men's issues...

Dear Heloise: Is it hard to be an icon of Middle Amierica?

Dear Reader: No, it's flattering! People stop me in airports and say, "You know, that idea for reusing baby-food jars, that really helped." Not Earth-shattering, maybe, but making life a little better -that's what the real world is all about.

Dear Heloise: Do you spend a lot of time in airports?

Dear Rearder: I'm constantly off to speak, to meet editors, to do research. I even spoke once to a convention of cattlemen's wives. They were worried when they heard I'm vegetarian, but we worked it out, and they even gave me a cookbook.

Dear Heloise: So - what did you do with it?

Dear Reader: It's around here somewhere. Everyone gives me cookbooks. I've got hundreds.

Dear Heloise: What's your favorite meal?

Dear Rearder: Tex-Mex. Cheese enchilada, black beans, Spanish rice. Corn tortillas with lettuce, tomato and extra heavy on the pico de gallo.

Dear Heloise: Sounds like it's easy to be veg in Texas.

Dear Reader: It's easier everywhere, now. Ten or 12 years back, ugh. You'd order two appetizers and a salad and the waiter would go, "Huh?"

Dear Heloise: You don't make a big deal about it.

Dear Reader: Nah. People panic when they hear you're vegetarian - they think they have to take you to a special restaurant. But I do fine even at barbecues. There's always baked beans, cole slaw, wonderful breads.

Dear Heloise: So how did a fourth-generation Texan turn her back on the beef?

Dear Reader: In 1973, my father and I were on a tour of the Soviet bloc, and the entrees were like mystery meat. No greens, either. "It's a good thing you like cucumbers, "my father said; that's about all I ate for three weeks. When we got home, I couldn't stand to look at meat.

Dear Heloise: What's the strangest question you've ever gotten?

Dear Reader: Someone once asked how to find a Japanese game called Yute. Another person needed the verse from the Statue of Liberty. one woman wrote to ask where she could get a bobbin for a 1939 Singer sewing machine. I actually inherited this machine, and I probably have the bobbin she wants. But I'm not giving it up!

Dear Heloise: Are there any drawbacks to being the helpful hint-meister?

Dear Reader: Yeah - there's only one me. Like anyone, some days I'd rather just be irresponsible, but then I remember that I really love my job. It's fun. And it sure beats saying, "You want fries with that?"

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