First of all, what I’m going to discuss here is going to sound somewhat hypocritical. And that’s because as of January 1, I’ve been trying to *mostly* eat clean–which means a very healthy diet that is low in sugar, refined carbs and fat. Kind of like South Beach or the new Weight Watchers but without sugar substitutes or counting, respectively. One of the things this diet entails is eating whole grains, including bread that is all natural with whole wheat or rye or other grains front and center. Trader Joe’s has excellent bread like this that has little or no preservatives either.

Anyway, let’s face it. If you grew up eating white bread like most of us baby boomers did, you sometimes just have to have white bread. In addition, our 3-year-old son is not keen on whole wheat bread and we like to make sure he eats some bread. I know this is the wrong message to send him at a young impressionable age, but still. Anyway, recently I went out in search of Wonder bread to buy our son for his sandwiches, and what I found were rows and rows of all whole wheat, fiber-added, whole grain white, or otherwise brownish-tinted white bread. Sorry, that ain’t white bread.

The one I wound up getting was Wonder “Smart White,” which is made with regular wheat flour and has wheat gluten and cottonseed fiber added to give it an obscene 5 grams of fiber per two slices. At this point, why wouldn’t you just go for the real thing? But I digress.

I wasn’t compelled to write about this until my wife brought home Thomas’ English muffins over the weekend. These, by the way, are also not available in classic white versions anymore. Oh, they’re white, but the ones she bought were called “Triple Health,” meaning they are 100 calories, high in fiber and low in sodium. Blech. These have farina and wheat gluten and oat cellulose added. Sounds yummy, doesn’t it? Well, I tried one of these yesterday and it toasted up unusually crispy with little flavor and almost no real substance. It was like eating a large, aerated cracker. Triple Health to me is not this English muffin. Blech.

I should add, however, that she also bought a loaf of Village Hearth Italian bread, and voila–this is real white bread as I remember it!

The moral of this story? If you have a hankering for real white bread and you have to spend an hour in the bread aisle trying to find what you need, just look for the I-word–Italian. My brother-in-law, who likens whole wheat bread to sawdust, and I, have this conversation regularly about white bread and why it just tastes good. Many whole wheat breads do as well, but sometimes white bread makes more sense to the sandwich you are making, or to your own nostalgic palate at any given time.

The last few days, I’ve been under the weather with a nasty cold, and when I am, I typically have a hard time sticking to a healthy eating plan (contrary to what I should be doing to get better!). So today I had a peanut butter sandwich with that Italian bread and it was awesome. And now, I can go back to my whole wheat ways for a while, until that white bread hankering hits me again. How about you?

I know you’ve been waiting all day for this, haven’t you? Here are my five desert island foods, and please put yours in the comments section below so we can keep this going…oh, and please spread the word to your friends and on your Facebook pages….

1. Pizza–there is no single food item that satisfies like pizza, and it has or could have all of the four food groups.

2. Buffalo wings–I can’t survive without the occasional taste of Buffalo wing sauce, so why not have it in the format it was meant to be on–chicken wings

3. Pineapple–hear me out. You’re on a desert island like Gilligan anyway, but also, you need fiber and you need some good vitamins. And have you ever had a bad-tasting pineapple. I know I haven’t, ever. So bring it on.

4. Meatballs or meatball sandwiches–Aside from the chicken wings, we need protein, and meatballs are the perfect protein. If we can have them in sauce, all the better. If we can have them in sauce and on bread, better still. Man, I’m getting hungry.

5. Chocolate chip cookies–really, is there a better dessert or sweet snack food than good chocolate chip cookies? I don’t think so.

So let’s go…I want to hear your choices…….

Our buddy Jeff Giles at Popdose.com runs the “Desert Island Discs” feature where musical artists list their top 5 albums that they wouldn’t mind being stranded on a desert island with.

And that got me to thinking……listing our top 5 desert island dinner items might be kind of cool and interesting. But it would be more fun to list mine and then have you all comment on them with your own choices. I’ll do my first post tomorrow on this, so get to thinking about it….

Happy Holidays everyone. That means for the next ten days (and for the past 20 for that matter), it’s time to indulge a bit, and to not feel guilty about what you eat or drink. Within reason of course, but still. Yesterday I think I exemplified that more than anything. I went to Brennan’s Market (the best cheese in Wisconsin, at least from what I’ve found so far), to buy some cheese for Christmas Eve and an amazing looking beef tenderloin for Christmas day. But before that, I stopped at Old Navy and bought two pairs of pants that are a size up from what I normally buy. I’m tired of squeezing into a 33 when my waist is more like a 34. Hey, it happens when you get older and all the dieting and working out make it hard to maintain those lower waist sizes, for anyone.

I’m going to work on that in 2011, but while it’s still 2010, I want to enjoy my food. I want to eat lots of cheese and sausage, drink beer and wine and Bailey’s, eat cookies and chocolate covered nuts, and drink hot chocolate and coffee spiked with Bailey’s (is there a trend here?).

My family back in New York follows the tradition of my brother-in-law’s family–seven fish on Christmas Eve. This year, we’re starting a tradition of seven cheeses on our first Wisconsin Christmas Eve–12 year cheddar, 5 year cheddar, peppadew havarti, gouda, butterkase (just tasted this yesterday, it’s amazing), bacon cheese, and asiago. Oh wait, we also have beer spiked cheddar spread, but that’s a bonus.

I’m also cooking a beef tenderloin for the first time. The butcher told me there were two kinds–the less expensive kind you eat with a knife and fork, and the more expensive kind you eat with a spoon. Guess which one I bought? I mean, it’s Christmas, so break out the spoons!

And hey, make sure you indulge a bit this holiday season. The holidays are about family, friends, good food and drink and enjoying the season. So with that, I raise a proverbial glass and wish you the best, and wish you happy holidays from Mikey’s Kitchen!

Now this is one of those ideas that will make you smack your own forehead, and tell yourself you should have come up with the idea –make your own cereal based on various lists of ingredients. That’s the premise of me & goji, the brainchild of two friends named Alexander and Adam, who enjoy healthy food that tastes good–but also with an eye toward the fact that different people like different types of cereal ingredients.

So you go to www.meandgoji.com, and you choose a base such as flakes, or hoops or granola; and add things like dried fruits and nuts. I ordered the oat rings with dried cherries, granola clusters and almonds. And there are several things I like about me & goji. First, the oat rings are solid and sturdy and stand up to milk for several minutes. You know they are made from whole grains, yet they taste really good. The cherries are tart but not too tart, and the clusters and almonds add a nice counterpunch. The only drawback is that I would like to have more of the secondary ingredients. I’m guessing it’s about 70% oat rings, and 10% of each of the others.

It also comes in a cool capsule that you can stick easily in a gym bag and have a good snack after working out. You also get to name it whatever you want, so mine was “Mikey’s Mix.”

You also pay per ingredient, so you have some control over that. And me & goji might cost you more than a traditional box of healthy cereal, but the fact that you can custom design it and tote it easily anywhere makes it worth that. It’s also a cool thing to order for holiday gifts and/or stocking stuffers. In fact, I’m going to order some today for that very reason.

So check out me & goji, but don’t beat yourself up for not thinking of the idea first.