FOOD AND WHINE: Confessions of a New Millennium Mom

by Jennifer Moses

No one knows family life like Jennifer Moses -- its hilarious chaos, its everyday dramas, the bone-weariness and the pure joy every mother feels. Speaking to the generation Erma Bombeck left behind, this mother of three and widely published journalist addresses today's parents with a down-home, perfectly targeted humor that strips aside pretense and reveals the poignant, comic truth about motherhood. And what is that truth? Something like breakfast, Power Rangers, snack, tantrum, lunch, remote-controlled robot attack, second snack, snotty nose, supper, multivehicle trike collision, more snack, bath-time, story-time, pure exhaustion, bed. Toss in new twins, a husband in the midst of a career change, a mother struggling with cancer, an extended family of quirky characters, and her own incessant -- and laugh-out-loud -- conflicts, and you have a year in the life of Jennifer mother, wife, daughter, and marvelous observer of women's lives. Illuminating motherhood with her wit and taking no prisoners in the process, Moses captures the comic underbelly of family life today, rife with Volvos, action figures, and microwave cuisine -- in a story as much about survival as it is, finally, about love. The trials, tribulations, and triumphs of one woman's experience of home -- a place where diapers smell, husbands are domestically impaired, and dinner is fine straight from the freezer -- are described with sidesplitting honesty. As one of Moses's devoted readers once told her, "You say out loud what I secretly think." But Food and Whine isn't just the humorous account of one mother and her kids. This is a story of families extending over generations, of how life in its simple and sometimes painful beauty goes on, and how, over the course of a year, a family can find its own peace. Behind her irrepressible wit, Moses, like all mothers, has watched her life fall into her own direction uncertain, her marital relationship transformed into a child-care collective, the tables turned as her own parents age and fall ill. These powerful moments are handled with the blunt high humor of a clear-eyed witness who backs away from neither the terrors nor the wonders of motherhood. With marvelous insight, a sharp wit, and ready warmth, Jennifer Moses leads us through the valley of the shadow of family life and helps us find hilarious redemption on the back stoop.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published May 11, 1999

Reviews

[Sonia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moses writes this memoir about an eventful year of her life -- the year in which she had twin babies, her mother first got sick with cancer, and she had to move from D.C. to Baton Rouge because of her husbands work. She writes comically and honestly about struggling to keep everything together when caring for her three young kids, husband and mother. It was a funny and enjoyable read. I loved her mom’s advice about cooking being a good pick-me-up. When life feels negative, I too am amazed at how much cooking lifts my spirits.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like Erma Bombeck (Jennifer Moss is touted as having a style like hers), I like essays, I like food. Should be a winning combo, right? Wrong.

The kvetching and references to psychoanalysis were just a little over the top for me. The recipes, while funny for the first one or two, grow thin after eight or nine. For instance:
Place chicken in pan, breast side up. Push hair back behind ears. Discover that hair is coated with disgusting white liquid slime. Serve with rice and salad, if you happen to have rice and salad. When husband looks at you funny, burst into tears.

True, she's coping with three little ones (twins and a boy two years older), her mothers cancer and being uprooted from DC to Louisiana, but for God's sake, woman! Get a grip rather than a gripe!

[Anita Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't get even halfway through it. Dear Ms. Moses- Please learn the difference between the words "psychic" and "psychiatric." I very much doubt you caused your children psychic distress or has a psychic breakdown.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read for mommies and foodies alike...

[Lea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another favorite book of my, very funny to read.

[Reena]

Funny at times, a little too much information at others. Entertaining.